text
string |
|---|
truth is, that the stage after the Restoration reflects only too
faithfully the manners and the sentiments of the only society which at
that period could boast of anything like organisation. The press, which
now enables public opinion to exercise so powerful a control over the
manners of the times, had then scarcely an existence. No standard of
female honour restrained the license of wit and debauchery. If the clergy
were shocked at the propagation of ideas so contrary to the whole spirit
of Christianity, their natural impulse to reprove them was checked by the
fear that an apparent condemnation of the practices of the Court might end
in the triumph of their old enemies, the Puritans. All the elements of an
old and decaying form of society that tended to atheism, cynicism, and
dissolute living, exhibited themselves, therefore, in naked shamelessness
on the stage. The audiences in the theatres were equally devoid of good
manners and good taste; they did not hesitate to interrupt the actors in
the midst of a serious play, while they loudly applauded their obscene
allusions. So gross was the character of comic dialogue that women could
not venture to appear at a comedy without masks, and under these
circumstances the theatre became the natural centre for assignations. In
such an atmosphere women readily cast off all modesty and reserve; indeed,
the choicest indecencies of the times are to be found in the epilogues to
the plays, which were always assigned to the female actors.
It at first sight seems remarkable that a society inveterately corrupt
should have contained in itself such powers of purification and vitality
as to discard the literary garbage of the Restoration period in favour of
the refined sobriety which characterises the writers of Queen Anne's
reign. But, in fact, the spread of the infection was confined within
certain well-marked limits. The Court moved in a sphere apart, and was
altogether too light and frivolous to exert a decided moral influence on
the great body of the nation. The country gentlemen, busied on their
estates, came seldom to town; the citizens, the lawyers, and the members
of the other professions steadily avoided the theatre, and regarded with
equal contempt the moral and literary excesses of the courtiers. Among
this class, unrepresented at present in the world of letters, except,
perhaps, by antiquarians like Selden, the foundations of sound taste were
being silently laid. The readers of the nation had hitherto been almost
limited to the nobility. Books were generally published by subscription,
and were dependent for their success on the favour with which they were
received by the courtiers. But, after the subsidence of the Civil War, the
nation began to make rapid strides in wealth and refinement, and the
moneyed classes sought for intellectual amusement in their leisure hours.
Authors by degrees found that they might look for readers beyond the
select circle of their aristocratic patrons; and the book-seller, who had
hitherto calculated his profits merely by the commission he might obtain
on the sale of books, soon perceived that they were becoming valuable as
property. The reign of Charles II. is remarkable not only for the great
increase in the number of the licensed printers in London, but for the
appearance of the first of the race of modern publishers, Jacob Tonson.
The portion of society whose tastes the publishers undertook to satisfy
was chiefly interested in history, poetry, and criticism. It was this for
which Dryden composed his _Miscellany_, this to which he addressed the
admirable critical essays which precede his _Translations from the Latin
Poets_ and his _Versifications of Chaucer_, and this which afterwards gave
the main support to the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_. Ignorant of the
writings of the great classical authors, as well as of the usages of
polite society, these men were nevertheless robust and manly in their
ideas, and were eager to form for themselves a correct standard of taste
by reference to the best authorities. Though they turned with repugnance
from the playhouse and from the morals of the Court, they could not
avoid being insensibly affected by the tone of grace and elegance which
prevailed in Court circles. And in this respect, if in no other, our
gratitude is due to the Caroline dramatists, who may justly claim to be
the founders of the _social_ prose style in English literature. Before
them English prose had been employed, no doubt, with music and majesty by
many writers; but the style of these is scarcely representative; they had
used the language for their own elevated purposes, without, however,
attempting to give it that balanced fineness and subtlety which makes it a
fitting instrument for conveying the complex ideas of an advanced stage of
society. Dryden, Wycherley, and their followers, impelled by the taste of
the Court to study the French language, brought to English composition a
nicer standard of logic and a more choice selection of language, while the
necessity of pleasing their audiences with brilliant dialogue made them
careful to give their sentences that well-poised structure which Addison
afterwards carried to perfection in the _Spectator_.
By this brief sketch the reader may be enabled to judge of the distracted
state of society, both in politics and taste, in the reign of Charles II.
On the one side, the Monarchical element in the Constitution was
represented by the Court Party, flushed with the recent restoration;
retaining the old ideas and principles of absolutism which had prevailed
under James I., without being able to perceive their inapplicability to
the existing nature of things; feeding its imagination alternately on
sentiments derived from the decayed spirit of chivalry, and on artistic
representations of fashionable debauchery in its most open form--a party
which, while it fortunately preserved the traditions of wit, elegance, and
gaiety of style, seemed unaware that these qualities could be put to any
other use than the mitigation of an intolerable _ennui_. On the other
side, the rising power of Democracy found its representatives in austere
Republicans opposed to all institutions in Church and State that seemed to
obstruct their own abstract principles of government; gloomy fanatics,
who, with an intense intellectual appreciation of eternal principles of
religion and morality, sought to sacrifice to their system the most
permanent and even innocent instincts of human nature. Between the two
extreme parties was the unorganised body of the nation, grouped round old
customs and institutions, rapidly growing in wealth and numbers, conscious
of the rise in their midst of new social principles, but perplexed how to
reconcile these with time-honoured methods of religious, political, and
literary thought. To lay the foundations of sound opinion among the people
at large; to prove that reconciliation was possible between principles
hitherto exhibited only in mutual antagonism; to show that under the
English Constitution monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy might all be
harmonised, that humanity was not absolutely incompatible with religion or
morality with art, was the task of the statesmen, and still more of the
men of letters, of the early part of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER II.
ADDISON'S FAMILY AND EDUCATION.
Joseph Addison was born on the 1st of May, 1672. He was the eldest son of
Lancelot Addison, at the time of his birth rector of Milston, near
Amesbury, in Wiltshire, and afterwards Dean of Lichfield. His father was a
man of character and accomplishments. Educated at Oxford, while that
University was under the control of the famous Puritan Visitation, he made
no secret of his contempt for principles to which he was forced to submit,
or of his preferences for Monarchy and Episcopacy. His boldness was not
agreeable to the University authorities, and being forced to leave Oxford,
he maintained himself for a time near Petworth, in Sussex, by acting as
chaplain or tutor in families attached to the Royalist cause. After the
Restoration he obtained the appointment of chaplain to the garrison of
Dunkirk, and when that town was ceded to France in 1662, he was removed in
a similar capacity to Tangier. Here he remained eight years, but,
venturing on a visit to England, his post was bestowed upon another, and
he would have been left without resources had not one of his friends
presented him with the living of Milston, valued at £120 a year. With the
courage of his order he thereupon took a wife, Jane, daughter of Dr.
Nathaniel Gulston, and sister of William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol, by
whom he had six children, three sons and three daughters, all born at
Milston. In 1675 he was made a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral and
Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the King; and in 1683 he was promoted to the
Deanery of Lichfield, as a reward for his services at Tangier, and out of
consideration of losses which he had sustained by a fire at Milston. His
literary reputation stood high, and it is said that he would have been
made a bishop, if his old zeal for legitimacy had not prompted him to
manifest in the Convocation of 1689 his hostility to the Revolution. He
died in 1703.
Lancelot was a writer at once voluminous and lively. In the latter part of
his life he produced several treatises on theological subjects, the most
popular of which was called _An Introduction to the Sacrament_. This book
passed through many editions. The doctrine it contains leans rather to the
Low Church side. But much the most characteristic of his writings were his
works on Mahommedanism and Judaism, the results of his studies during his
residence in Barbary. These show not only considerable industry and
research and powers of shrewd observation, but that genuine literary
faculty which enables a writer to leave upon a subject of a general nature
the impression of his own character. While there is nothing forced or
exaggerated in his historical style, a vein of allegory runs through the
narrative of the _Revolutions of the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco_, which
must have had a piquant flavour for the orthodox English reader of that
day. Recollections of the Protectorate would have taken nothing of its
vividness from the portrait of the Moorish priest who "began to grow into
reputation with the people by reason of his high pretensions to piety and
fervent zeal for their law, illustrated by a stubborn rigidity of
conversation and outward sanctity of life." When the Zeriffe, with
ambitious designs on the throne, sent his sons on a pilgrimage to Mecca,
the religious buffooneries practised by the young men must have recalled
to the reader circumstances more recent and personal than those which the
author was apparently describing. "Much was the reverence and reputation
of holiness which they thereby acquired among the superstitious people,
who could hardly be kept from kissing their garments and adoring them as
saints, while they failed not in their parts, but acted as much devotion
as high contemplative looks, deep sighs, tragical gestures, and other
passionate interjections of holiness could express. 'Allah, allah!' was
their doleful note, their sustenance the people's alms." And when these
impostors had inveigled the King of Fez into a religious war, the
description of those who "mistrusted their own safety, and began, but too
late, to repent their approving of an armed hypocrisy," was not more
applicable to the rulers of Barbary than to the people of England. "Puffed
up with their successes, they forgot their obedience, and these saints
denied the king the fifth part of their spoils.... By which it appeared
that they took up arms, not out of love for their country and zeal for
their religion, but out of desire of rule." There is, indeed, nothing in
these utterances which need have prevented the writer from consistently
promoting the Revolution of 1688; yet his principles seem to have carried
him far in the opposite direction; and it is interesting to remember that
the assertor in Convocation of the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary
right was the father of the author of the _Whig Examiner_ and the
_Freeholder_. However decidedly Joseph may have dissented from his
father's political creed, we know that he entertained admiration and
respect for his memory, and that death alone prevented him from
completing the monument afterwards erected in Lancelot's honour in
Lichfield Cathedral.
Of Addison's mother nothing of importance is recorded. His second brother,
Gulston, became Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies; and the
third, Lancelot, followed in Joseph's footsteps so far as to obtain a
Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford. His sisters, Jane and Anna, died
young; but Dorothy was twice married, and Swift records in her honour that
she was "a kind of wit, and very like her brother." We may readily believe
that a writer so lively as Lancelot would have had clever children, but
Steele was perhaps carried away by the zeal of friendship or the love of
epigram when he said, in his dedication to the _Drummer_: "Mr. Dean
Addison left behind him four children, each of whom, for excellent talents
and singular perfections, was as much above the ordinary world as their
brother Joseph was above them." But that Steele had a sincere admiration
for the whole family is sufficiently shown by his using them as an example
in one of his early _Tatlers_:
"I remember among all my acquaintance but one man whom I have thought
to live with his children with equanimity and a good grace. He had
three sons and one daughter, whom he bred with all the care imaginable
in a liberal and ingenuous way. I have often heard him say he had the
weakness to love one much better than the other, but that he took as
much pains to correct that as any other criminal passion that could
arise in his mind. His method was to make it the only pretension in
his children to his favour to be kind to each other, and he would tell
them that he who was the best brother he would reckon the best son.
This turned their thoughts into an emulation for the superiority in
kind and tender affection towards each other. The boys behaved
themselves very early with a manly friendship; and their sister,
instead of the gross familiarities and impertinent freedoms in
behaviour usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as
much complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It
was an unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at a meal in that family.
I have often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy upon
occasions which would appear indifferent to such as were strangers to
the turn of his mind; but a very slight accident, wherein he saw his
children's good-will to one another, created in him the god-like
pleasure of loving them because they loved each other. This great
command of himself in hiding his first impulse to partiality at last
improved to a steady justice towards them, and that which at first was
but an expedient to correct his weakness was afterwards the measure of
his virtue."[5]
This, no doubt, is the set description of a moralist, and to an age in
which the liberty of manners has grown into something like license it may
savour of formalism and priggishness; but when we remember that the writer
was one of the most warm-hearted of men, and that the subject of his
panegyric was himself, full of vivacity and impulse, it must be admitted
that the picture which it gives us of the Addison family in the rectory of
Milston is a particularly amiable one.
Though the eighteenth century had little of that feeling for natural
beauty which distinguishes our own, a man of Addison's imagination could
hardly fail to be impressed by the character of the scenery in which his
childhood was passed. No one who has travelled on a summer's day across
Salisbury plain, with its vast canopy of sky and its open tracts of
undulating downland, relieved by no shadows except such as are thrown by
the passing cloud, the grazing sheep, and the great circle of Stonehenge,
will forget the delightful sense of refreshment and repose produced by the
descent into the valley of the Avon. The sounds of human life rising from
the villages after the long solitude of the plain, the shade of the deep
woods, the coolness of the river, like all streams rising in the chalk,
clear and peaceful, are equally delicious to the sense and the
imagination. It was, doubtless, the recollection of these scenes that
inspired Addison in his paraphrase of the twenty-third Psalm:
"The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care.
* * * * *
When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountain pant,
To fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary wandering steps he leads,
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow."
At Amesbury he was first sent to school, his master being one Nash; and
here, too, he probably met with the first recorded adventure of his life.
It is said that having committed some fault, and being fearful of the
consequences, he ran away from school, and, taking up his abode in a
hollow tree, maintained himself as he could till he was discovered and
brought back to his parents. He was removed from Amesbury to Salisbury,
and thence to the Grammar School at Lichfield, where he is said to have
been the leader in a "barring out." From Lichfield he passed to the
Charter House, then under the charge of Dr. Ellis, a man of taste and
scholarship. The Charter House at that period was, after Westminster, the
best-known school in England, and here was laid the foundation of that
sound classical taste which perfected the style of the essays in the
_Spectator_.
Macaulay labours with much force and ingenuity to prove that Addison's
classical acquirements were only superficial, and, in his usual
epigrammatic manner, hazards the opinion that "his knowledge of Greek,
though doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respectable at Oxford,
was evidently less than that which many lads now carry away every year
from Eton and Rugby." That Addison was not a scholar of the class of
Bentley or Porson may be readily admitted. But many scattered allusions in
his works prove that his acquaintance with the Greek poets of every
period, if cursory, was wide and intelligent: he was sufficiently master
of the language thoroughly to understand the spirit of what he read; he
undertook while at Oxford a translation of Herodotus, and one of the
papers in the _Spectator_ is a direct imitation of a _jeu d'esprit_ of
Lucian's. The Eton or Rugby boy who, in these days, with a normal appetite
for cricket and football, acquired an equal knowledge of Greek literature,
would certainly be somewhat of a prodigy.
No doubt, however, Addison's knowledge of the Latin poets was, as Macaulay
infers, far more extensive and profound. It would have been strange had it
been otherwise. The influence of the classical side of the Italian
Renaissance was now at its height, and wherever those ideas became
paramount Latin composition was held in at least as much esteem as poetry
in the vernacular. Especially was this the case in England, where certain
affinities of character and temperament made it easy for writers to adopt
Roman habits of thought. Latin verse composition soon took firm root in
the public schools and universities, so that clever boys of the period
were tolerably familiar with most of the minor Roman poets. Pope, in the
Fourth Book of the _Dunciad_, vehemently attacked the tradition as
confining the mind to the study of words rather than of things; but he had
himself had no experience of a public school, and only those who fail to
appreciate the influence of Latin verse composition on the style of our
own greatest orators, and of poets like Milton and Gray, will be inclined
to undervalue it as an instrument of social and literary training.
Proficiency in this art may at least be said to have laid the foundation
of Addison's fortunes. Leaving the Charter House in 1687, at the early age
of fifteen, he was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, and remained a
member of that society for two years, when a copy of his Latin verses fell
into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, then Fellow and afterwards Provost of the
College. Struck with their excellence, Lancaster used his influence to
obtain for him a demyship at Magdalen. The subject of this fortunate set
of verses was "Inauguratio Regis Gulielmi," from which fact we may
reasonably infer that even in his boyhood his mind had acquired a Whig
bias. Whatever inclination he may have had in this direction would have
been confirmed by the associations of his new college. The fluctuations of
opinion in Magdalen had been frequent and extraordinary. Towards the close
of Elizabeth's reign it was notorious for its Calvinism, but under the
Chancellorship of Laud it appears to have adopted, with equal ardour, the
cause of Arminianism, for it was among the colleges that offered the
stoutest opposition to the Puritan visitors in 1647-48. The despotic
tendencies of James II., however, again cooled its loyalty, and its
spirited resistance to the king's order for the election of a Roman
Catholic President had given a mortal blow to the Stuart dynasty. Hough
was now President, but in consequence of the dispute with the king there
had been no election of demies in 1688, so that twice the usual number was
chosen in the following year, and the occasion was distinguished by the
name of the "golden election." From Magdalen Addison proceeded to his
master's degree in 1693; the College elected him probationary Fellow in
1697, and actual Fellow the year after. He retained his Fellowship till
1711.
Of his tastes, habits, and friendships at Oxford there are few records.
Among his acquaintance were Boulter, afterwards Archbishop of
Dublin--whose memory is unenviably perpetuated, in company with Ambrose
Phillips, in Pope's _Epistle to Arbuthnot_,
"Does not one table Bavius still admit,
Still to one Bishop Phillips seem a wit?"--
and possibly the famous Sacheverell.[6] He is said to have shown in the
society of Magdalen some of the shyness that afterwards distinguished him;
he kept late hours, and read chiefly after dinner. The walk under the
well-known elms by the Cherwell is still connected with his name. Though
he probably acted as tutor in the college, the greater part of his quiet
life at the University was doubtless occupied in study. A proof of his
early maturity is seen in the fact that, in his nineteenth year, a young
man of birth and fortune, Mr. Rushout, who was being educated at Magdalen,
was placed under his charge.
His reputation as a scholar and a man of taste soon extended itself to the
world of letters in London. In 1693, being then in his twenty-second year,
he wrote his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_; and about the same
time he addressed a short copy of verses to Dryden, complimenting him on
the enduring vigour of his poetical faculty, as shown in his translations
of Virgil and other Latin poets, some of which had recently appeared in
Tonson's _Miscellany_. The old poet appears to have been highly gratified,
and to have welcomed the advances thus made to him, for he returned
Addison's compliment by bestowing high and not unmerited praise on the
translation of the Fourth Book of the _Georgics_, which the latter soon
after undertook, and by printing, as a preface to his own translation, a
discourse written by Addison on the _Georgics_, as well as arguments to
most of the books of the _Æneid_.
Through Dryden, no doubt, he became acquainted with Jacob Tonson. The
father of English publishing had for some time been a well-known figure in
the literary world. He had purchased the copyright of _Paradise Lost_; he
had associated himself with Dryden in publishing before the Revolution two
volumes of _Miscellanies_; encouraged by the success which these obtained,
he put the poet, in 1693, on some translations of Juvenal and Persius, and
two new volumes of _Miscellanies_; while in 1697 he urged him to undertake
a translation of the whole of the works of Virgil. Observing how strongly
the public taste set towards the great classical writers, he was anxious
to employ men of ability in the work of turning them into English; and it
appears from existing correspondence that he engaged Addison, while the
latter was at Oxford, to superintend a translation of Herodotus. He also
suggested a translation of Ovid. Addison undertook to procure coadjutors
for the work of translating the Greek historian. He himself actually
translated the books called _Polymnia_ and _Urania_, but for some
unexplained reason the work was never published. For Ovid he seems, on the
whole, to have had less inclination. At Tonson's instance he translated
the Second Book of the _Metamorphoses_, which was first printed in the
volume of _Miscellanies_ that appeared in 1697; but he wrote to the
publisher that "Ovid had so many silly stories with his good ones that he
was more tedious to translate than a better poet would be." His study of
Ovid, however, was of the greatest use in developing his critical faculty;
the excesses and want of judgment in that poet forced him to reflect, and
his observations on the style of his author anticipate his excellent
remarks on the difference between True and False Wit in the sixty-second
number of the _Spectator_.
Whoever, indeed, compares these notes with the _Essay on the Georgics_,
and with the opinions expressed in the _Account of the English Poets_,
will be convinced that the foundations of his critical method were laid at
this period (1697). In the _Essay on the Georgics_ he seems to be timid in
the presence of Virgil's superiority; his _Account of the English Poets_,
besides being impregnated with the principles of taste prevalent after the
Restoration, shows deficient powers of perception and appreciation. The
name of Shakespeare is not mentioned in it, Dryden and Congreve alone
being selected to represent the drama. Chaucer is described as "a merry
bard," whose humour has become obsolete through time and change; while the
rich pictorial fancy of the _Faery Queen_ is thus described:
"Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amused a barbarous age--
An age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led pursued,
Through pathless fields and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below."
According to Pope--always a suspicious witness where Addison is
concerned--he had not read Spenser when he wrote this criticism on him.[7]
Milton, as a legitimate successor of the classics, is of course
appreciated, but not at all after the elaborate fashion of the
_Spectator_; to Dryden, the most distinguished poet of the day, deserved
compliments are paid, but their value is lessened by the exaggerated
opinion which the writer entertains of Cowley, who is described as a
"mighty genius," and is praised for the inexhaustible riches of his
imagination. Throughout the poem, in fact, we observe a remarkable
confusion of various veins of thought; an unjust depreciation of the
Gothic grandeur of the older English poets; a just admiration for the
Greek and Roman authors; a sense of the necessity of good sense and
regularity in writings composed for an "understanding age;" and at the
same time a lingering taste for the forced invention and far-fetched
conceits that mark the decay of the spirit of mediæval chivalry.
With the judgments expressed in this performance it is instructive to
compare such criticisms on Shakespeare as we find in No. 42 of the
_Spectator_, the papers on "Chevy Chase" (73, 74), and particularly the
following passage:
"As true wit consists in the resemblance of ideas, and false wit in
the resemblance of words, according to the foregoing instances, there
is another kind of wit which consists partly in the resemblance of
ideas and partly in the resemblance of words, which, for distinction's
sake, I shall call mixed wit. This kind of wit is that which abounds
in Cowley more than in any author that ever wrote. Mr. Waller has
likewise a great deal of it. Mr. Dryden is very sparing in it. Milton
has a genius much above it. _Spenser is in the same class with
Milton._ The Italians even in their epic poetry are full of it.
Monsieur Boileau, who formed himself upon the ancient poets, has
everywhere rejected it with scorn. If we look after mixed wit among
the Greeks, we shall find it nowhere but in the epigrammatists. There
are, indeed, some strokes of it in the little poem ascribed to Musæus,
which by that, as well as many other marks, betrays itself to be a
modern composition. If we look into the Latin writers we find none of
this mixed wit in Virgil, Lucretius, or Catullus; very little in
Horace, but a great deal of it in Ovid, and scarce anything else in
Martial."
The stepping-stone from the immaturity of the early criticisms in the
_Account of the Greatest English Poets_ to the finished ease of the
_Spectator_ is to be found in the notes to the translation of Ovid.[8]
The time came when he was obliged to form a decision affecting the entire
course of his life. Tonson, who had a wide acquaintance, no doubt
introduced him to Congreve and the leading men of letters in London, and
through them he was presented to Somers and Montague. Those ministers
perhaps persuaded him, as a point of etiquette, to write, in 1695, his
_Address to King William_, a poem composed in a vein of orthodox
hyperbole, all of which must have been completely thrown away on that most
unpoetical of monarchs. Yet in spite of those seductions Addison lingered
at Oxford. To retain his Fellowship it was necessary for him to take
orders. Had he done so, there can be no doubt that his literary skill and
his value as a political partizan would have opened for him a road to the
highest preferment. At that time the clergy were far from thinking it
unbecoming to their cloth to fight in the political arena or to take part
in journalism. Swift would have been advanced to a bishopric, as a reward
for his political services, if it had not been for the prejudice
entertained towards him by Queen Anne; Boulter, rector of St. Saviour's,
Southwark, having made himself conspicuous by editing a paper called the
_Freethinker_, was raised to the Primacy of Ireland; Hoadley, the
notorious Bishop of Bangor, edited the _London Journal_; the honours that
were awarded to two men of such second-rate intellectual capacity would
hardly have been denied to Addison. He was inclined in this direction by
the example and advice of his father, who was now Dean of Lichfield, and
who was urgent on his son to rid himself of the pecuniary embarrassments
in which he was involved by embracing the Church as a profession. A few
years before he had himself seemed to look upon the Church as his future
sphere. In his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_ he says:
"I leave the arts of poetry and verse
To them that practise them with more success.
Of greater truths I'll now propose to tell,
And so at once, dear friend and muse, farewell."
Had he followed up his intention we might have known the name of Addison
as that of an artful controversialist, and perhaps as a famous writer of
sermons; but we should, in all probability, have never heard of the
_Spectator_.
Fortunately for English letters, other influences prevailed to give a
different direction to his fortunes. It is true that Tickell, Addison's
earliest biographer, states that his determination not to take orders was
the result of his own habitual self-distrust, and of a fear of the
responsibilities which the clerical office would involve. But Steele, who
was better acquainted with his friend's private history, on reading
Tickell's Memoir, addressed a letter to Congreve on the subject, in which
he says:
"These, you know very well, were not the reasons which made Mr.
Addison turn his thoughts to the civil world; and, as you were the
instrument of his becoming acquainted with Lord Halifax, I doubt not
but you remember the warm instances that noble lord made to the head
of the College not to insist upon Mr. Addison's going into orders. His
arguments were founded upon the general pravity and corruption of men
of business, who wanted liberal education. And I remember, as if I had
read the letter yesterday, that my lord ended with a compliment that,
however he might be represented as a friend to the Church, he never
would do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it."
No doubt the real motive of the interest in Addison shown by Lord Halifax,
at that time known as Charles Montague, was an anxiety which he shared
with all the leading statesmen of the period, and of which more will be
said presently, to secure for his party the services of the ablest
writers. Finding his _protégé_ as yet hardly qualified to transact affairs
of State, he joined with Lord Somers, who had also fixed his eyes on
Addison, in soliciting for him from the Crown, in 1699, a pension of £300
a year, which might enable him to supplement his literary accomplishments
with the practical experience of travel. Addison naturally embraced the
offer. He looked forward to studying the political institutions of foreign
countries, to seeing the spots of which he had read in his favourite
classical authors, and to meeting the most famous men of letters on the
Continent.
It is characteristic both of his own tastes and of his age that he seems
to have thought his best passport to intellectual society abroad would be
his Latin poems. His verses on the _Peace of Ryswick_, written in 1697
and dedicated to Montague, had already procured him great reputation, and
had been praised by Edmund Smith--a high authority--as "the best Latin
poem since the _Æneid_." This gave him the opportunity of collecting his
various compositions of the same kind, and in 1699 he published from the
Sheldonian Press a second volume of the _Musæ Anglicanæ_--the first having
appeared in 1691--containing poems by various Oxford scholars. Among the
contributors were Hannes, one of the many scholarly physicians of the
period; J. Philips, the author of the _Splendid Shilling_; and Alsop, a
prominent antagonist of Bentley, whose Horatian humour is celebrated by
Pope in the _Dunciad_.[9]
But the most interesting of the names in the volume is that of the once
celebrated Edmond, commonly called "Rag," Smith, author of the _Ode on the
Death of Dr. Pocock_, who seems to have been among Addison's intimate
acquaintance, and deserves to be recollected in connection with him on
account of a certain similarity in their genius and the extraordinary
difference in their fortunes. "Rag" was a man of fine accomplishments and
graceful humour, but, like other scholars of the same class, indolent and
licentious. In spite of great indulgence extended to him by the
authorities of Christ Church, he was expelled from the University in
consequence of his irregularities. His friends stood by him, and, through
the interest of Addison, a proposal was made to him to undertake a history
of the Revolution, which, however, from political scruples he felt himself
obliged to decline. Like Addison, he wrote a tragedy modelled on classical
lines; but, as it had no political significance, it only pleased the
critics, without, like "Cato," interesting
|
tie. His undertaking was to obtain material in
Europe for an American “society-paper.”
If it be objected to all this that when Francie Dosson at last came in
she addressed him as if she easily placed him, the answer is that she
had been notified by her father--and more punctually than was indicated
by the manner of her response. “Well, the way you DO turn up,” she said,
smiling and holding out her left hand to him: in the other hand, or the
hollow of her slim right arm, she had a lumpish parcel. Though she had
made him wait she was clearly very glad to see him there; and she as
evidently required and enjoyed a great deal of that sort of indulgence.
Her sister’s attitude would have told you so even if her own appearance
had not. There was that in her manner to the young man--a perceptible
but indefinable shade--which seemed to legitimate the oddity of his
having asked in particular for her, asked as if he wished to see her to
the exclusion of her father and sister: the note of a special pleasure
which might have implied a special relation. And yet a spectator looking
from Mr. George Flack to Miss Francie Dosson would have been much at a
loss to guess what special relation could exist between them. The girl
was exceedingly, extraordinarily pretty, all exempt from traceable
likeness to her sister; and there was a brightness in her--a still
and scattered radiance--which was quite distinct from what is called
animation. Rather tall than short, fine slender erect, with an airy
lightness of hand and foot, she yet gave no impression of quick
movement, of abundant chatter, of excitable nerves and irrepressible
life--no hint of arriving at her typical American grace in the most
usual way. She was pretty without emphasis and as might almost have been
said without point, and your fancy that a little stiffness would have
improved her was at once qualified by the question of what her softness
would have made of it. There was nothing in her, however, to confirm
the implication that she had rushed about the deck of a Cunarder with a
newspaper-man. She was as straight as a wand and as true as a gem; her
neck was long and her grey eyes had colour; and from the ripple of her
dark brown hair to the curve of her unaffirmative chin every line in
her face was happy and pure. She had a weak pipe of a voice and
inconceivabilities of ignorance.
Delia got up, and they came out of the little reading-room--this young
lady remarking to her sister that she hoped she had brought down all
the things. “Well, I had a fiendish hunt for them--we’ve got so many,”
Francie replied with a strange want of articulation. “There were a few
dozens of the pocket-handkerchiefs I couldn’t find; but I guess I’ve got
most of them and most of the gloves.”
“Well, what are you carting them about for?” George Flack enquired,
taking the parcel from her. “You had better let me handle them. Do you
buy pocket-handkerchiefs by the hundred?”
“Well, it only makes fifty apiece,” Francie yieldingly smiled. “They
ain’t really nice--we’re going to change them.”
“Oh I won’t be mixed up with that--you can’t work that game on these
Frenchmen!” the young man stated.
“Oh with Francie they’ll take anything back,” Delia Dosson declared.
“They just love her, all over.”
“Well, they’re like me then,” said Mr. Flack with friendly cheer. “I’LL
take her back if she’ll come.”
“Well, I don’t think I’m ready quite yet,” the girl replied. “But I hope
very much we shall cross with you again.”
“Talk about crossing--it’s on these boulevards we want a
life-preserver!” Delia loudly commented. They had passed out of the
hotel and the wide vista of the Rue de la Paix stretched up and down.
There were many vehicles.
“Won’t this thing do? I’ll tie it to either of you,” George Flack said,
holding out his bundle. “I suppose they won’t kill you if they love
you,” he went on to the object of his preference.
“Well, you’ve got to know me first,” she answered, laughing and looking
for a chance, while they waited to pass over.
“I didn’t know you when I was struck.” He applied his disengaged hand to
her elbow and propelled her across the street. She took no notice of
his observation, and Delia asked her, on the other side, whether their
father had given her that money. She replied that he had given her
loads--she felt as if he had made his will; which led George Flack to
say that he wished the old gentleman was HIS father.
“Why you don’t mean to say you want to be our brother!” Francie prattled
as they went down the Rue de la Paix.
“I should like to be Miss Delia’s, if you can make that out,” he
laughed.
“Well then suppose you prove it by calling me a cab,” Miss
Delia returned. “I presume you and Francie don’t take this for a
promenade-deck.”
“Don’t she feel rich?” George Flack demanded of Francie. “But we do
require a cart for our goods”; and he hailed a little yellow carriage,
which presently drew up beside the pavement. The three got into it and,
still emitting innocent pleasantries, proceeded on their way, while at
the Hotel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham Mr. Dosson wandered down into
the court again and took his place in his customary chair.
II
The court was roofed with glass; the April air was mild; the cry of
women selling violets came in from the street and, mingling with the
rich hum of Paris, seemed to bring with it faintly the odour of the
flowers. There were other odours in the place, warm succulent and
Parisian, which ranged from fried fish to burnt sugar; and there were
many things besides: little tables for the post-prandial coffee; piles
of luggage inscribed (after the initials or frequently the name) R.
P. Scudamore or D. Jackson Hodge, Philadelphia Pa., or St. Louis
Mo.; rattles of unregarded bells, flittings of tray-bearing waiters,
conversations with the second-floor windows of admonitory landladies,
arrivals of young women with coffinlike bandboxes covered with black
oil-cloth and depending from a strap, sallyings-forth of persons staying
and arrivals just afterwards of other persons to see them; together with
vague prostrations on benches of tired heads of American families.
It was to this last element that Mr. Dosson himself in some degree
contributed, but it must be added that he had not the extremely bereft
and exhausted appearance of certain of his fellows. There was an air of
ruminant resignation, of habitual accommodation in him; but you would
have guessed that he was enjoying a holiday rather than aching for a
truce, and he was not so enfeebled but that he was able to get up from
time to time and stroll through the porte cochere to have a look at the
street.
He gazed up and down for five minutes with his hands in his pockets, and
then came back; that appeared to content him; he asked for little and
had no restlessness that these small excursions wouldn’t assuage. He
looked at the heaped-up luggage, at the tinkling bells, at the young
women from the lingere, at the repudiated visitors, at everything but
the other American parents. Something in his breast told him that he
knew all about these. It’s not upon each other that the animals in the
same cage, in a zoological collection, most turn their eyes. There was
a silent sociability in him and a superficial fineness of grain that
helped to account for his daughter Francie’s various delicacies. He was
fair and spare and had no figure; you would have seen in a moment
that the question of how he should hold himself had never in his life
occurred to him. He never held himself at all; providence held him
rather--and very loosely--by an invisible string at the end of which he
seemed gently to dangle and waver. His face was so smooth that his thin
light whiskers, which grew only far back, scarcely seemed native to his
cheeks: they might have been attached there for some harmless purpose of
comedy or disguise. He looked for the most part as if he were thinking
over, without exactly understanding it, something rather droll that had
just occurred; if his eyes wandered his attention rested, just as
it hurried, quite as little. His feet were remarkably small, and his
clothes, in which light colours predominated, were visibly the work of
a French tailor: he was an American who still held the tradition that it
is in Paris a man dresses himself best. His hat would have looked odd in
Bond Street or the Fifth Avenue, and his necktie was loose and flowing.
Mr. Dosson, it may further be noted, was a person of the simplest
composition, a character as cipherable as a sum of two figures. He had
a native financial faculty of the finest order, a gift as direct as
a beautiful tenor voice, which had enabled him, without the aid of
particular strength of will or keenness of ambition, to build up a large
fortune while he was still of middle age. He had a genius for happy
speculation, the quick unerring instinct of a “good thing”; and as he
sat there idle amused contented, on the edge of the Parisian street,
he might very well have passed for some rare performer who had sung his
song or played his trick and had nothing to do till the next call.
And he had grown rich not because he was ravenous or hard, but simply
because he had an ear, not to term it a nose. He could make out the tune
in the discord of the market-place; he could smell success far up
the wind. The second factor in his little addition was that he was an
unassuming father. He had no tastes, no acquirements, no curiosities,
and his daughters represented all society for him. He thought much
more and much oftener of these young ladies than of his bank-shares and
railway-stock; they crowned much more his sense of accumulated property.
He never compared them with other girls; he only compared his present
self with what he would have been without them. His view of them was
perfectly simple. Delia had a greater direct knowledge of life and
Francie a wider acquaintance with literature and art. Mr. Dosson had
not perhaps a full perception of his younger daughter’s beauty: he
would scarcely have pretended to judge of that, more than he would of a
valuable picture or vase, but he believed she was cultivated up to the
eyes. He had a recollection of tremendous school-bills and, in later
days, during their travels, of the way she was always leaving books
behind her. Moreover wasn’t her French so good that he couldn’t
understand it?
The two girls, at any rate, formed the breeze in his sail and the only
directing determinant force he knew; when anything happened--and he was
under the impression that things DID happen--they were there for it to
have happened TO. Without them in short, as he felt, he would have been
the tail without the kite. The wind rose and fell of course; there were
lulls and there were gales; there were intervals during which he simply
floated in quiet waters--cast anchor and waited. This appeared to be one
of them now; but he could be patient, knowing that he should soon again
inhale the brine and feel the dip of his prow. When his daughters were
out for any time the occasion affected him as a “weather-breeder”--the
wind would be then, as a kind of consequence, GOING to rise; but their
now being out with a remarkably bright young man only sweetened the
temporary calm. That belonged to their superior life, and Mr. Dosson
never doubted that George M. Flack was remarkably bright. He represented
the newspaper, and the newspaper for this man of genial assumptions
represented--well, all other representations whatever. To know Delia and
Francie thus attended by an editor or a correspondent was really to see
them dancing in the central glow. This is doubtless why Mr. Dosson had
slightly more than usual his air of recovering slowly from a pleasant
surprise. The vision to which I allude hung before him, at a convenient
distance, and melted into other bright confused aspects: reminiscences
of Mr. Flack in other relations--on the ship, on the deck, at the hotel
at Liverpool, and in the cars. Whitney Dosson was a loyal father, but
he would have thought himself simple had he not had two or three strong
convictions: one of which was that the children should never go out with
a gentleman they hadn’t seen before. The sense of their having, and his
having, seen Mr. Flack before was comfortable to him now: it made mere
placidity of his personally foregoing the young man’s society in favour
of Delia and Francie. He had not hitherto been perfectly satisfied that
the streets and shops, the general immensity of Paris, were just the
safest place for young ladies alone. But the company of a helpful
gentleman ensured safety--a gentleman who would be helpful by the fact
of his knowing so much and having it all right there. If a big newspaper
told you everything there was in the world every morning, that was
what a big newspaper-man would have to know, and Mr. Dosson had never
supposed there was anything left to know when such voices as Mr. Flack’s
and that of his organ had daily been heard. In the absence of such happy
chances--and in one way or another they kept occurring--his girls might
have seemed lonely, which was not the way he struck himself. They were
his company but he scarcely theirs; it was as if they belonged to him
more than he to them.
They were out a long time, but he felt no anxiety, as he reflected that
Mr. Flack’s very profession would somehow make everything turn out to
their profit. The bright French afternoon waned without bringing them
back, yet Mr. Dosson still revolved about the court till he might have
been taken for a valet de place hoping to pick up custom. The landlady
smiled at him sometimes as she passed and re-passed, and even ventured
to remark disinterestedly that it was a pity to waste such a lovely day
indoors--not to take a turn and see what was going on in Paris. But Mr.
Dosson had no sense of waste: that came to him much more when he was
confronted with historical monuments or beauties of nature or art, which
affected him as the talk of people naming others, naming friends of
theirs, whom he had never heard of: then he was aware of a degree of
waste for the others, as if somebody lost something--but never when he
lounged in that simplifying yet so comprehensive way in the court. It
wanted but a quarter of an hour to dinner--THAT historic fact was not
beyond his measure--when Delia and Francie at last met his view, still
accompanied by Mr. Flack and sauntering in, at a little distance from
each other, with a jaded air which was not in the least a tribute to his
possible solicitude. They dropped into chairs and joked with each other,
mingling sociability and languor, on the subject of what they had
seen and done--a question into which he felt as yet the delicacy of
enquiring. But they had evidently done a good deal and had a good
time: an impression sufficient to rescue Mr. Dosson personally from the
consciousness of failure. “Won’t you just step in and take dinner with
us?” he asked of the young man with a friendliness to which everything
appeared to minister.
“Well, that’s a handsome offer,” George Flack replied while Delia put it
on record that they had each eaten about thirty cakes.
“Well, I wondered what you were doing so long. But never mind your
cakes. It’s twenty minutes past six, and the table d’hote’s on time.”
“You don’t mean to say you dine at the table d’hote!” Mr. Flack cried.
“Why, don’t you like that?”--and Francie’s candour of appeal to their
comrade’s taste was celestial.
“Well, it isn’t what you must build on when you come to Paris. Too many
flowerpots and chickens’ legs.”
“Well, would you like one of these restaurants?” asked Mr. Dosson. “_I_
don’t care--if you show us a good one.”
“Oh I’ll show you a good one--don’t you worry.” Mr. Flack’s tone was
ever that of keeping the poor gentleman mildly but firmly in his place.
“Well, you’ve got to order the dinner then,” said Francie.
“Well, you’ll see how I could do it!” He towered over her in the pride
of this feat.
“He has got an interest in some place,” Delia declared. “He has taken us
to ever so many stores where he gets his commission.”
“Well, I’d pay you to take them round,” said Mr. Dosson; and with much
agreeable trifling of this kind it was agreed that they should sally
forth for the evening meal under Mr. Flack’s guidance.
If he had easily convinced them on this occasion that that was a more
original proceeding than worrying those old bones, as he called it, at
the hotel, he convinced them of other things besides in the course of
the following month and by the aid of profuse attentions. What he mainly
made clear to them was that it was really most kind of a young man who
had so many big things on his mind to find sympathy for questions, for
issues, he used to call them, that could occupy the telegraph and the
press so little as theirs. He came every day to set them in the right
path, pointing out its charms to them in a way that made them feel how
much they had been in the wrong. It made them feel indeed that they
didn’t know anything about anything, even about such a matter as
ordering shoes--an art in which they had vaguely supposed themselves
rather strong. He had in fact great knowledge, which was wonderfully
various, and he knew as many people as they knew few. He had
appointments--very often with celebrities--for every hour of the day,
and memoranda, sometimes in shorthand, on tablets with elastic straps,
with which he dazzled the simple folk at the Hotel de l’Univers et de
Cheltenham, whose social life, of narrow range, consisted mainly in
reading the lists of Americans who “registered” at the bankers’ and at
Galignani’s. Delia Dosson in particular had a trick of poring solemnly
over these records which exasperated Mr. Flack, who skimmed them and
found what he wanted in the flash of an eye: she kept the others waiting
while she satisfied herself that Mr. and Mrs. D. S. Rosenheim and Miss
Cora Rosenheim and Master Samuel Rosenheim had “left for Brussels.”
Mr. Flack was wonderful on all occasions in finding what he
wanted--which, as we know, was what he believed the public wanted--and
Delia was the only one of the party with whom he was sometimes a little
sharp. He had embraced from the first the idea that she was his enemy,
and he alluded to it with almost tiresome frequency, though always in a
humorous fearless strain. Even more than by her fashion of hanging over
the registers she provoked him by appearing to find their little party
not sufficient to itself, by wishing, as he expressed it, to work in new
stuff. He might have been easy, however, for he had sufficient chance to
observe how it was always the fate of the Dossons to miss their friends.
They were continually looking out for reunions and combinations that
never came off, hearing that people had been in Paris only after they
had gone away, or feeling convinced that they were there but not to be
found through their not having registered, or wondering whether they
should overtake them if they should go to Dresden, and then making up
their minds to start for Dresden only to learn at the eleventh hour,
through some accident, that the hunted game had “left for” Biarritz even
as the Rosenheims for Brussels. “We know plenty of people if we could
only come across them,” Delia had more than once observed: she
scanned the Continent with a wondering baffled gaze and talked of the
unsatisfactory way in which friends at home would “write out” that other
friends were “somewhere in Europe.” She expressed the wish that such
correspondents as that might be in a place that was not at all vague.
Two or three times people had called at the hotel when they were out and
had left cards for them without an address and superscribed with some
mocking dash of the pencil--“So sorry to miss you!” or “Off to-morrow!”
The girl sat looking at these cards, handling them and turning them over
for a quarter of an hour at a time; she produced them days afterwards,
brooding upon them afresh as if they were a mystic clue. George Flack
generally knew where they were, the people who were “somewhere in
Europe.” Such knowledge came to him by a kind of intuition, by the
voices of the air, by indefinable and unteachable processes. But he held
his peace on purpose; he didn’t want any outsiders; he thought their
little party just right. Mr. Dosson’s place in the scheme of Providence
was to “go” with Delia while he himself “went” with Francie, and nothing
would have induced George Flack to disfigure that equation. The young
man was professionally so occupied with other people’s affairs that it
should doubtless be mentioned to his praise that he still managed to
have affairs--or at least an affair--of his own. That affair was Francie
Dosson, and he was pleased to perceive how little SHE cared what had
become of Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheim and Master Samuel and Miss Cora. He
counted all the things she didn’t care about--her soft inadvertent eyes
helped him to do that; and they footed up so, as he would have said,
that they gave him the rich sense of a free field. If she had so few
interests there was the greater possibility that a young man of bold
conceptions and cheerful manners might become one. She had usually the
air of waiting for something, with a pretty listlessness or an amused
resignation, while tender shy indefinite little fancies hummed in her
brain. Thus she would perhaps recognise in him the reward of patience.
George Flack was aware that he exposed his friends to considerable
fatigue: he brought them back pale and taciturn from suburban excursions
and from wanderings often rather aimless and casual among the boulevards
and avenues of the town. He regarded them at such times with complacency
however, for these were hours of diminished resistance: he had an idea
that he should be able eventually to circumvent Delia if he only could
catch her some day sufficiently, that is physically, prostrate. He liked
to make them all feel helpless and dependent, and this was not difficult
with people who were so modest and artless, so unconscious of the
boundless power of wealth. Sentiment, in our young man, was not a
scruple nor a source of weakness; but he thought it really touching, the
little these good people knew of what they could do with their money.
They had in their hands a weapon of infinite range and yet were
incapable of firing a shot for themselves. They had a sort of social
humility; it appeared never to have occurred to them that, added to
their loveliness, their money gave them a value. This used to strike
George Flack on certain occasions when he came back to find them in the
places where he had dropped them while he rushed off to give a turn
to one of his screws. They never played him false, never wearied of
waiting; always sat patient and submissive, usually at a cafe to which
he had introduced them or in a row of chairs on the boulevard, on the
level expanse of the Tuileries or in the Champs Elysees.
He introduced them to many cafes, in different parts of Paris, being
careful to choose those which in his view young ladies might frequent
with propriety, and there were two or three in the neighbourhood of
their hotel where they became frequent and familiar figures. As the
late spring days grew warmer and brighter they mainly camped out on
the “terrace,” amid the array of small tables at the door of the
establishment, where Mr. Flack, on the return, could descry them
from afar at their post and in the very same postures to which he
had appointed them. They complained of no satiety in watching the
many-coloured movement of the Parisian streets; and if some of the
features in the panorama were base they were only so in a version that
the social culture of our friends was incapable of supplying. George
Flack considered that he was rendering a positive service to Mr. Dosson:
wouldn’t the old gentleman have sat all day in the court anyway? and
wasn’t the boulevard better than the court? It was his theory too that
he nattered and caressed Miss Francie’s father, for there was no one
to whom he had furnished more copious details about the affairs, the
projects and prospects, of the Reverberator. He had left no doubt in the
old gentleman’s mind as to the race he himself intended to run, and Mr.
Dosson used to say to him every day, the first thing, “Well, where have
you got to now?”--quite as if he took a real interest. George Flack
reported his interviews, that is his reportings, to which Delia and
Francie gave attention only in case they knew something of the persons
on whom the young emissary of the Reverberator had conferred
this distinction; whereas Mr. Dosson listened, with his tolerant
interposition of “Is that so?” and “Well, that’s good,” just as
submissively when he heard of the celebrity in question for the first
time.
In conversation with his daughters Mr. Flack was frequently the theme,
though introduced much more by the young ladies than by himself, and
especially by Delia, who announced at an early period that she knew what
he wanted and that it wasn’t in the least what SHE wanted. She amplified
this statement very soon--at least as regards her interpretation of Mr.
Flack’s designs: a certain mystery still hung about her own, which, as
she intimated, had much more to recommend them. Delia’s vision of the
danger as well as the advantage of being a pretty girl was closely
connected, as was natural, with the idea of an “engagement”: this idea
was in a manner complete in itself--her imagination failed in the oddest
way to carry it into the next stage. She wanted her sister to be engaged
but wanted her not at all to be married, and had clearly never made up
her mind as to how Francie was to enjoy both the peril and the shelter.
It was a secret source of humiliation to her that there had as yet to
her knowledge been no one with whom her sister had exchanged vows; if
her conviction on this subject could have expressed itself intelligibly
it would have given you a glimpse of a droll state of mind--a dim theory
that a bright girl ought to be able to try successive aspirants. Delia’s
conception of what such a trial might consist of was strangely innocent:
it was made up of calls and walks and buggy-drives, and above all of
being, in the light of these exhibitions, the theme of tongues and
subject to the great imputation. It had never in life occurred to
her withal that a succession of lovers, or just even a repetition of
experiments, may have anything to say to a young lady’s delicacy. She
felt herself a born old maid and never dreamed of a lover of her own--he
would have been dreadfully in her way; but she dreamed of love
as something in its nature essentially refined. All the same she
discriminated; it did lead to something after all, and she desired that
for Francie it shouldn’t lead to a union with Mr. Flack. She looked at
such a union under the influence of that other view which she kept as
yet to herself but was prepared to produce so soon as the right occasion
should come up; giving her sister to understand that she would never
speak to her again should this young man be allowed to suppose--! Which
was where she always paused, plunging again into impressive reticence.
“To suppose what?” Francie would ask as if she were totally
unacquainted--which indeed she really was--with the suppositions of
young men.
“Well, you’ll see--when he begins to say things you won’t like!” This
sounded ominous on Delia’s part, yet her anxiety was really but thin:
otherwise she would have risen against the custom adopted by Mr. Flack
of perpetually coming round. She would have given her attention--though
it struggled in general unsuccessfully with all this side of their
life--to some prompt means of getting away from Paris. She expressed to
her father what in her view the correspondent of the Reverberator was
“after”; but without, it must be added, gaining from him the sense of it
as a connexion in which he could be greatly worked up. This indeed was
not of importance, thanks to her inner faith that Francie would never
really do anything--that is would never really like anything--her
nearest relatives didn’t like. Her sister’s docility was a great comfort
to Delia, the more that she herself, taking it always for granted, was
the first to profit by it. She liked and disliked certain things much
more than her junior did either; and Francie cultivated the convenience
of her reasons, having so few of her own. They served--Delia’s
reasons--for Mr. Dosson as well, so that Francie was not guilty of any
particular irreverence in regarding her sister rather than her father as
the controller of her fate. A fate was rather an unwieldy and terrible
treasure, which it relieved her that some kind person should undertake
to administer. Delia had somehow got hold of hers first--before even her
father, and ever so much before Mr. Flack; and it lay with Delia to make
any change. She couldn’t have accepted any gentleman as a party to an
engagement--which was somehow as far as her imagination went--without
reference to Delia, any more than she could have done up her hair
without a glass. The only action taken by Mr. Dosson on his elder
daughter’s admonitions was to convert the general issue, as Mr. Flack
would have called it, to a theme for daily pleasantry. He was fond,
in his intercourse with his children, of some small usual joke, some
humorous refrain; and what could have been more in the line of true
domestic sport than a little gentle but unintermitted raillery on
Francie’s conquest? Mr. Flack’s attributive intentions became a theme of
indulgent parental chaff, and the girl was neither dazzled nor annoyed
by the freedom of all this tribute. “Well, he HAS told us about half
we know,” she used to reply with an air of the judicious that the
undetected observer I am perpetually moved to invoke would have found
indescribably quaint.
Among the items of knowledge for which they were indebted to him floated
the fact that this was the very best time in the young lady’s life to
have her portrait painted and the best place in the world to have it
done well; also that he knew a “lovely artist,” a young American of
extraordinary talent, who would be delighted to undertake the job. He
led his trio to this gentleman’s studio, where they saw several
pictures that opened to them the strange gates of mystification. Francie
protested that she didn’t want to be done in THAT style, and Delia
declared that she would as soon have her sister shown up in a magic
lantern. They had had the fortune not to find Mr. Waterlow at home, so
that they were free to express themselves and the pictures were shown
them by his servant. They looked at them as they looked at bonnets and
confections when they went to expensive shops; as if it were a question,
among so many specimens, of the style and colour they would choose.
Mr. Waterlow’s productions took their place for the most part in the
category of those creations known to ladies as frights, and our friends
retired with the lowest opinion of the young American master. George
Flack told them however that they couldn’t get out of it, inasmuch as
he had already written home to the Reverberator that Francie was to sit.
They accepted this somehow as a kind of supernatural sign that she would
have to, for they believed everything they ever heard quoted from a
newspaper. Moreover Mr. Flack explained to them that it would be idiotic
to miss such an opportunity to get something at once precious and cheap;
for it was well known that impressionism was going to be the art of the
future, and Charles Waterlow was a rising impressionist. It was a new
system altogether and the latest improvement in art. They didn’t want
to go back, they wanted to go forward, and he would give them an
article that would fetch five times the money in about five years--which
somehow, as he put it, seemed a very short time, though it would have
seemed immense for anything else. They were not in search of a bargain,
but they allowed themselves to be inoculated with any reason they
thought would be characteristic of informed people; and he even
convinced them after a little that when once they had got used to
impressionism they would never look at anything else. Mr. Waterlow
was the man, among the young, and he had no interest in praising him,
because he was not a personal friend: his reputation was advancing
with strides, and any one with any sense would want to secure something
before the rush.
III
The young ladies consented to return to the Avenue des Villiers;
and this time they found the celebrity of the future. He was
smoking cigarettes with a friend while coffee was served to the two
gentlemen--it was just after luncheon--on a vast divan covered with
scrappy oriental rugs and cushions; it looked, Francie thought, as if
the artist had set up a carpet-shop in a corner. He struck her as very
pleasant; and it may be mentioned without circumlocution that the young
lady ushered in by the vulgar American reporter, whom he didn’t like and
who had already come too often to his studio to pick up “glimpses” (the
painter wondered how in the world he had picked HER up), this charming
candidate for portraiture rose on the spot before Charles Waterlow as
a precious model. She made, it may further be declared, quite the same
impression on the gentleman who was with him and who never took his eyes
off her while her own rested afresh on several finished and unfinished
canvases. This gentleman asked of his friend at the end of five minutes
the favour of an introduction to her; in consequence of which Francie
learned that his name--she thought it singular--was Gaston Probert. Mr.
Probert was a kind-eyed smiling youth who fingered the points of his
moustache; he was represented by Mr. Waterlow as an American, but he
pronounced the American language--so at least it seemed to Francie--as
if it had been French.
After she had quitted the studio with Delia and Mr. Flack--her father on
this occasion not being of the party--the two young men, falling back
on their divan, broke into expressions of aesthetic rapture, gave it to
each other that the girl had qualities--oh but qualities and a charm
of line! They remained there an hour, studying these rare properties
through the smoke of their cigarettes. You would have gathered from
their conversation--though as regards much of it only perhaps with the
aid of a grammar and dictionary--that the young lady had been endowed
with plastic treasures, that is with physical graces, of the highest
order, of which she was evidently quite unconscious. Before this,
however, Mr. Waterlow had come to an understanding with his visitors--it
had been settled that Miss Francina should sit for him at his first hour
of leisure. Unfortunately that hour hovered before him as still rather
distant--he was unable to make a definite appointment. He had sitters
on his hands, he had at least three portraits to finish before going
to Spain. He adverted with bitterness to the journey to Spain--a little
excursion laid out precisely with his friend Probert for the last weeks
of the spring,
|
York
implied was the usual prelude to a German searching party--rather this
soldier most courteously asked to see my wallet. I gave it to him. I
would have given him anything. Our coöperation was perfect. There was
no need for me to bring my exhaustive knowledge of the German language
into play. Talking fluently with my hands, now and then uttering
"_danke_," I tried to assist his search, meanwhile hopelessly looking
about for the courier. I was depending not only upon his fluent German
but also upon his superior knowledge of the situation to help me to
pass serenely through this ordeal. Alas, the crowd hid him.
Suddenly my soldier grunted something. Until now we had been getting
along splendidly and I could not conceal my surprise when he took from
my wallet a handful of letters and stared at them in bewilderment. The
more he stared the more his regard for me seemed to vanish. Although
he could not understand English he could recognize a proper name, for
the letters bore the addresses of decidedly influential men in Germany.
They challenged his suspicion. Thoroughly puzzled he opened the letters
and tried to read them. When he compared my passport with a letter I
saw his face light up. I realized that he had recognized my name in the
contents. Whereupon, greatly relieved, assured now that everything was
all right, I held out my hand for both letters and wallet. Not yet. A
rumble of words and the soldier called one of those busy civilians
with the notebooks.
This person spoke a little English. The letters interested him. Where
had I found them?... My spine began to feel cold. I replied that they
had been given me in New York and remembering that I had the courier
to rely on, I suggested that they have a word with him. It was then
that I heard an excited deluge of words and, glancing over my shoulder,
I observed that the courier was thoroughly flanked and surrounded by
five _Landwehr_ who apparently were much in earnest about something.
Concluding that some cog had slipped I racked my wits to make the best
of what was rapidly becoming a difficult situation.
The soldier having turned me over to the civilian I noticed several
suspicious glances in my direction, and blessed the luck that had
impelled me to go to the American Legation and the German Consulate in
Copenhagen for visés. That the civilian who was taking such an interest
in me belonged to the secret service, I was certain. I appealed to his
sense of discretion.
"Your passport seems all right," he thoughtfully observed, and opened
a little book. "Where are you going?"
I told him to Hamburg but could not tell him where I would stay, for
the excellent reason that not the name of a single Hamburg hotel was
known to me.
"Only for a few days, though," I said, adding hopefully; "after that I
go to Berlin to Hotel Adlon."
As fast as his pencil could move he wrote the address in his book.
"These letters," he said reluctantly, tapping them on his hand, "I
must take now. If everything is all right, they will be sent to you in
Berlin."
"But it is important that I have them," I protested, "they are my
introductions. You cannot tell me how long I may have to wait for them?
You can see from them that I am a responsible person known to your
people."
"I know," he replied, "but they are written in English, and to bring
letters written in English into Germany is forbidden. I am sorry."
He was thus politely relieving me of all my credentials when I happened
to think that in my inner waistcoat pocket lay a letter I had yet
to show them--a communication so important to me that I had kept it
separate from the others. Moreover I remembered it was sealed and that
properly used it might save the day. It was worth a trial.
Realizing that the thing had to be staged I impressively drew the
police spy aside and employing the familiar "stage business" of side
glances and exaggerated caution I slowly took the note--it was a mere
letter of introduction to the Foreign Office--from my waistcoat. If
the soldier's eyes had opened wide at the other addresses, the police
agent's now fairly bulged. Handing him the envelope I pointed to
what was typed in the upper left-hand corner--_Kaiserliche Deutsche
Botschaft, Washington, D. C._--and simply said "_Verstehen sie?_"
He _verstehened_. Being an underling he understood so well that
after a few moments he returned all the letters he had appropriated
and instantly changing his manner, he facilitated the rest of the
inspection. After my baggage was examined by more soldiers (and those
soldiers did their duty, even going through the pockets of clothes in
my trunks) I was told I might go.
"_Gute reise_," the police agent called--"Good journey."
Although treated with all courtesy I was afraid somebody might change
his mind, so hurrying out of the last room of the long wooden shed I
proceeded down the platform to the train at a pace that must have
shown signs of breaking into a run. There in my compartment the
thoughts that came to me were in this order:
There must be reason for such a rigid inspection; no doubt spies must
have been caught recently trying to enter Germany at Warnemunde.
If I hadn't lost the courier in the crowd there would have been plain
sailing.
III--STORY OF THE MYSTERIOUS PAPERS
The minutes passed. It was nearly time for the train to start. Where
was the courier? Presently, rather pale, nervous in speech, but as
reserved and cool as ever he limply entered the compartment and threw
himself on the cushions.
"They took everything," he announced. "All they left me was a pair of
pajamas."
"What! You mean they have your papers?"
"All of them," he smiled. "Likewise a trunk full of letters and a
valise. Oh, well, they'll send them on. They took my address. Gad, they
stripped me through!"
I began laughing. The courier could see no mirth in the situation.
"You," I gasped, "you, who by all rights should have paraded through,
from you they take everything while they let me pass."
"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that they didn't take your
letters?"
"Not one," I grinned.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said.
Locked in the compartment we nervously watched the door, half expecting
that the police spy would come back for us. We could not have been
delayed more than a few minutes, but it seemed hours, before, with
German regard for comfort, the train glided out of the shed. It must
have been trying on my companion's good humor, but the absurdity of
stripping a courier of everything he carried, was irresistible. Perhaps
it was our continued laughter that brought the knock on the door.
Pushing aside the curtains we saw outside--for it was one of the new
German wagons with a passageway running the entire length of one side
of the car--a tall, broad-shouldered, lean man with features and
expression both typical and unmistakable.
"An Englishman!"
We saw him smile and shake his head. I hesitatingly let fall the
curtain and looked at the courier.
"Let him in," he said. "He's got the brand of an English university boy
all over him. We'll have a chat with him. You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind!" In my eagerness I banged back the compartment doors with a
crash that brought down the conductor. I saw my companion hastily
corrupt that official whose murmured "_Bitte schon_" implied an
un-Teutonic disregard for the fact that he had done something
_verboten_ by admitting a second-class passenger into a first-class
coupé; and the stranger entered.
We were gazing upon a strikingly handsome, fair-haired man not yet
thirty. His eyes twinkled when he said that he supposed we were
Americans. His manner and intonation made me stare at him.
"And you?" we finally asked.
"I'm going first to Berlin, then to Petrograd," he said, perhaps
avoiding our question. "Business trip."
We chatted on, the obvious thought obsessing me. Of course the man was
an English spy. But how absurd! If his face did not give him away to
any one who knew--and my word for it, those police spies do know!--he
would be betrayed by his mannerisms. His accent would instantly cry
out the English in him. Of what could Downing Street be thinking? It
was sending this man to certain death. One began to feel sorry for him.
Feeling the intimacy brought by the common experience at Warnemunde, I
presently said:
"You certainly have your nerve with you, traveling in Germany with
_your_ accent."
"Why?" he laughed. "A neutral is safe."
Expecting he would follow this up by saying that he was an American I
looked inquiring and when he sought to turn the subject I asked:
"Neutral? What country?"
"Denmark," he smiled.
"But your accent?" I persisted.
"I do talk a bit English, do I not? I had quite a go at it, though;
lived in London a few years, you know."
Nerve? I marveled at it. Stark foolhardy courage, or did a secret
commission from Downing Street make this the merest commonplace of
duty? Charming company, he hurried along the time with well-told
anecdotes of the Russian capital and Paris, in both of which places he
said he had been since the war began. As we drew near Lübeck, where a
thirty-five minute stop was allowed for dinner in the station, and the
stranger showed no signs of going back to his own compartment, I could
see that the courier was becoming annoyed. Relapsing into silence he
only broke it to reply to the "Dane" in monosyllables; finally, to my
surprise, the courier became downright rude. As the stranger, from the
start, had been extremely courteous, this rudeness surprised me, more
so, as it seemed deliberate. Bludgeoned by obvious hints the stranger
excused himself, and as soon as he was gone my companion leaned towards
me.
"You were surprised at my rudeness," he said, and then in an undertone;
"it was deliberate."
"I saw that. But why?"
"Because," he explained, "seeing we are Americans that fellow wanted to
travel with us all the way through. He must have known that American
company is the best to be seen in over here these days. He might have
made trouble for us."
"Then you think he's English?"
"Think! Why, they must have let him through at Warnemunde for a reason.
He has a Danish passport right enough. I saw it in the inspection
room. But I'll bet you anything there's a police spy in this train,
undoubtedly in the same compartment with him."
One felt uncomfortable. One thought that those police spies must
dislike one even more now.
"That means we may be suspected as being confederates," I gloomily
suggested.
Whether he was getting back for my having guyed him about losing his
papers I do not know, but the courier said we probably were suspected.
Whereupon the book I tried to read became a senseless jumble of words
and our compartment door became vastly more interesting. When would it
open to admit the police spy?... Confound the luck! Everything breaking
wrong.
IV--STORY OF A RIDE FROM LÜBECK TO HAMBURG
But at Lübeck nothing happened--nothing to us. A train load of
wounded had just come in and our hearts jumped at the sight of the
men in the gray-green coats of the firing line, slowly climbing the
long iron steps from the train platforms. Hurrying, we saw them go
clumping down a long, airy waiting room and as they approached
the street their hobbling steps suddenly quickened to the sharper
staccato of the canes upon which they leaned. Hurrying too, we saw
there a vague mass of pallid faces in a dense crowd; some one waved a
flag;--it stuck up conspicuously above that throng;--some one darted
forth;--"_Vater!_"--"_Liebes Mütterchen!_"
Past the burly _Landsturm_, who was trying his utmost to frown his
jolly face into threatening lines that would keep back the crowd, a
woman was scurrying. One of the big gray-green wounded men caught her
in his arm--the other arm hung in a black sling--and she clung to him
as though some one might take him away, and because she was a woman,
she wept in her moment of happiness. Her _Mann_ had come home....
Forgetting the dinner we were to have eaten in the Lübeck station, we
finally heeded a trainman's warning and turned back to our car. There
remained etched in my mind the line of pallid, apprehensive faces, the
tiny waving flags, the little woman and the big man. It was my first
sight of war.
From Lübeck to Hamburg the ride was uneventful. The hour was not late
and beyond remarking that the towns through which we passed were
not as brilliantly lighted as usual, the courier could from the car
window observe no difference between the Germany of peace and of war.
Here and there we noticed bridges and trestles patroled by _Landwehr_
and outside our compartment we read the handbill requesting every
passenger to aid the government in preventing spies throwing explosives
from the car windows. From the conductor we learned that there had
been such attempts to delay the passage of troop trains. Whereupon
we congratulated ourselves upon buying the conductor, as we had the
compartment to ourselves. One thought of what would have happened had
there been an excitable German in with us and while the train was
crossing a bridge, we had innocently opened a window for air!
It was almost ten when the close, clustered lights of Hamburg closed in
against the trackside and we caught our first glimpse of the swarming
_Bahnhof_. Soldiers everywhere. The blue of the Reservists, the
gray-green of the Regulars--a shifting tide of color swept the length
of the long platforms, rising against the black slopes of countless
staircases, overrunning the vast halls above, increasing, as car after
car emptied its load. And then, as at Lübeck, we saw white bandages
coming down under cloth-covered helmets and caps, or arms slung in
black slings; the slightly wounded were coming in from the western
front.
All this time we had forgotten the Englishman, and it was with a start
that we recalled him.
"If he spots us," advised my companion, "we've got to hand him the cold
shoulder. Mark my words, he'll try to trail along to the same hotel and
stick like a leech."
Again he was right. At the baggage room the Englishman overtook us,
suggesting that we make a party of it--he knew a gay café--first going
to the hotel. He suggested the _Atlantic_. Bluntly he was informed we
were visiting friends, but nothing would do then but we must agree to
meet him in, say, an hour. Not until he found it an impossibility did
he give us up and finally, with marvelous good nature, he said good
night. The last I saw of him was his broad back disappearing through a
door into a street.
The courier nudged me.
"Quick," he whispered, "look,--the man going out the next door."
Before I could turn I knew whom he meant. I saw only the man's profile
before he, too, disappeared into the street; but it was a face
difficult to forget, for it had been close to me at Warnemunde; it was
the face of the police spy.
"I told you they purposely let him get through," continued my friend.
"That police fellow must have come down on the train from Warnemunde. I
tell you it's best not to pick up with any one these days. Suppose we
had fallen for that Englishman and gone to a café with him to-night--a
nice mess!"
It was in a restaurant a few hours later that I saw my first Iron
Cross, black against a gray-green coat and dangling from a button.
In _Bieber's_, a typical better class café of the new German type,
luxurious with its marble walls and floors, and with little soft rugs
underfoot and colored wicker tables and chairs, one felt the new spirit
of this miracle of nations. On the broad landing of a wide marble
staircase an orchestra played soldier songs and above the musicians,
looking down on his people, loomed a bust of Wilhelm II, _Von Gottes
Gnaden, Kaiser von Deutschland_. About him, between the flags of
Austria-Hungary and Turkey, blazed the black, white, and red, and
there where all might read, hung the proclamation of August to the
German people. We had read it through to the last line: "_Forward with
God who will be with us as he was with our Fathers!_"--when we heard
an excited inflection in the murmurings from the many tables--"_Das
Eiserne Kreuz!_" And we saw the officer from whose coat dangled the
black maltese cross, outlined in silver. His cheeks flushed, proud
of a limping, shot-riddled leg, proud of his Emperor's decoration,
but prouder still that he was a German; he must have forgotten all of
battle and suffering during that brief walk between the tables. Cheers
rang out, then a song, and when finally the place quieted everybody
stared at that little cross of black as though held by some hypnotic
power.
So! We were Americans, he said when we finally were presented. That
was good. We--that is--I had come to write of the war as seen from the
German side. Good, _sehr gut_! He had heard the Allies, especially the
English,--_Verfluchte Englanderschwein!_--were telling many lies in the
American newspapers. How could any intelligent man believe them?
In his zeal for the German cause his Iron Cross, his one shattered leg,
the consciousness that he was a hero, all were forgotten. Of course
I wanted to hear his story--the story of that little piece of metal
hanging from the black and white ribbon on his coat--but tenaciously he
refused. That surprised me until I knew Prussian officers.
So we left the man with the Iron Cross, marveling not at his modesty
but that it embodied the spirit of the German army; whereas I thought
I knew that spirit. But not until the next night, when I left Hamburg
behind, where every one was pretending to be busy and the nursemaids
and visitors were still tossing tiny fish to the wintering gulls in
the upper lake; not until the train was bringing me to Berlin did I
understand what it meant. At the stations I went out and walked with
the passengers and watched the crowds; I talked with a big business man
of Hamburg--bound for Berlin because he had nothing to do in Hamburg;
then it was I faintly began to grasp the tremendous emotional upheaval
rumbling in every Germanic soul.
V--STORY OF THE SOLDIERS IN BERLIN
My first impression of Berlin was the long cement platform gliding by,
a dazzling brilliance of great arc lamps and a rumbling chorus of song.
Pulling down the compartment window I caught the words "_Wir kämpfen_
_Mann für Mann, für Kaiser and Reich!_" And leaning out I could see
down at the other end of the Friederichstrasse Station a regiment
going to the front.
Flowers bloomed from the long black tubes from which lead was soon to
pour; wreaths and garlands hung from cloth-covered helmets; cartridge
belts and knapsacks were festooned with ferns. The soldiers were
all smoking; cigars and cigarettes had been showered upon them with
prodigal hand. Most of them held their guns in one hand and packages of
delicacies in the other; and they were climbing into the compartments
or hanging out of the windows singing, always singing, in the terrific
German way. Later I was to learn that they went into battle with the
"_Wacht am Rhein_" on their lips and a wonderful trust in God in their
hearts.
I felt that trust now. I saw it in the confident face of the young
private who hung far out of the compartment in order to hold his wife's
hand. It was not the way a conscript looks. This soldier's blue eyes
sparkled as with a holy cause, and as I watched this man and wife I
marveled at their sunny cheer. I saw that each was wonderfully proud
of the other and that this farewell was but an incident in the sudden
complexity of their lives. The Fatherland had been attacked: her man
must be a hero. It was all so easy, so brimming with confidence. Of
course he would come back to her.... You believed in the Infinite
ordering of things that he would.
Walking on down the platform I saw another young man. They were all
young, strapping fellows in their new uniforms of field gray. He was
standing beside the train; he seemed to want to put off entering the
car until the last minute. He was holding a bundle of something white
in his arms, something that he hugged to his face and kissed, while the
woman in the cheap furs wept, and I wondered if it was because of the
baby she cried, while that other childless young wife had smiled.
Back in the crowd I saw a little woman with white hair; she was too
feeble to push her way near the train. She was dabbing her eyes and
waving to a big, mustached man who filled a compartment door and who
shouted jokes to her. And almost before they all could realize it, the
train was slipping down the tracks; the car windows filled with singing
men, the long gray platform suddenly shuffling to the patter of men's
feet, as though they would all run after the train as far as they could
go. But the last car slipped away and the last waving hand fell weakly
against a woman's side. They seemed suddenly old, even the young wife,
as they slowly walked away. Theirs was not the easiest part to play in
the days of awful waiting while the young blood of the nation poured
out to turn a hostile country red.
I thought I had caught the German spirit at Lübeck and at the café in
Hamburg when the hero of the Iron Cross had declined to tell me his
tale; but this sensation that had come with my setting foot on the
Berlin station--this was something different. Fifteen hundred men going
off to what?--God only knows!--fifteen hundred virile types of this
nation of virility; and they had laughed and they had sung, and they
had kissed their wives and brothers and babies as though these helpless
ones should only be proud that their little household was helping their
Fatherland and their Emperor. Self? It was utterly submerged. On that
station platform I realized that there is but one self in all Germany
to-day and that is the soul of the nation. Nothing else matters; a
sacrifice is commonplace. Wonderful? Yes. But then we Americans fought
that way at Lexington; any nation can fight that way when it is a thing
of the heart; and this war is all of the heart in Germany. As we walked
through the station gates I understood why three million Socialists
who had fought their Emperor in and out of the Reichstag, suddenly
rallied to his side, agreeing "I know no parties, only Germans." I felt
as I thought of the young faces of the soldiers, cheerfully starting
down into the unknown hell of war, that undoubtedly among their number
were Socialists. In this national crisis partisan allegiance counted
for nothing, they had ceased dealing with the Fatherland in terms of
the mind and gave to it only the heart.
Even in Berlin I realized that war stalks down strange by-paths.
It forever makes one feel the incongruous. It disorders life in a
monstrous way. I have seen it in an instant make pictures that the
greatest artist would have given his life to have done. It likes to
deal in contrasts; it is jolting....
With General von Loebell I walked across the Doeberitz camp, which is
near Berlin. At Doeberitz new troops were being drilled for the front.
We walked towards a dense grove of pines above which loomed the sky,
threateningly gray. Between the trees I saw the flash of yellow flags;
a signal squad was drilling. Skirting the edge of the woods we came to
a huge, cleared indentation where twenty dejected English prisoners
were leveling the field for a parade ground. On the left I saw an
opening in the trees; a wagon trail wound away between the pines. And
then above the rattling of the prisoners' rakes I heard the distant
strains of a marching song that brought a lump to my throat. Back there
in the woods somewhere, some one had started a song; and countless
voices took up the chorus; and through the trees I saw a moving line of
gray-green and down the road tramped a company of soldiers. They were
all singing and their boyish voices blended with forceful beauty. "In
the Heimat! In the Heimat!" It was the favorite medley of the German
army.
The prisoners stopped work; unconsciously some of those dispirited
figures in British khaki stiffened. And issuing from the woods in
squads of fours, all singing, tramped the young German reserves,
swinging along not fifteen feet from the prison gang in olive drab--"In
the Heimat!" And out across the Doeberitz plains they swung, big and
snappy.
"They're ready," remarked General von Loebell. "They've just received
their field uniforms."
And then there tramped out of the woods another company, and another,
two whole regiments, the last thundering "_Die Wacht am Rhein_," and
we went near enough to see the pride in their faces, the excitement in
their eyes; near enough to see the Englishmen, young lads, too, who
gazed after the swinging column with a soldier's understanding, but
being prisoners and not allowed to talk, they gave no expression to
their emotions and began to scrape their rakes over the hard ground....
VI--STORY OF "THE HALL OF AWFUL DOUBT"
I stood on the Dorotheenstrasse looking up at the old red brick
building which before the second of August in this year of the world
war was the War Academy. I had heard that when tourists come to Berlin
they like to watch the gay uniformed officers ascending and descending
the long flights of gray steps; for there the cleverest of German
military youths are schooled for the General Staff. Like the tourists,
I stood across the street to-day and watched the old building and the
people ascending or descending the long flights of gray steps. Only
I saw civilians, men alone and in groups, women with shawls wrapped
around their heads, women with yellow topped boots, whose motors
waited beside the curb, and children, clinging to the hands of women,
all entering or leaving by the gray gate; some of the faces were happy
and others were wet with tears, and still others stumbled along with
heavy steps. For this old building on Dorotheenstrasse is no longer the
War Academy; it is a place where day after day hundreds assemble to
learn the fate of husband, kin or lover. For inside the gray gate sits
the Information Bureau of the War Ministry, ready to tell the truth
about every soldier in the German army! I, too, went to learn the truth.
I climbed a creaking staircase and went down a creaking hall. I met
the Count von Schwerin, who is in charge. I found myself in a big,
high-ceilinged room the walls of which were hung with heroic portraits
of military dignitaries. My first impression was of a wide arc of desks
that circling from wall to wall seemed to be a barrier between a number
of gentle-spoken, elderly gentlemen and a vague mass of people that
pressed forward. The anxious faces of all these people reminded me of
another crowd that I had seen--the crowd outside the White Star offices
in New York when the _Titanic_ went down. And I became conscious that
the decorations of this room which, the Count was explaining, was the
Assembly Hall of the War Academy, were singularly appropriate--the
pillars and walls of gray marble, oppressively conveying a sense of
coldness, insistent cold, like a tomb, and all around you the subtle
presence of death, the death of hopes. It was the Hall of Awful Doubt.
And as I walked behind the circle of desks I learned that these men of
tact and sympathy, too old for active service, were doing their part
in the war by helping to soften with kindly offices the blow of fate.
I stood behind them for some few moments and watched, although I felt
like one trespassing upon the privacy of grief. I saw in a segment of
the line a fat, plain-looking woman, with a greasy child clinging to
her dress, a white-haired man with a black muffler wrapped around his
neck, a veiled woman, who from time to time begged one of the elderly
clerks to hurry the news of her husband, and then a wisp of a girl in a
cheap, rose-colored coat, on whose cheeks two dabs of rouge burned like
coals.
Soldiers from the Berlin garrison were used there as runners. At the
bidding of the gentle old men they hastened off with the inquiry to one
of the many filing rooms and returned with the news. This day there was
a new soldier on duty; he was new to the Hall of Awful Doubt.
"I cannot imagine what is keeping him so long," I heard an elderly
clerk tell the woman with the veil. "He'll come any minute.... There he
is now. Excuse me, please."
And the elderly clerk hurried to meet the soldier, wanting to intercept
the news, if it were bad, and break it gently. But as he caught sight
of the clerk I saw the soldier click his heels and, as if he were
delivering a message to an officer, his voice boomed out: "_Tot!_"...
Dead!
And the woman with the veil gave a little gasp, a long, low moan,
and they carried her to another room; and as I left the gray room,
with the drawn, anxious faces pushing forward for their turns at the
black-covered desks, I realized the heart-rending sacrifice of the
women of France, Belgium, Russia, England, Servia, and Austria, who,
like these German mothers, wives, sweethearts, had been stricken down
in the moment of hope.
VII--STORY OF A NIGHT IN BERLIN
That night I went to the Jägerstrasse, to Maxim's. The place is
everything the name suggests; one of those Berlin cafés that open when
the theaters are coming out and close when the last girl has smiled
and gone off with the last man. I sat in a white and gold room with a
cynical German surgeon, listening to his comments.
"It is the best in town now," he explained. "All the Palais de Danse
girls come here. Don't be in a hurry. I know what you want for your
articles. You'll see it soon."
Maxim's, like most places of the sort, was methodically banal. But
one by one officers strolled in and soon a piano struck up the notes
of a patriotic song. When the music began the girls left the little
tables where they had been waiting for some man to smile, and swarmed
around the piano, singing one martial song upon another, while officers
applauded, drank their healths, and asked them to sing again.
Time passed and the girls sang on, flushed and savage as the music
crashed to the cadenzas of war. What were the real emotions of these
subjects of Germany; had the war genuine thrills for them? I had talked
with decent women of all classes about the war; what of the women whose
hectic lives had destroyed real values?
"Get one of those girls over here," I told the surgeon, "and ask her
what she thinks of the war."
"Do you really mean it?" he said with a cynical smile.
"Surely. This singing interests me. I wonder what's back of it?"
He called one of them. "Why not sing?" Hilda said with a shrug. "What
else? There are few men here now and there are fewer every night. What
do I think of this war? My officer's gone to the front without leaving
me enough to keep up the apartment. _Krieg? Krieg ist schrecklich!_ War
is terrible!"
My German friend was laughing.
"War?" he smiled. "And you thought it was going to change that kind."
But I was thinking of the woman with the veil whom I had seen in the
Hall of Awful Doubt; and outside the night air felt cool and clean....
But my symbol of Berlin is not these things--not bustling streets
filled with motors, swarming with able-bodied men whom apparently the
army did not yet need. Its summation is best expressed by the varied
sights and emotions of an afternoon in mid-December.
Lodz has fallen; again Hindenburg has swept back the Russian hordes.
Black-shawled women call the extras. Berlin rises out of its calmness
and goes mad. Magically the cafés fill.... I am walking down a side
street. I see people swarming toward a faded yellow brick church. They
seem fired with a zealot's praise. I go in after them and see them
fall on their knees.... They are thanking Him for the Russian rout....
Wondering I go out. I come to another church. Its aisles are black with
bowed backs; the murmur of prayer drones like bees; a robed minister is
intoning:
"Oh, Almighty Father, we thank Thee that Thou art with us in our fight
for the right; we thank Thee that----"
It is very quiet in there. War seems a thing incredibly far away. The
sincerity of these people grips your heart. I feel as I never felt
in church before. Something mysteriously big and reverent stirs all
around.... Then outside in the street drums rattle, feet thump. A
regiment is going to the front! I hurry to see it go by, but back in
the church the bowed forms pray on.
(This American observer now leaves Berlin to go to the battle-front
with the German armies. He continues to narrate his experiences in some
of the world's greatest battles. He tells the first complete account of
the great battle of Augustowo Wald in which the Russian army of 240,000
men was annihilated, and how he was a guest of honor at the "Feast of
Victory.")
FOOTNOTE:
[1] All numerals throughout this volume relate to the stories herein
related--not to chapters in the original book.
THE "EMDEN"--AN EPIC OF THE GREAT WAR
_Experiences Aboard a Gallant Little Fighting Ship_
_By Kapitanleutnant Hellmuth Von Mücke, of His Emperor's Ship, The
"Emden"--Translated by Helene S. White_
The tale of the _Emden_ is one of the greatest sea stories in all
history. Fighting its way through the China Seas, into the Bay of
Bengal, and across the Indian Ocean, knowing that sooner or later it
must face death, the crew of this gallant ship defeated and captured
twenty-four enemy ships, destroying cargoes and property valued at
$10,000,000--in two months roving the high seas. The romantic voyage
began on September 10th and ended on November 9th, 1914. It was a
crew of "jolly good fellows" that sailed under Commander von Müller;
their adventures won the admiration not only of their enemies but of
the whole world. An authentic story of this epic of the seas is told
by Lieutenant Captain von Mücke, of the _Emden_ in a volume relating
its exploits. He has also written a book bearing on the adventures
of the landing squad in "The Ayesha." There is nothing more
sensationally adventuresome in fiction than these voyages. The most
improbable romance is outdone by the exploits of the gallant German
seamen. Commander von Müller of the _Emden_ is a prisoner of war in
England at the time that these accounts are written. Selections are
here given from the volume on the _Emden_, with permission of the
publishers, _Ritter and Company_, Copyright 1917.
[2] I--STORY OF ADVENTURES ON THE YELLOW SEA
"All hands aft," shrilled the whistles of the boatswain's mate through
all the ship's decks. Quickly all the officers and crew assembled on
the after deck. Everyone knew what
|
eping willow confessed,
aspired to be an "ornamental water," declined at last to ducks. And
there was access to the church, and the key of the church tower, and one
went across the corner of the lawn, and by a little iron gate into the
churchyard to decipher inscriptions, as if the tombs of all
Buryhamstreet were no more than a part of the accommodation relinquished
by the vicar's household.
Marjorie was hurried over the chief points of all this at a breakneck
pace by Sydney and Rom, and when Sydney was called away to the horrors
of practice--for Sydney in spite of considerable reluctance was destined
by her father to be "the musical one"--Rom developed a copious
affection, due apparently to some occult æsthetic influence in
Marjorie's silvery-grey and green, and led her into the unlocked vestry,
and there prayed in a whisper that she might be given "one good hug,
just _one_"--and so they came out with their arms about each other very
affectionately to visit the lagoon again. And then Rom remembered that
Marjorie hadn't seen either the walnut-tree in the orchard, or the hen
with nine chicks....
Somewhere among all these interests came tea and Mrs. Pope.
Mrs. Pope kissed her daughter with an air of having really wanted to
kiss her half an hour ago, but of having been distracted since. She was
a fine-featured, anxious-looking little woman, with a close resemblance
to all her children, in spite of the fact that they were markedly
dissimilar one to the other, except only that they took their ruddy
colourings from their father. She was dressed in a neat blue dress that
had perhaps been hurriedly chosen, and her method of doing her hair was
a manifest compromise between duty and pleasure. She embarked at once
upon an exposition of the bedroom arrangements, which evidently involved
difficult issues. Marjorie was to share a room with Daffy--that was the
gist of it--as the only other available apartment, originally promised
to Marjorie, had been secured by Mr. Pope for what he called his
"matutinal ablutions, _videlicet_ tub."
"Then, when your Aunt Plessington comes, you won't have to move," said
Mrs. Pope with an air of a special concession. "Your father's looking
forward to seeing you, but he mustn't be disturbed just yet. He's in the
vicar's study. He's had his tea in there. He's writing a letter to the
_Times_ answering something they said in a leader, and also a private
note calling attention to their delay in printing his previous
communication, and he wants to be delicately ironical without being in
any way offensive. He wants to hint without actually threatening that
very probably he will go over to the _Spectator_ altogether if they do
not become more attentive. The _Times_ used to print his letters
punctually, but latterly these automobile people seem to have got hold
of it.... He has the window on the lawn open, so that I think, perhaps,
we'd better not stay out here--for fear our voices might disturb him."
"Better get right round the other side of the church," said Daffy.
"He'd hear far less of us if we went indoors," said Mrs. Pope.
§ 4
The vicarage seemed tight packed with human interest for Marjorie and
her mother and sisters. Going over houses is one of the amusements
proper to her sex, and she and all three sisters and her mother, as soon
as they had finished an inaudible tea, went to see the bedroom she was
to share with Daffy, and then examined, carefully and in order, the
furniture and decoration of the other bedrooms, went through the rooms
downstairs, always excepting and avoiding very carefully and closing as
many doors as possible on, and hushing their voices whenever they
approached the study in which her father was being delicately ironical
without being offensive to the _Times_. None of them had seen any of the
vicarage people at all--Mr. Pope had come on a bicycle and managed all
the negotiations--and it was curious to speculate about the individuals
whose personalities pervaded the worn and faded furnishings of the
place.
The Popes' keen-eyed inspection came at times, I think, dangerously near
prying. The ideals of decoration and interests of the vanished family
were so absolutely dissimilar to the London standards as to arouse a
sort of astonished wonder in their minds. Some of the things they
decided were perfectly hideous, some quaint, some were simply and weakly
silly. Everything was different from Hartstone Square. Daffy was perhaps
more inclined to contempt, and Mrs. Pope to refined amusement and witty
appreciation than Marjorie. Marjorie felt there was something in these
people that she didn't begin to understand, she needed some missing
clue that would unlock the secret of their confused peculiarity. She was
one of those people who have an almost instinctive turn for decoration
in costume and furniture; she had already had a taste of how to do
things in arranging her rooms at Bennett College, Oxbridge, where also
she was in great demand among the richer girls as an adviser. She knew
what it was to try and fail as well as to try and succeed, and these
people, she felt, hadn't tried for anything she comprehended. She
couldn't quite see why it was that there was at the same time an attempt
at ornament and a disregard of beauty, she couldn't quite do as her
mother did and dismiss it as an absurdity and have done with it. She
couldn't understand, too, why everything should be as if it were faded
and weakened from something originally bright and clear.
All the rooms were thick with queer little objects that indicated a
quite beaver-like industry in the production of "work." There were
embroidered covers for nearly every article on the wash-hand-stand, and
mats of wool and crochet wherever anything stood on anything; there were
"tidies" everywhere, and odd little brackets covered with gilded and
varnished fir cones and bearing framed photographs and little jars and
all sorts of colourless, dusty little objects, and everywhere on the
walls tacks sustained crossed fans with badly painted flowers or
transfer pictures. There was a jar on the bedroom mantel covered with
varnished postage stamps and containing grey-haired dried grasses. There
seemed to be a moral element in all this, for in the room Sydney shared
with Rom there was a decorative piece of lettering which declared that--
"Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose."
There were a great number of texts that set Marjorie's mind stirring
dimly with intimations of a missed significance. Over her own bed,
within the lattice of an Oxford frame, was the photograph of a picture
of an extremely composed young woman in a trailing robe, clinging to the
Rock of Ages in the midst of histrionically aggressive waves, and she
had a feeling, rather than a thought, that perhaps for all the oddity of
the presentation it did convey something acutely desirable, that she
herself had had moods when she would have found something very
comforting in just such an impassioned grip. And on a framed,
floriferous card, these incomprehensible words:
|================================|
|THY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR ME. |
|================================|
seemed to be saying something to her tantalizingly just outside her
range of apprehension.
Did all these things light up somehow to those dispossessed people--from
some angle she didn't attain? Were they living and moving realities when
those others were at home again?
The drawing-room had no texts; it was altogether more pretentious and
less haunted by the faint and faded flavour of religion that pervaded
the bedrooms. It had, however, evidences of travel in Switzerland and
the Mediterranean. There was a piano in black and gold, a little out of
tune, and surmounted by a Benares brass jar, enveloping a scarlet
geranium in a pot. There was a Japanese screen of gold wrought upon
black, that screened nothing. There was a framed chromo-lithograph of
Jerusalem hot in the sunset, and another of Jerusalem cold under a
sub-tropical moon, and there were gourds, roses of Jericho, sandalwood
rosaries and kindred trash from the Holy Land in no little profusion
upon a what-not. Such books as the room had contained had been arranged
as symmetrically as possible about a large, pink-shaded lamp upon the
claret-coloured cloth of a round table, and were to be replaced, Mrs.
Pope said, at their departure. At present they were piled on a
side-table. The girls had been through them all, and were ready with the
choicer morsels for Marjorie's amusement. There was "Black Beauty," the
sympathetic story of a soundly Anglican horse, and a large Bible
extra-illustrated with photographs of every well-known scriptural
picture from Michael Angelo to Doré, and a book of injunctions to young
ladies upon their behaviour and deportment that Rom and Sydney found
particularly entertaining. Marjorie discovered that Sydney had picked up
a new favourite phrase. "I'm afraid we're all dreadfully cynical," said
Sydney, several times.
A more advanced note was struck by a copy of "Aurora Leigh," richly
underlined in pencil, but with exclamation marks at some of the bolder
passages....
And presently, still avoiding the open study window very elaborately,
this little group of twentieth century people went again into the
church--the church whose foundations were laid in A.D. 912--foundations
of rubble and cement that included flat Roman bricks from a still
remoter basilica. Their voices dropped instinctively, as they came into
its shaded quiet from the exterior sunshine. Marjorie went a little
apart and sat in a pew that gave her a glimpse of the one good
stained-glass window. Rom followed her, and perceiving her mood to be
restful, sat a yard away. Syd began a whispered dispute with her mother
whether it wasn't possible to try the organ, and whether Theodore might
not be bribed to blow. Daffy discovered relics of a lepers' squint and a
holy-water stoup, and then went to scrutinize the lettering of the ten
commandments of the Mosaic law that shone black and red on gold on
either side of the I.H.S. monogram behind the white-clothed communion
table that had once been the altar. Upon a notice board hung about the
waist of the portly pulpit were the numbers of hymns that had been sung
three days ago. The sound Protestantism of the vicar had banished
superfluous crosses from the building; the Bible reposed upon the wings
of a great brass eagle; shining blue and crimson in the window, Saint
Christopher carried his Lord. What a harmonized synthesis of conflicts a
country church presents! What invisible mysteries of filiation spread
between these ancient ornaments and symbols and the new young minds from
the whirlpool of the town that looked upon them now with such bright,
keen eyes, wondering a little, feeling a little, missing so much?
It was all so very cool and quiet now--with something of the immobile
serenity of death.
§ 5
When Mr. Pope had finished his letter to the _Times_, he got out of the
window of the study, treading on a flower-bed as he did so--he was the
sort of man who treads on flower-beds--partly with the purpose of
reading his composition aloud to as many members of his family as he
could assemble for the purpose, and so giving them a chance of
appreciating the nuances of his irony more fully than if they saw it
just in cold print without the advantage of his intonation, and partly
with the belated idea of welcoming Marjorie. The law presented a rather
discouraging desolation. Then he became aware that the church tower
frothed with his daughters. In view of his need of an audience, he
decided after a brief doubt that their presence there was
unobjectionable, and waved his MS. amiably. Marjorie flapped a
handkerchief in reply....
The subsequent hour was just the sort of hour that gave Mr. Pope an
almost meteorological importance to his family. He began with an
amiability that had no fault, except, perhaps, that it was a little
forced after the epistolary strain in the study, and his welcome to
Marjorie was more than cordial. "Well, little Madge-cat!" he said,
giving her an affectionate but sound and heavy thump on the left
shoulder-blade, "got a kiss for the old daddy?"
Marjorie submitted a cheek.
"That's right," said Mr. Pope; "and now I just want you all to advise
me----"
He led the way to a group of wicker garden chairs. "You're coming,
mummy?" he said, and seated himself comfortably and drew out a spectacle
case, while his family grouped itself dutifully. It made a charming
little picture of a Man and his Womankind. "I don't often flatter
myself," he said, "but this time I think I've been neat--neat's the word
for it."
He cleared his throat, put on his spectacles, and emitted a long, flat
preliminary note, rather like the sound of a child's trumpet. "Er--'Dear
Sir!'"
"Rom," said Mrs. Pope, "don't creak your chair."
"It's Daffy, mother," said Rom.
"Oh, _Rom!_" said Daffy.
Mr. Pope paused, and looked with a warning eye over his left
spectacle-glass at Rom.
"Don't creak your chair, Rom," he said, "when your mother tells you."
"I was _not_ creaking my chair," said Rom.
"I heard it," said Mr. Pope, suavely.
"It was Daffy."
"Your mother does not think so," said Mr. Pope.
"Oh, all right! I'll sit on the ground," said Rom, crimson to the roots
of her hair.
"Me too," said Daffy. "I'd rather."
Mr. Pope watched the transfer gravely. Then he readjusted his glasses,
cleared his throat again, trumpeted, and began. "Er--'Dear Sir,'"
"Oughtn't it to be simply 'Sir,' father, for an editor?" said Marjorie.
"Perhaps I didn't explain, Marjorie," said her father, with the calm of
great self-restraint, and dabbing his left hand on the manuscript in his
right, "that this is a _private_ letter--a private letter."
"I didn't understand," said Marjorie.
"It would have been evident as I went on," said Mr. Pope, and prepared
to read again.
This time he was allowed to proceed, but the interruptions had ruffled
him, and the gentle stresses that should have lifted the subtleties of
his irony into prominence missed the words, and he had to go back and do
his sentences again. Then Rom suddenly, horribly, uncontrollably, was
seized with hiccups. At the second hiccup Mr. Pope paused, and looked
very hard at his daughter with magnified eyes; as he was about to
resume, the third burst its way through the unhappy child's utmost
effort.
Mr. Pope rose with an awful resignation. "That's enough," he said. He
regarded the pseudo-twin vindictively. "You haven't the self-control of
a child of six," he said. Then very touchingly to Mrs. Pope: "Mummy,
shall we try a game of tennis with the New Generation?"
"Can't you read it after supper?" asked Mrs. Pope.
"It must go by the eight o'clock post," said Mr. Pope, putting the
masterpiece into his breast pocket, the little masterpiece that would
now perhaps never be read aloud to any human being. "Daffy, dear, do you
mind going in for the racquets and balls?"
The social atmosphere was now sultry, and overcast, and Mr. Pope's
decision to spend the interval before Daffy returned in seeing whether
he couldn't do something to the net, which was certainly very
unsatisfactory, did not improve matters. Then, unhappily, Marjorie, who
had got rather keen upon tennis at the Carmels', claimed her father's
first two services as faults, contrary to the etiquette of the family.
It happened that Mr. Pope had a really very good, hard, difficult,
smart-looking serve, whose only defect was that it always went either
too far or else into the net, and so a feeling had been fostered and
established by his wife that, on the whole, it was advisable to regard
the former variety as a legitimate extension of a father's authority.
Naturally, therefore, Mr. Pope was nettled at Marjorie's ruling, and his
irritation increased when his next two services to Daffy perished in the
net. ("Damn that net! Puts one's eye out.") Then Marjorie gave him an
unexpected soft return which he somehow muffed, and then Daffy just
dropped a return over the top of the net. (Love-game.) It was then
Marjorie's turn to serve, which she did with a new twist acquired from
the eldest Carmel boy that struck Mr. Pope as un-English. "Go on," he
said concisely. "Fifteen love."
She was gentle with her mother and they got their first rally, and when
it was over Mr. Pope had to explain to Marjorie that if she returned
right up into his corner of the court he would have to run backwards
very fast and might fall over down the silly slope at that end. She
would have to consider him and the court. One didn't get everything out
of a game by playing merely to win. She said "All right, Daddy," rather
off-handedly, and immediately served to him again, and he, taken a
little unawares, hit the ball with the edge of his racquet and sent it
out, and then he changed racquets with Daffy--it seemed he had known all
along she had taken his, but he had preferred to say nothing--uttered a
word of advice to his wife just on her stroke, and she, failing to grasp
his intention as quickly as she ought to have done, left the score
forty-fifteen. He felt better when he returned Marjorie's serve, and
then before she could control herself she repeated her new unpleasant
trick of playing into the corner again, whereupon, leaping back with an
agility that would have shamed many a younger man, Mr. Pope came upon
disaster. He went spinning down the treacherous slope behind, twisted
his ankle painfully and collapsed against the iron railings of the
shrubbery. It was too much, and he lost control of himself. His
daughters had one instant's glimpse of the linguistic possibilities of a
strong man's agony. "I told her," he went on as if he had said nothing.
"_Tennis!_"
For a second perhaps he seemed to hesitate upon a course of action. Then
as if by a great effort he took his coat from the net post and addressed
himself houseward, incarnate Grand Dudgeon--limping.
"Had enough of it, Mummy," he said, and added some happily inaudible
comment on Marjorie's new style of play.
The evening's exercise was at an end.
The three ladies regarded one another in silence for some moments.
"I will take in the racquets, dear," said Mrs. Pope.
"I think the other ball is at your end," said Daffy....
The apparatus put away, Marjorie and her sister strolled thoughtfully
away from the house.
"There's croquet here too," said Daffy. "We've not had the things out
yet!"....
"He'll play, I suppose."
"He wants to play."...
"Of course," said Marjorie after a long pause, "there's no _reasoning_
with Dad!"
§ 6
Character is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, but
some Englishmen have it to excess. Mr. Pope had.
He was one of that large and representative class which imparts a
dignity to national commerce by inheriting big businesses from its
ancestors. He was a coach-builder by birth, and a gentleman by education
and training. He had been to City Merchant's and Cambridge.
Throughout the earlier half of the nineteenth century the Popes had been
the princes of the coach-building world. Mr. Pope's great-grandfather
had been a North London wheelwright of conspicuous dexterity and
integrity, who had founded the family business; his son, Mr. Pope's
grandfather, had made that business the occupation of his life and
brought it to the pinnacle of pre-eminence; his son, who was Marjorie's
grandfather, had displayed a lesser enthusiasm, left the house at the
works for a home ten miles away and sent a second son into the Church.
It was in the days of the third Pope that the business ceased to expand,
and began to suffer severely from the competition of an enterprising
person who had originally supplied the firm with varnish, gradually
picked up the trade in most other materials and accessories needed in
coach-building, and passed on by almost imperceptible stages to
delivering the article complete--dispensing at last altogether with the
intervention of Pope and Son--to the customer. Marjorie's father had
succeeded in the fulness of time to the inheritance this insurgent had
damaged.
Mr. Pope was a man of firm and resentful temper, with an admiration for
Cato, Brutus, Cincinnatus, Cromwell, Washington, and the sterner heroes
generally, and by nature a little ill-used and offended at things. He
suffered from indigestion and extreme irritability. He found himself in
control of a business where more flexible virtues were needed. The Popes
based their fame on a heavy, proud type of vehicle, which the increasing
luxury and triviality of the age tended to replace by lighter forms of
carriage, carriages with diminutive and apologetic names. As these
lighter forms were not only lighter but less expensive, Mr. Pope with a
pathetic confidence in the loyalty of the better class of West End
customer, determined to "make a stand" against them. He was the sort of
man to whom making a stand is in itself a sombre joy. If he had had to
choose his pose for a portrait, he would certainly have decided to have
one foot advanced, the other planted like a British oak behind, the arms
folded and the brows corrugated,--making a stand.
Unhappily the stars in their courses and the general improvement of
roads throughout the country fought against him. The lighter carriages,
and especially the lighter carriages of that varnish-selling firm, which
was now absorbing businesses right and left, prevailed over Mr. Pope's
resistance. For crossing a mountain pass or fording a river, for driving
over the scene of a recent earthquake or following a retreating army,
for being run away with by frantic horses or crushing a personal enemy,
there can be no doubt the Pope carriages remained to the very last the
best possible ones and fully worth the inflexible price demanded.
Unhappily all carriages in a civilization essentially decadent are not
subjected to these tests, and the manufactures of his rivals were not
only much cheaper, but had a sort of meretricious smartness, a
disingenuous elasticity, above all a levity, hateful indeed to the
spirit of Mr. Pope yet attractive to the wanton customer. Business
dwindled. Nevertheless the habitual element in the good class customer
did keep things going, albeit on a shrinking scale, until Mr. Pope came
to the unfortunate decision that he would make a stand against
automobiles. He regarded them as an intrusive nuisance which had to be
seen only to be disowned by the landed gentry of England. Rather than
build a car he said he would go out of business. He went out of
business. Within five years of this determination he sold out the name,
good will, and other vestiges of his concern to a mysterious buyer who
turned out to be no more than an agent for these persistently expanding
varnish makers, and he retired with a genuine grievance upon the family
accumulations--chiefly in Consols and Home Railways.
He refused however to regard his defeat as final, put great faith in the
approaching exhaustion of the petrol supply, and talked in a manner that
should have made the Automobile Association uneasy, of devoting the
rest of his days to the purification of England from these aggressive
mechanisms. "It was a mistake," he said, "to let them in." He became
more frequent at his excellent West End club, and directed a certain
portion of his capital to largely indecisive but on the whole
unprofitable speculations in South African and South American
enterprises. He mingled a little in affairs. He was a tough conventional
speaker, rich in established phrases and never abashed by hearing
himself say commonplace things, and in addition to his campaign against
automobiles he found time to engage also in quasi-political activities,
taking chairs, saying a few words and so on, cherishing a fluctuating
hope that his eloquence might ultimately win him an invitation to
contest a constituency in the interests of reaction and the sounder
elements in the Liberal party.
He had a public-spirited side, and he was particularly attracted by that
mass of modern legislative proposals which aims at a more systematic
control of the lives of lower class persons for their own good by their
betters. Indeed, in the first enthusiasm of his proprietorship of the
Pope works at East Purblow, he had organized one of those benevolent
industrial experiments that are now so common. He felt strongly against
the drink evil, that is to say, the unrestricted liberty of common
people to drink what they prefer, and he was acutely impressed by the
fact that working-class families do not spend their money in the way
that seems most desirable to upper middle-class critics. Accordingly he
did his best to replace the dangerous freedoms of money by that ideal of
the social reformer, Payment in Kind. To use his invariable phrase, the
East Purblow experiment did "no mean service" to the cause of social
reform. Unhappily it came to an end through a prosecution under the
Truck Act, that blot upon the Statute Book, designed, it would appear,
even deliberately to vitiate man's benevolent control of his fellow man.
The lessons to be drawn from that experience, however, grew if anything
with the years. He rarely spoke without an allusion to it, and it was
quite remarkable how readily it could be adapted to illuminate a hundred
different issues in the hospitable columns of the _Spectator_....
§ 7
At seven o'clock Marjorie found herself upstairs changing into her
apple-green frock. She had had a good refreshing wash in cold soft
water, and it was pleasant to change into thinner silk stockings and
dainty satin slippers and let down and at last brush her hair and dress
loiteringly after the fatigues of her journey and the activities of her
arrival. She looked out on the big church and the big trees behind it
against the golden quiet of a summer evening with extreme approval.
"I suppose those birds are rooks," she said.
But Daffy had gone to see that the pseudo-twins had done themselves
justice in their muslin frocks and pink sashes; they were apt to be a
little sketchy with their less accessible buttons.
Marjorie became aware of two gentlemen with her mother on the lawn
below.
One was her almost affianced lover, Will Magnet, the humorous writer.
She had been doing her best not to think about him all day, but now he
became an unavoidable central fact. She regarded him with an almost
perplexed scrutiny, and wondered vividly why she had been so excited and
pleased by his attentions during the previous summer.
Mr. Magnet was one of those quiet, deliberately unassuming people who do
not even attempt to be beautiful. Not for him was it to pretend, but to
prick the bladder of pretence. He was a fairish man of forty, pale, with
a large protuberant, observant grey eye--I speak particularly of the
left--and a face of quiet animation warily alert for the wit's
opportunity. His nose and chin were pointed, and his lips thin and
quaintly pressed together. He was dressed in grey, with a low-collared
silken shirt showing a thin neck, and a flowing black tie, and he
carried a grey felt hat in his joined hands behind his back. She could
hear the insinuating cadences of his voice as he talked in her mother's
ear. The other gentleman, silent on her mother's right, must, she knew,
be Mr. Wintersloan, whom Mr. Magnet had proposed to bring over. His
dress betrayed that modest gaiety of disposition becoming in an artist,
and indeed he was one of Mr. Magnet's favourite illustrators. He was in
a dark bluish-grey suit; a black tie that was quite unusually broad went
twice around his neck before succumbing to the bow, and his waistcoat
appeared to be of some gaily-patterned orange silk. Marjorie's eyes
returned to Mr. Magnet. Hitherto she had never had an opportunity of
remarking that his hair was more than a little attenuated towards the
crown. It was funny how his tie came out under his chin to the right.
What an odd thing men's dress had become, she thought. Why did they wear
those ridiculous collars and ties? Why didn't they always dress in
flannels and look as fine and slender and active as the elder Carmel boy
for example? Mr. Magnet couldn't be such an ill-shaped man. Why didn't
every one dress to be just as beautiful and splendid as
possible?--instead of wearing queer things!
"Coming down?" said Daffy, a vision of sulphur-yellow, appearing in the
doorway.
"Let _them_ go first," said Marjorie, with a finer sense of effect. "And
Theodore. We don't want to make part of a comic entry with Theodore,
Daffy."
Accordingly, the two sisters watched discreetly--they had to be wary on
account of Mr. Magnet's increasingly frequent glances at the
windows--and when at last all the rest of the family had appeared below,
they decided their cue had come. Mr. Pope strolled into the group, with
no trace of his recent debacle except a slight limp. He was wearing a
jacket of damson-coloured velvet, which he affected in the country, and
all traces of his Grand Dudgeon were gone. But then he rarely had Grand
Dudgeon except in the sanctities of family life, and hardly ever when
any other man was about.
"Well," his daughters heard him say, with a witty allusiveness that was
difficult to follow, "so the Magnet has come to the Mountain again--eh?"
"Come on, Madge," said Daffy, and the two sisters emerged harmoniously
together from the house.
It would have been manifest to a meaner capacity than any present that
evening that Mr. Magnet regarded Marjorie with a distinguished
significance. He had two eyes, but he had that mysterious quality so
frequently associated with a bluish-grey iris which gives the effect of
looking hard with one large orb, a sort of grey searchlight effect, and
he used this eye ray now to convey a respectful but firm admiration in
the most unequivocal manner. He saluted Daffy courteously, and then
allowed himself to retain Marjorie's hand for just a second longer than
was necessary as he said--very simply--"I am very pleased indeed to meet
you again--very."
A slight embarrassment fell between them.
"You are staying near here, Mr. Magnet?"
"At the inn," said Mr. Magnet, and then, "I chose it because it would be
near you."
His eye pressed upon her again for a moment.
"Is it comfortable?" said Marjorie.
"So charmingly simple," said Mr. Magnet. "I love it."
A tinkling bell announced the preparedness of supper, and roused the
others to the consciousness that they were silently watching Mr. Magnet
and Marjorie.
"It's quite a simple farmhouse supper," said Mrs. Pope.
§ 8
There were ducks, green peas, and adolescent new potatoes for supper,
and afterwards stewed fruit and cream and junket and cheese, bottled
beer, Gilbey's Burgundy, and home-made lemonade. Mrs. Pope carved,
because Mr. Pope splashed too much, and bones upset him and made him
want to show up chicken in the _Times_. So he sat at the other end and
rallied his guests while Mrs. Pope distributed the viands. He showed not
a trace of his recent umbrage. Theodore sat between Daffy and his mother
because of his table manners, and Marjorie was on her father's right
hand and next to Mr. Wintersloan, while Mr. Magnet was in the middle of
the table on the opposite side in a position convenient for looking at
her. Both maids waited.
The presence of Magnet invariably stirred the latent humorist in Mr.
Pope. He felt that he who talks to humorists should himself be humorous,
and it was his private persuasion that with more attention he might have
been, to use a favourite form of expression, "no mean jester." Quite a
lot of little things of his were cherished as "Good" both by himself
and, with occasional inaccuracies, by Mrs. Pope. He opened out now in a
strain of rich allusiveness.
"What will you drink, Mr. Wintersloan?" he said. "Wine of the country,
yclept beer, red wine from France, or my wife's potent brew from the
golden lemon?"
Mr. Wintersloan thought he would take Burgundy. Mr. Magnet preferred
beer.
"I've heard there's iron in the Beer,
And I believe it,"
misquoted Mr. Pope, and nodded as it were to the marker to score. "Daffy
and Marjorie are still in the lemonade stage. Will you take a little
Burgundy to-night, Mummy?"
Mrs. Pope decided she would, and was inspired to ask Mr. Wintersloan if
he had been in that part of the country before. Topography ensued. Mr.
Wintersloan had a style of his own, and spoke of the Buryhamstreet
district as a "pooty little country--pooty little hills, with a swirl in
them."
This pleased Daffy and Marjorie, and their eyes met for a moment.
Then Mr. Magnet, with a ray full on Marjorie, said he had always been
fond of Surrey. "I think if ever I made a home in the country I should
like it to be here."
Mr. Wintersloan said Surrey would tire him, it was too bossy and curly,
too flocculent; he would prefer to look on broader, simpler lines, with
just a sudden catch in the breath in them--if you understand me?
Marjorie did, and said so.
"A sob--such as you get at the break of a pinewood on a hill."
This baffled Mr. Pope, but Marjorie took it. "Or the short dry cough of
a cliff," she said.
"Exactly," said Mr. Wintersloan, and having turned a little deliberate
close-lipped smile on her for a moment, resumed his wing.
"So long as a landscape doesn't _sneeze_" said Mr. Magnet, in that
irresistible dry way of his, and Rom and Sydney, at any rate, choked.
"Now is the hour when Landscapes yawn," mused Mr. Pope, coming in all
right at the end.
Then Mrs. Pope asked Mr. Wintersloan, about his route to Buryhamstreet,
and then Mr. Pope asked Mr. Magnet whether he was playing at a new work
or working at a new play.
Mr. Magnet said he was dreaming over a play. He wanted to bring out the
more serious side of his humour, go a little deeper into things than he
had hitherto done.
"Mingling smiles and tears," said Mr. Pope approvingly.
Mr. Magnet said very quietly that all true humour did that.
Then Mrs. Pope asked what the play was to be about, and Mr. Magnet, who
seemed disinclined to give an answer, turned the subject by saying he
had to prepare an address on humour for the next dinner of the
_Literati_. "It's to be a humourist's dinner, and they've made me the
guest of the evening--by way of a joke to begin with," he said with that
dry smile again.
Mrs. Pope said he shouldn't say things like that. She
|
-Johnes regarded his companion fixedly for a moment, then
linked his arm in mine, drew me aside, and whispered hastily:
"Don't take any notice of him; he'll be all right again in a minute.
It's only a little revulsion of feeling which has overcome him. He's
frightfully tender-hearted--far too much so for a sailor; he can't bear
the sight of blood; and he knew that if I called you out I should choose
him for my second; and--you twig, eh!"
I thought I did, but was not quite sure, so I bowed again, which seemed
quite as satisfactory as words to Fitz-Johnes, for he said, with his arm
still linked in mine:
"That's all right. Now let's go and cement our friend ship over a
bottle of wine at the `Blue Posts,' what do you say?"
I intimated that the proposal was quite agreeable to me; and we
accordingly wheeled about and directed our steps to the inn in question,
which, in my time, was _the_ place of resort, _par excellence_, of all
midshipmen.
Lord Tomnoddy now removed his handkerchief from his eyes; and, sure
enough, he _had_ been weeping, for I detected him in the very act of
drying his tears. He must have possessed a truly wonderful command over
his features, though, for I could not detect the faintest trace of that
deep feeling which had overpowered him so shortly before; on the
contrary, he laughed uproariously at a very feeble joke which I just
then ventured to let off; and thereafter, until I parted with them both
an hour later, was the merriest of the party.
We arrived in due course at the "Blue Posts," and, walking into a
private parlour, rang for the waiter. On the appearance of that
individual, Fitz-Johnes, with a truly lordly air, ordered in three
bottles of port; sagely remarking that he made a point of never drinking
less than a bottle himself; and as his friend Hawkesley was _known_ to
have laid down the same rule, the third bottle was a necessity unless
Lord Tomnoddy was to go without. Lord Tomnoddy faintly protested
against the ordering of so much wine; but Fitz-Johnes was firm in his
determination, insisting that he should regard it as nothing short of a
deliberate insult on Tomnoddy's part if that individual declined his
hospitality.
After a considerable delay the wine and glasses made their appearance,
the waiter setting them down, and then pausing respectfully by the
table.
"Thank you; that will do. You need not wait," said Fitz-Johnes.
"The money, if you please, sir," explained the waiter.
"Oh, ah! yes, to be sure. The money." And Fitz-Johnes plunged his hand
into his breeches pocket and withdrew therefrom the sum of twopence
halfpenny, together with half a dozen buttons (assorted); a penknife
minus its blades; the bowl of a clay tobacco pipe broken short off;
three pieces of pipe-stem evidently originally belonging to the latter;
and a small ball of sewing twine.
Carefully arranging the copper coins on the edge of the table he
returned the remaining articles to their original place of deposit, and
then plunged his hand into his other pocket, from which he produced--
nothing.
"How much is it?" he inquired, glancing at the waiter.
"Fifteen shillings, if you please, sir," was the reply.
"Lend me a sovereign, there's a good fellow; I've left my purse in my
other pocket," he exclaimed to Lord Tomnoddy.
"I would with pleasure, old fellow, if I had it. But, unfortunately, I
haven't a farthing about me."
Thereupon the waiter proceeded deliberately to gather up the glasses
again, and was about to take them and the wine away, when I interposed
with a proposal to pay.
"No," said Fitz-Johnes fiercely; "I won't hear of it; I'll perish at the
stake first. But if you really don't mind _lending_ me a sovereign
until to-morrow--"
I said I should be most happy; and forthwith produced the coin, which
Fitz-Johnes, having received it, flung disdainfully down upon the table
with the exclamation:
"There, caitiff, is the lucre. Now, avaunt! begone! Thy bones are
marrowless; and you have not a particle of speculation about you."
The waiter, quite unmoved, took up the sovereign, laid down the change--
which Fitz-Johnes promptly pocketed--and retired from the room, leaving
us to discuss our wine in peace; which we did, I taking three glasses,
and my companions disposing of the remainder.
Fitz-Johnes now became very communicative on the subject of his cousin
Lady Mary; and finally the recollection came to him suddenly that she
had sent him her miniature only a day or two before. This he proposed
to show me, in order that I might pronounce an opinion as to the
correctness of the likeness; but on instituting a search for it, he
discovered--much to my relief, I must confess--that he had left it, with
his purse, in the pocket of his other jacket.
The wine at length finished, we parted company at the door of the "Blue
Posts;" I shaping a course homeward, and my new friends heading in the
direction of the Hard, their uproarious laughter reaching my ear for
some time after they had passed out of sight.
CHAPTER TWO.
I QUIT THE PATERNAL ROOF.
On reaching home I found that my father had preceded me by a few minutes
only, and was to be found in the surgery. Thither, accordingly, I
hastened to give him an opportunity of seeing me in my new rig.
"Good Heavens, boy!" he exclaimed when he had taken in all the details
of my appearance, "do you mean to say that you have presented yourself
in public in that extraordinary guise?"
I respectfully intimated that I had, and that, moreover, I failed to
observe anything at all extraordinary in my appearance.
"Well," observed he, bursting into a fit of hearty laughter,
notwithstanding his evident annoyance, "_you_ may not have noticed it;
but I'll warrant that everybody else has. Why, I should not have been
surprised to hear that you had found yourself the laughing-stock of the
town. Run away, Dick, and change your clothes at once; Shears must see
those things and endeavour to alter them somehow; you can never wear
them as they are."
I slunk away to my room in a dreadfully depressed state of mind. Was it
possible that what my father had said was true! A sickening suspicion
seized me that it _was_; and that I had at last found an explanation of
the universal laughter which had seemed to accompany me everywhere in my
wanderings that wretched afternoon.
I wrapped up the now hated uniform in the brown paper which had encased
it when it came from Shears; and my father and I were about to sally
forth with it upon a wrathful visit to the erring Shears, when a
breathless messenger from him arrived with another parcel, and a note of
explanation and apology, to the effect that by some unfortunate blunder
the wrong suit had been sent home, and Mr Shears would feel greatly
obliged if we would return it per bearer.
The man, upon this, was invited inside and requested to wait whilst I
tried on the rightful suit, which was found to fit excellently; and I
could not avoid laughing rather ruefully as I looked in the glass and
contrasted my then appearance with that which I remembered it to have
been in the earlier part of the day. Later on, that same evening, my
sea-chest and the remainder of my outfit arrived; and I was ready to
join, as had been already arranged, on the following day.
The eventful morning at length arrived; and with my enthusiasm
considerably cooled by a night of sleepless excitement and the
unpleasant consciousness that I was about, in an hour or two more, to
bid a long farewell to home and all who loved me, I descended to the
breakfast-room. My father was already there; but Eva did not come down
until the last moment; and when she made her appearance it was evident
that she had very recently been weeping. The dear girl kissed me
silently with quivering lips, and we sat down to breakfast. My father
made two or three efforts to start something in the shape of a
conversation, but it was no good; the dear old gentleman was himself
manifestly ill at ease; Eva could not speak a word for sobbing; and as
for me, I was as unable to utter a word as I was to swallow my food--a
great lump had gathered in my throat, which not only made it sore but
also threatened to choke me, and it was with the utmost difficulty that
I avoided bursting into a passion of tears. None of us ate anything,
and at length the wretched apology for a meal was brought to a
conclusion, my father read a chapter from the Bible, and we knelt down
to prayers. I will not attempt to repeat here the words of his
supplication. Suffice it to say that they went straight to my heart and
lodged there, their remembrance encompassing me about as with a seven-
fold defence in many a future hour of trial and temptation.
On rising from his knees my father invited me to accompany him to his
consulting-room, and on arriving there he handed me a chair, seated
himself directly in front of me, and said:
"Now, my dear boy, before you leave the roof which has sheltered you
from your infancy, and go forth to literally fight your own way through
the world, there is just a word or two of caution and advice which I
wish to say. You are about to embark in a profession of your own
deliberate choice, and whilst that profession is of so honourable a
character that all who wear its uniform are unquestioningly accepted as
gentlemen, it is also one which, from its very nature, exposes its
followers to many and great temptations. I will not enlarge upon these;
you are now old enough to understand the nature of many of them, and
those which you may not at present know anything about will be readily
recognisable as such when they present themselves; and a few simple
rules will, I trust, enable you to overcome them. The first rule which
I wish you to take for your guidance through life, my son, is this.
Never be ashamed to honour your Maker. Let neither false pride, nor the
gibes of your companions, nor indeed _any_ influence whatever, constrain
you to deny Him or your dependence upon Him; never take His name in
vain, nor countenance by your continued presence any such thing in
others. Bear in mind the fact that He who holds the ocean in the hollow
of His hand is also the Guide, the Helper, and the defender of `those
who go down into the sea in ships;' and make it an unfailing practice to
seek His help and protection every day of your life.
"Never allow yourself to contract the habit of swearing. Many men--and,
because of their pernicious example, many boys too--habitually garnish
their conversation with oaths, profanity, and obscenity of the vilest
description. It _may_ be--though I earnestly hope and pray it will
not--that a bad example in this respect will be set you by even your
superior officers. If such should unhappily be the case, think of this,
our parting moments, and of my parting advice to you, and never suffer
yourself to be led away by such example. In the first place it is
wrong--it is distinctly _sinful_ to indulge in such language; and in the
next place, to take much lower ground, it is vulgar, ungentlemanly, and
altogether in the very worst possible taste. It is not even _manly_ to
do so, though many lads appear to think it so; there is nothing manly,
or noble, or dignified in the utterance of words which inspire in the
hearers--unless they be the lowest of the low--nothing save the most
extreme disgust. If you are ambitious to be classed among the vilest
and most ruffianly of your species, use such language; but if your
ambition soars higher than this, avoid it as you would the pestilence.
"Be always _strictly_ truthful. There are two principal incentives to
falsehood--vanity and fear. Never seek self-glorification by a
falsehood. If fame is not to be won legitimately, do without it; and
never seek to screen yourself by a falsehood--this is mean and cowardly
in the last degree. `To err is human;' we are all liable to make
mistakes sometimes; such a person as an infallible man, woman, or child
has never yet existed, and never will exist. Therefore, if you make a
mistake, have the courage to manfully acknowledge it and take the
consequences; I will answer for it that they will not be very dreadful.
A fault confessed is half atoned. And, apart from the _morality_ of the
thing, let me tell you that a reputation for truthfulness is a priceless
possession to a man; it makes his services _doubly_ valuable.
"Be careful that you are always strictly honest, honourable, and upright
in your dealings with others. Never let your reputation in this respect
be sullied by so much as a breath. And bear this in mind, my boy, it is
not sufficient that you should _be_ all this, you must also _seem_ it,
that is to say you must keep yourself far beyond the reach of even the
barest suspicion. Many a man who, by carelessness or inexperience, has
placed himself in a questionable position, has been obliged to pay the
penalty of his want of caution by carrying about with him, to the end of
his life, the burden of a false and undeserved suspicion.
"And now there is only one thing more I wish to caution you against, and
that is _vanity_. It is a failing which is only too plainly perceptible
in most boys of your age, and--do not be angry, Dick, if I touch the
sore spot with a heavy hand; it is for your own good that I do it--you
have it in a very marked degree. Like most of your compeers you think
that, having passed your fourteenth birth-day, you are now a _man_, and
in many points I notice that you have already begun to ape the ways of
men. Don't do it, Dick. Manhood comes not so early; and of all
disagreeable and objectionable characters, save me, I pray you, from a
boy who mistakes himself for a man. Manhood, with its countless cares
and responsibilities, will come soon enough; whilst you are a boy _be_ a
boy; or, if you insist on being a man before your time, cultivate those
attributes which are characteristic of _true_ manhood, such as fearless
truth, scrupulous honour, dauntless courage, and so on; but _don't_, for
Heaven's sake, adopt the follies and vices of men. As I have said,
Dick, vanity is certainly your _great_ weakness, and I want you to be
especially on your guard against it. It will tempt you to tamper with
the truth, even if it does no worse," (I thought involuntarily of Lady
Mary and my tacit admission of the justice of Lord Fitz-Johnes'
impeachment of me with regard to her), "and it is quite possible that it
may lead you into a serious scrape.
"Now, Dick, my boy--my dear son--I have said to you all that I think,
even in the slightest degree, necessary by way of caution and advice. I
can only affectionately entreat you to remember and ponder upon my
words, and pray God to lead you to a right understanding of them.
"And now," he added, rising from his seat, "I think it is time you were
on the move. Go and wish Eva good-bye, and then I will drive you down
to the Hard--I see Edwards has brought round the carriage."
I hurried away to the drawing-room, where I knew I should find my
sister, and, opening the door gently, announced that I had come to say
good-bye. The dear girl, upon hearing my voice, rose up from the sofa,
in the cushion of which she had been hiding her tear-stained face, and
came with unsteady steps toward me. Then, as I looked into her eyes--
heavy with the mental agony from which she was suffering, and which she
bravely strove to hide for my sake--I realised, for the first time in my
life, all the horror which lurks in that dreadful word "Farewell."
Meaning originally a benediction, it has become by usage the word with
which we cut ourselves asunder from all that is nearest and dearest to
us; it is the signal for parting; the last word we address to our loved
ones; the fatal spell at which they lingeringly and unwillingly withdraw
from our clinging embrace; the utterance at which the hand-clasp of
friendship or of love is loosed, and we are torn apart never perhaps
again to meet until time shall be no more.
My poor sister! It was pitiful to witness her intense distress. This
was our first parting. Never before had we been separated for more than
an hour or two at a time, and, there being only the two of us, our
mutual affection had steadily, though imperceptibly, grown and
strengthened from year to year until now, when to say "good-bye" seemed
like the rending of our heart-strings asunder.
It had to be said, however, and it _was_ said at last--God knows how,
for my recollection of our parting moments is nothing more than that of
a brief period of acute mental suffering--and then, placing my half-
swooning sister upon the couch and pressing a last lingering kiss on her
icy-cold lips, I rushed from the room and the house.
My father had already taken his seat in the carriage; my luggage was
piled up on the front seat alongside the driver, and nothing therefore
remained but for me to jump in, slam-to the door, and we were off.
It seemed equally impossible to my father and to myself to utter a
single word during that short--though, in our then condition of acute
mental tension, all too long--drive to the Hard; we sat therefore dumbly
side by side, with our hands clasped, until the carriage drew up, when I
sprang out, hastily hailed a boatman, and then at once began with
feverish haste to drag my belongings off the carriage down into the
road. I had still to say good-bye to my father, and I felt that I
_must_ shorten the time as much as possible, that ten minutes more of
such mental torture would drive me mad.
The boatman quickly shouldered my chest, and, gathering up the remainder
of my belongings in his disengaged hand, discreetly trotted off to the
wherry, which he unmoored and drew alongside the slipway.
Then I turned to my father, and, with the obtrusive lump in my throat by
this time grown so inconveniently large that I could scarcely
articulate, held out my hand to him.
"Good-bye, father!" I stammered out huskily.
"Good-bye, Dick, my son, my own dear boy!" he returned, not less
affected than myself. "Good-bye! May God bless and keep you, and in
His own good time bring you in health and safety back to us! Amen."
A quick convulsive hand-clasp, a last hungry glance into the loving face
and the sorrow-dimmed eyes which looked so longingly down into mine, and
with a hardly-suppressed cry of anguish I tore myself away, staggered
blindly down the slipway, tumbled into the boat, and, as gruffly as I
could under the circumstances, ordered the boatman to put me on board
the _Daphne_.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE TRUTH ABOUT FITZ-JOHNES.
"Where are we going, Tom?" I asked, as the boatman, an old chum of
mine, proceeded to step the boat's mast. "You surely don't need the
sail for a run half-way across the harbour?"
"No," he answered; "no, I don't. But we're bound out to Spithead. The
_Daphne_ went out this mornin' at daylight to take in her powder, and I
'spects she's got half of it stowed away by this time. Look out for
your head, Mr Dick, sir, we shall jibe in a minute."
I ducked my head just in time to save my glazed hat from being knocked
overboard by the jibing mainsail of the boat, and then drew out my
handkerchief and waved another farewell to my father, whose fast-
diminishing figure I could still make out standing motionless on the
shore, with his hand shading his eyes as he watched the rapidly moving
boat. He waved back in answer, and then the intervening hull of a ship
hid him from my view, and I saw him no more for many a long day.
"Ah, it's a sorry business that, partin' with friends and kinsfolk when
you're outward-bound on a long cruise that you can't see the end of!"
commented my old friend Tom; "but keep up a good heart, Mr Dick; it'll
all be made up to yer when you comes home again by and by loaded down to
the scuppers with glory and prize-money."
I replied somewhat drearily that I supposed it would; and then Tom--
anxious in his rough kindliness of heart to dispel my depression of
spirits and prepare me to present myself among my new shipmates in a
suitably cheerful frame of mind--adroitly changed the subject and
proceeded to put me "up to a few moves," as he expressed it, likely to
prove useful to me in the new life upon which I was about to enter.
"And be sure, Mr Dick," he concluded, as we shot alongside the sloop,
"be sure you remember _always_ to touch your hat when you steps in upon
the quarter-deck of a man-o'-war, no matter whether 'tis your own ship
or a stranger."
Paying the old fellow his fare, and parting with him with a hearty shake
of the hand, I sprang up the ship's side, and--remembering Tom's parting
caution just in the nick of time--presenting myself in due form upon the
quarter-deck, where the first lieutenant had posted himself and from
which he was directing the multitudinous operations then in progress,
reported myself to that much-dreaded official as "come on board to
join."
He was a rather tall and decidedly handsome man, with a gentlemanly
bearing and a well-knit shapely-looking figure, dark hair and eyes,
thick bushy whiskers meeting under the chin, and a clear strong
melodious voice, which, without the aid of a speaking-trumpet, he made
distinctly heard from one end of the ship to the other. As he stood
there, in an easy attitude with his hands lightly clasped behind his
back and his eye taking in, as it seemed at a glance, everything that
was going forward, he struck me as the _beau-ideal_ of a naval officer.
I took a strong liking to him on the spot, an instinctive prepossession
which was afterwards abundantly justified, for Mr Austin--that was his
name--proved to be one of the best officers it has ever been my good
fortune to serve under.
"Oh, you're come on board to join, eh?" he remarked in response to my
announcement. "I suppose you are the young gentleman about whom Captain
Vernon was speaking to me yesterday. What is your name?"
I told him.
"Ah! Hawkesley! yes, that is the name. I remember now. Captain Vernon
told me that although you have never been to sea as yet you are not
altogether a greenhorn. What can you do?"
"I can hand, reef, and steer, box the compass, pull an oar, or sail a
boat; and I know the name and place of every spar, sail, and rope
throughout the ship."
"Aha! say you so? Then you will prove indeed a valuable acquisition.
What is the name of this rope?"
"The main-topgallant clewline," I answered, casting my eye aloft to note
the "lead" of the rope.
"Right!" he replied with a smile. "And you have the true nautical
pronunciation also, I perceive. Mr Johnson,"--to a master's mate who
happened to be passing at the moment--"this is Mr Hawkesley. Kindly
take him under your wing and induct him into his quarters in the
midshipmen's berth, if you please. Don't stop to stow away your things
just now, Mr Hawkesley," he continued. "I shall have an errand for you
in a few minutes."
"Very well, sir," I replied. And following my new acquaintance, I first
saw to the hoisting in of my traps, and then with them descended to the
place which was to be my home for so many months to come.
This was a tolerably roomy but very indifferently lighted cabin on the
lower or orlop deck, access to which was gained by the descent of a very
steep ladder. The furniture was of the most meagre description,
consisting only of a very solid deal table, two equally solid forms or
stools, and a couple of arm-chairs, one at each end of the table, all
securely lashed down to the deck. There was a shelf with a ledge along
its front edge, and divisions to form lockers, extending across the
after-end of the berth; and under this hung three small book-cases,
(which I was given to understand were private property) and a mirror six
inches long by four inches wide, before which the "young gentlemen"--
four in number, including myself--and the two master's mates had to
perform their toilets as best they could. The fore and after bulkheads
of the apartment were furnished with stout hooks to which to suspend our
hammocks, which, by the by, when slung, left, I noticed, but a very
small space on either side of the table; and depending from a beam
overhead there hung a common horn lantern containing the most attenuated
candle I ever saw--a veritable "purser's dip." This lantern, which was
suspended over the centre of the table, afforded, except at meal-times
or other special occasions, the sole illumination of the place.
Although the ship was new, and the berth had only been occupied a few
days, it was already pervaded by a very powerful odour of paint and
stale tobacco-smoke, which made me anxious to quit the place with the
least possible delay.
Merely selecting a position, therefore, for my chest, and leaving to the
wretched lad, whom adverse fortune had made the attendant of the place,
the task of lashing it down, I hastened on deck again, and presenting
myself once more before the first lieutenant, announced that I was now
ready to execute any commission with which he might be pleased to
intrust me.
"Very well," said he. "I want you to take the gig and proceed on board
the _Saint George_ with this letter for the first lieutenant of that
ship. Wait for an answer, and if he gives you a parcel be very careful
how you handle it, as it will contain articles of a very fragile
character which must on no account be damaged or broken."
The gig was thereupon piped away, and when she was in the water and her
crew in her I proceeded in my most stately manner down the side and
flung myself in an easily negligent attitude into the stern-sheets.
I felt at that moment exceedingly well satisfied with myself. I had
joined the ship but a bare half-hour before; yet here I was, singled out
from the rest of the midshipmen as the fittest person to be intrusted
with an evidently important mission. I forgot not only my father's
caution against vanity but also my sorrow at parting with him; my _amour
propre_ rose triumphant above every other feeling; the disagreeable lump
in my throat subsided, and with an unconscious, but no doubt very
ludicrous, assumption of condescending authority, I gave the order to--
"Shove off, and get the muslin upon her, and see that you crack on,
coxswain, for I am in a hurry."
"Ay, ay, sir," returned that functionary in a very respectful tone of
voice. "Step the mast, for'ard there, you sea-dogs, `and get the muslin
on her.'"
With a broad grin, whether at the verbatim repetition of my order, or in
consequence of some pantomimic gesture on the part of the coxswain, who
was behind me--I had a sudden painful suspicion that it might possibly
be _both_--the men sprang to obey the order; and in another instant the
mast was stepped, the halliard and tack hooked on, the sheet led aft,
and the sail was all ready for hoisting.
"What d'ye say, Tom; shall us take down a reef!" asked one of the men.
"Reef? No, certingly not. Didn't you hear the gentleman say as how we
was to `crack on' because he's in a hurry? Give her whole canvas,"
replied the coxswain.
With a shivering flutter and a sudden violent jerk the sail was run up;
and, careening gunwale-to, away dashed the lively boat toward the
harbour.
It was blowing fresh and squally from the eastward, and for the first
mile of our course there was a nasty choppy sea for a boat. The men
flung their oil-skins over their shoulders, and ranging themselves along
the weather side of the boat, seated themselves on the bottom-boards,
and away we went, jerk-jerking through it, the sea hissing and foaming
past us to leeward, and the spray flying in a continuous heavy shower in
over the weather-bow and right aft, drenching me through and through in
less than five minutes.
"I'm afeard you're gettin' rayther wet, sir," remarked the coxswain
feelingly when I had just about arrived at a condition of complete
saturation; "perhaps you'd better have my oil-skin, sir."
"No, thanks," I replied, "I am very comfortable as I am."
This was, to put it mildly, a perversion of the truth. I was _not_ very
comfortable; I was wet to the skin, and my bran-new uniform, upon which
I so greatly prided myself, was just about ruined. But it was then too
late for the oil-skin to be of the slightest benefit to me; and,
moreover, I did not choose that those men should think I cared for so
trifling a matter as a wetting.
But a certain scarcely-perceptible ironical inflection in the coxswain's
voice, when he so kindly offered me the use of his jumper, suggested the
suspicion that perhaps he was quietly amusing himself and his shipmates
at my expense, and that the drenching I had received was due more to his
management of the boat than anything else, so I set myself quietly to
watch.
I soon saw that my suspicion was well-founded. The rascal, instead of
easing the boat and meeting the heavier seas as he ought to have done,
was sailing the craft at top speed right through them, varying the
performance occasionally by keeping the boat broad away when a squall
struck her, causing her to careen until her gunwale went under, and as a
natural consequence shipping a great deal of water.
At length he rather overdid it, a squall striking the boat so heavily
that before he could luff and shake the wind out of the sail she had
filled to the thwarts. I thought for a moment that we were over, and so
did the crew of the boat, who jumped to their feet in consternation.
Being an excellent swimmer myself, however, I managed to perfectly
retain my _sang-froid_, whilst I also recognised in the mishap an
opportunity to take the coxswain down a peg or two.
Lifting my legs, therefore, coolly up on the side seat out of reach of
the water, I said:
"How long have you been a sailor, coxswain?"
"Nigh on to seven year, sir. Now then, lads, dowse the sail smartly and
get to work with the bucket."
"Seven years, have you?" I returned placidly. "Then you _ought_ to
know how to sail a boat by this time. I have never yet been to sea; but
I should be ashamed to make such a mess of it as this."
To this my friend in the rear vouchsafed not a word in reply, but from
that moment I noticed a difference in the behaviour of the men all
round. They found they had not got quite the greenhorn to deal with
that they had first imagined.
When at last the boat was freed of the water and sail once more made
upon her, I remarked to the coxswain:
"Now, Tom--if that is your name--you have amused yourself and your
shipmates at my expense--to your heart's content, I hope--you have
played off your little practical joke upon me, and I bear no malice.
But--let there be no more of it--do you understand?"
"Ay ay, sir; I underconstumbles," was the reply; "and I'm right sorry
now as I did it, sir, and I axes your parding, sir; that I do. Dash my
buttons, though, but you're a rare plucky young gentleman, you are, sir,
though I says it to your face. And I hopes, sir, as how you won't bear
no malice again' me for just tryin' a bit to see what sort o' stuff you
was made of, as it were?"
I eased the poor fellow's mind upon this point, and soon afterwards we
arrived alongside the _Saint George_.
I found the first lieutenant, and duly handed over my despatch, which he
read with a curious twitching about the corners of the mouth.
Having mastered the contents, he retired below, asking me to wait a
minute or two.
At that moment my attention was attracted to a midshipman in the main
rigging, who, with exaggerated deliberation, was making his unwilling
way aloft to the mast-head as it turned out. A certain familiar
something about the young gentleman caused me to look up at him more
attentively; and I then at once recognised my recent acquaintance, Lord
Fitz-Johnes. At the same moment the second lieutenant, who was eyeing
his lordship somewhat wrathfully, hailed him with:
"Now then, Mr Tomkins, are you going to be all day on your journey?
Quicken your movements, sir, or I will send a boatswain's mate after you
with a rope's-end to freshen your way. Do you hear, sir?"
"Ay ay, sir," responded the _ci-devant_ Lord Fitz-Johnes--now plain Mr
Tomkins--in a squeaky treble, as he made a feeble momentary show of
alacrity. Just then I caught his eye, and, taking off my hat, made him
an ironical bow of recognition, to which he responded by pressing his
body against the rigging--pausing in his upward journey to give due
effect to the ceremony--spreading his legs as widely apart as possible,
and extending both hands toward me, the fingers outspread, the thumb of
the right hand pressing gently against the point of his nose, and the
thumb of the left interlinked with the right-hand little finger. This
salute was made still more impressive by a lengthened slow and solemn
twiddling of the fingers, which was only brought to an end by the second
lieutenant hailing:
"Mr Tomkins, you will oblige me by prolonging your stay at the mast-
|
day?
_B_. Yasodhara, a higher duty calls.
The time will come, and it is close at hand,
When I shall wander into homelessness.
I'll leave this palace and its splendid gardens
I'll leave the pleasures of this world behind
To go in quest of Truth, of saving Truth.
_YASODHARA sinks on her knees before him and clasps his
knees._
_Y._ And me, my Lord, thy quest will make a widow!
Oh, stay, and build thee here a happy home.
_B._ My dear Yasodhara, it cannot be.
_The Prince stands lost in thought. Rahula is restless.
YASODHARA rises and turns toward the child._
_Y_. He wakes again. I come, my babe, I come.
[The veil comes down again, and when it rises it shows the garden
before the palace as in the first scene, but it is night and all is
wrapped in darkness.]
FOURTH SCENE.
_King SUDDHODANA (S) and his minister VISAKHA (V) come out of the
entrance._ _Later on Captain DEVALA (D) and soldiers._
_S._ Unfortunate, most unfortunate, that Udayin died. Siddhattha will
miss the gardener and will ask for him.
_V._ The Prince loves flowers, and he knows them all by name; he loves
trees and shrubs, and praises them for yielding fruit and grain for
feeding us without the need of shedding blood.
_S._ Have the body removed so long as it is dark.
_V_. The moon is full to-day and must rise in a little while.
_S._ Double the guards at the gate. I am afraid my son will flee. It
would be a disgrace on my house to have him become a mendicant. The
kings of Kosala, of Magadha, and all the others look with envy on our
sturdy people; they dislike our free institutions and our warlike
spirit. They would scoff at us if a Sakya prince had become a monk.
But if Siddhattha does flee, I swear by Lord Indra that I shall disown
him; I will no longer recognize him as my son. I will disinherit him
and make Rahula my heir apparent.
_VISAKHA looks at SUDDHODANA in amazement._
_S_. I am serious and I will do it. I swore an oath, and Issara will
help me to keep it. Now go to the captain of the guards and do as I
bid you.
_Exit. The Minister alone._
_V._ Oh! What a chance for me! Siddhattha will flee, if he be not
prevented; he will be disinherited. Rahula is a babe, and it will take
twenty years before he grows up to manhood.--[_He muses._] I may
proceed on different lines, and one of them must certainly lead to
success. I may marry the Princess and become the stepfather of the
heir apparent, his guardian, the man who has him in his power--Hm! Hm!
I need not plan too far ahead. And if that plan did not work, the King
of Magadha would make me raja of the Sakyas, if I would recognize him
as my liege.
_The full moon rises and the scene becomes gradually
brighter. VISAKHA knocks at the gate._
Who is on guard?
_Officer comes out._
_D._ I am, my Lord, 'tis Captain Devala.
_V._ 'Tis well. King Suddhodana requests you to double your guard
to-night, for he has reasons. Further he wants you to remove the
corpse of Udayin, the gardener who died to-day of an infectious
disease. Be on your guard, for where a dead body lies there are
ghosts--and [_in a half whisper_] when you see demons or gods, keep
yourselves, you and your men, locked up in the guard house, and the
spook will pass without harm.
_D._ Your order shall be punctiliously obeyed.
_Pays his military salute and returns to the guard house._
_V._ That settles the guard, and should Siddhattha flee he will find
no obstacle.
_Two men come out of the guard house and enter the palace
with a bier. KALA UDAYIN comes back from the garden. VISAKHA
retires into the background._
_K._ The nightingale is a sweet bird, but I like the lark better. The
nightingale is more artistic, but his song is melancholy, he is so
sentimental! The lark has a mere twitter like my own song, I like the
lark better. How beautiful is this summer night; How glorious is the
moon; how fragrant are the roses in the garden! It is a most
auspicious night, and all breathes happiness.
_VISAKHA from his hiding place watches KALA._
_V._ He comes in time, his presence will prosper my plans.
[Kala is lost in thought. Music, from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony,
somber and as if coming from a distance, is heard.]
_K._ [_while the music plays_] What a strange presentiment is stealing
over my soul. Perhaps I was too happy! What does Siddhattha say?
"All conformations always are transient,[A]
Harrassed by sorrow, lacking a self."
[Footnote A: The quoted lines run in the same rhythm as the melody and
should be pronounced accordingly. See _Buddhist Hymns_, p. 22.]
_The men come with the corpse on the bier. KALA stops them._
_K._ What do you carry? Who is this? [_he shrieks_] My father! [_The
carriers set the corpse down and Kala sinks down by the bier._] Oh, my
father! my dearest father! How did you die? Why did you leave me? Oh,
my father! [_he sobs_].
_The moon sinks behind a cloud._
_SIDDHATTHA comes._
_B._ What may the trouble be? I heard a shriek.
_KALA raises himself half way up. The scene is bright again._
_K._ Oh, my Prince! See here! My father is dead! Now I know the truth
as well as you. Now I feel the pain. The time has come for me to
lament. I was so happy and I would not believe you.--Oh ye who are
happy, think in the hour of happiness that all is subject to
suffering, and the hour of suffering will come to you too. Nay more
than that, the hour of death will come; it has come to my father, it
will come to you and to me, and then my caroling will stop forever.
Oh, my poor father!
_B._ How rarely is thy advent welcome, Death,
E'en this poor gardener who a servant was
His livelong days, leaves in our hearts a gap.
His son lamenteth him, and I not less;
He was my loving friend; my educator,
He had me on his knees so many a time,
To tell me how the flowers will grow and blow,
And how they prosper after rainy days.
May gentle lilies from thy ashes spring,
Decked with the purity of thine own heart,
And with their fragrance give the same delight
That in thy present life thou gavest us.
_The carriers lift up the body and carry it out._
Oh, fare thee well, thou good and worthy friend,
Oh, fare thee well, but thy departure is
To me a token that my time has come.
_Turning to KALA who all the while was lying prostrate
weeping._
Weep not, companion of my childhood days,
But bear in mind the courage of thy mirth.
Remember all the virtues of thy father
And let them live again in thine own heart.
Thou must not yield to weakness and lamenting,
Tend to life's duties: Go and call me Channa,
Bid him to saddle Kanthaka, my steed,
And let him ready be for a night's ride.
_KALA exit. SIDDHATTHA alone._
The hour has come! and now my last farewell
To thee my wife and Rahula my son.
_SIDDHATTHA makes a few steps and halts._
This is the greatest sacrifice I bring:
I leave behind a crown without regret;
I leave the luxury of wealth and power;
I care for them as though they were but ashes
But I must also leave my wife and child:
Here I must prove the courage of my heart.
_Enters the house._
FIFTH SCENE.
[The veil of clouds comes down, and when it rises we see Yasodhara's
bedroom again.]
_SIDDHATTHA (B) enters. YASODHARA (Y) sleeps with the babe in
her arms._
_B._ Here lie the rarest treasures of this life,
My noble wife, my dear boy Rahula.
_SIDDHATTHA approaches the bed._
Your sleep is sweet in your sweet innocence,
And I will not disturb your blissful rest.
I will go out in search for saving Truth
And shall not come again unless 't be found
Farewell my wife and Rahula my son.
Must I be gone? Is this, in sooth, my duty?
_He goes toward the door. There he stops._
Perchance on their account I ought to stay.
But no! my father can take care of them.
It is my tender heart that makes me weak.
This is the greatest sacrifice I bring.
SIXTH SCENE
[Change of scene, as rapid as before. The garden before the palace]
_CHANNA (Ch.) enters with a horse._
_Channa._ My Prince, here is your steed!
_MARA (M), a superhuman figure, gaudily dressed, hovering in
the air, suddenly appears and addresses SIDDHATTHA (B)._
_M._ It is a shame to leave your wife and child.
_B._ [_Addressing the vision in the air._]
Mara, thou here? thou wicked one, thou tempter!
_K._ Oh do not leave us Prince. Think of the wrong you do.
You wrong your royal father, you wrong your wife, you wrong your child.
_B._ What sayest thou? Thou sayest I do wrong?
The same rebuke is echoed in my heart;
It is so sweet, so loving, so alluring!
And shall I listen to its tender voice?
How pleasant would it be to stay at home,
And to enjoy my wife's love and my child's!
Is that my duty? Say, is that my duty?
_K._ Surely my Lord, your duties lie at home.
_SIDDHATTHA wavers as if in doubt. He stands pondering for a
moment._
_B._ Who will instruct me where my duty lies?
_M._ I will instruct thee, I will guide thee right.
_K._ How can you doubt, my Prince? And can you not
Search for the truth here in this pleasant garden?
There're spots enough where you can think and ponder,
And meditate among the fragrant flowers.
_B._ Here I shall never reach my goal.
_K._ Stay here.
A kingdom is your sure inheritance,
While Buddahood is but a doubtful prize.
_B._ And shall the world wait for another Buddha?
So many millions clamor for the truth!
_With determination._
I hear the call and naught shall hold me back.
I see my duty and I will obey.
_M._ Wilt thou not stay, my noble Prince Siddhattha?
The wheel of empire turns, and thee I shall
Make king of kings to rule the whole broad earth.
Think of the good which thou wilt do as king!
And then as king of kings thy mighty power
Will spread the good religion o'er the world.
_B._ I know thee Mara, tempter, Evil One,
Prince of this world, I know thy voice, thy meaning.
The gifts thou offerest are transient treasures,
And thy dominion is mere vanity.
I go to found a kingdom in the realm
Of the immortal state which lasts for aye.
Thou hinderest and dost not help the truth.
_K._ Thou speakest to the empty air, my Prince,
For I see no one whom thou thus addressest.
_CHANNA helps SIDDHATTHA to mount, and while the gate opens
leads the horse out of the gate, and KALA enters into the
palace. VISAKHA is coming to the front._
_V._ He is gone. He has made room for me. The time will come when this
kingdom will be mine.
_Y._ [_from the balcony_] Siddhattha! Siddhattha! Where are you? He is
gone! He has departed into homelessness! [_She faints._]
[CURTAIN]
_FIRST INTERLUDE._
_Living pictures accompanied by appropriate music, as an introduction
to Act II._
1. BEGGING FOOD.
A scene of the Prince's life as a mendicant friar.
A Hindu village, Siddhattha stands bowl in hand before a hut; a woman
dishes some rice from a kettle into his bowl; villagers, including
children, stand around gazing at him,--a few with clasped hands.
2. THE KING GREETS THE MENDICANT.
Tradition tells that King Bimbisara, hearing of the noble monk, went
out to see him and offered him to take part in the government. This
being refused, the King requested him to visit Rajagaha, the royal
residence, as soon as Siddhattha had become a Buddha.
Siddhattha is seated under a tree near a brook; the king stands before
him, surrounded by his retinue.
3 PREACHING TO THE VILLAGERS.
Under the tree in the market place of a Hindu village The Buddha is
seated in the attitude of a preacher. The villagers stand or squat
around intently listening.
4. SAVED FROM STARVATION
In company with other monks, Siddhattha sought for a while
enlightenment by self-mortification.
Being exhausted by severe fasts, the mendicant faints, and Nanda, the
shepherd's daughter, passing by, refreshes him with rice milk. His
five disciples at a distance fear that he has given up his quest for
truth.
ACT II.
FIRST SCENE
[Seven years have elapsed since the first act. A room in the royal
palace at Magadha]
_Present: NAGADEVA (N), the prime minister, GENERAL SIHA
(GS), commander-in-chief of the Magadha forces. Later on the
MASTER OF CEREMONIES (MC), KING BIMBISARA (Bb.), a trumpeter
and a small body guard._
_N._ It is a joy to serve this mighty king
Whose power extendeth over many lands.
In peace he ruleth wisely, and his subjects
Obey him willingly for he is just.
In war he swoops upon his enemies
As doth a hawk upon a helpless chicken,
Quick in attack, lucky in every fight.
Indeed he earned his name deservedly,
The warlike Bimbisara.
_GS._ At his side
I fought with him in many a doubtful battle
With all the odds against us, but his daring,
Joined to a rare instinctive foresight
By which he could anticipate all dangers,
Would win the day and ne'er was he defeated!
In this our latest war he took great risks,
Might have been taken by his foes, and would
Have lost his liberty, his throne, his life;
But venturing much he won, and by exposing
His own high person in the brunt of battle
He stirred the courage of his followers
To do great deeds of valor.
_MASTER OF CEREMONIES enters with a trumpeter._
_MC._ Noble lords,
Mis majesty, our royal lord, is coming
To meet you here in private council.
_Trumpeter blows a signal._
_GS._ Hail the victorious, warlike Bimbisara!
_Both kneel as the king enters preceded and followed by a
small body guard._
_Bb._ Be greeted noble lords.
_N._ We wish you joy and the continuance of your good fortune.
_Bb._ I have a matter to bespeak with you,
Far-reaching weighty plans of great importance.
I wish to be alone with you.
_Turning to the captain of his body guards._
Captain, have this room guarded by your soldiers.
The gong shall call you when I need your service.
_The soldiers march out of the room._
Be seated, my good lords.
You helped me gain a wondrous victory
Which proves I have the favor of the gods.
I probed your skill, your courage and your faith
And found you both most able and most trusty.
Therefore you are to me much more than vassals
And servants of the state; you are my helpers,
Indeed my friends and nearest to my heart.
A king needs friends who share his secret thoughts,
Who stand by him in all vicissitudes,
Who bear with him responsibilities,
And above all, who frankly speak the truth.
I ask you, will you be such friends to me?
_GS._ I will with all my heart.
_N._ And I not less.
_Bb._ I, my dear friends, I promise you in turn
That I shall not resent your words of truth
If spoken in good faith with best intentions.
I may not always follow your advice,
But you are free to say whate'er you please,
Whate'er you may deem best for me to know,
Whate'er will benefit the empire and my people.
Now listen what I have to say to you.
I will reveal to you my inmost heart:
This is an age of greatest expectations;
Riches accumulate in our cities,
Commerce and trade are flourishing, and
Our caravans exchange our native goods
For gold and precious produce from abroad.
What India needs is unity of rule.
The valley of the holy Ganges should
Be governed by one king, a king of kings.
There should no longer be a rivalry,
A clash of interests between the states,
And all the princes should obey the rule
Of the one man who guides and guards the whole.
This therefore is my plan: you Nagadeva
Must gain the favor of our neighbor kings,
So as to make them recognize our sway.
If voluntarily they will submit,
They shall be welcome as our worthy vassals.
If they resist (_turning to Siha_) my gallant general
You must reduce them to subjection.
A treaty with the rajas in the east,
In southern and in northern Kosala,
Speedeth my plans, the Sakyas only
Defy our sovereign will, and keep aloof.
If they yield not, their power must be broken!
There is a task for you and for my army.
_N._ Permit, my noble king, that I advise you.
I know the Sakya minister of state,
And he is willing to betray his master.
The Sakya prince, the only son and heir,
Siddhattha Gotama he's called by name,
Went into homelessness and has turned monk,
Leaving behind his wife and a small son.
The minister aspireth to the throne,
And if we help him in his plans, he will
Acknowledge you as sovereign over him.
And that will save your army blood and trouble.
_Bb._ What is his name.
_N._ Visakha, noble King.
_Bb._ I wish to see him. Let him visit you
And as by accident I want to meet him.
_GS._ Allow me, mighty King, a word of warning.
_Bb._ Speak freely.
_GS._
_With unconcealed indignation, almost entreatingly._
Do not listen to a traitor.
Send me with all the army of the kingdom,
Bid me lead captive all the Sakyas; do it
In open fight but not by treachery.
My King, avoid alliance with Visakha,
His very breath contaminates. He lowers
Ourselves to his low level.
_Bb._ Thank you Siha.
I will be slow. [_Pondering_] But it is too important!
_Argues with himself._
May I not listen to a traitor's words,
Nor hear him,--profit by his information?
_GS._ Oh do it not!
_Bb._ Siha, thou art a soldier.
I honor thee, thou speakest like a soldier,
But think how much diplomacy will help,
How many lives and property it saves.
Without the brutal means of war it will
Better accomplish all our ends; it spares
The enemy as well. A prosperous country
Will serve me better than a city sacked
And villages destroyed by fire.
_GS._ Pardon, my liege, I do not trust a traitor.
_Bb._ I will be on my guard, but I shall see him,
'T shall be by way of reconnoitering.
You in the meantime keep the army ready,
For one way or another I must conquer
The Sakya king and make him do my bidding.
_The King rises indicating that his two counselors are
dismissed. They rise also._
The world is growing wider every day
And our souls broaden with the general progress.
A new era dawns upon us. Let us all
Help to mature the fruitage of the times.
SECOND SCENE
[The garden before the palace of King SUDDHODANA as in Act I]
_Presents YASODHARA (Y) with her maid GOPA (G) and RAHULA
(R)._
_Y._ Repeat that verse once more and then we will stop our lesson.
_R._ With goodness meet an evil deed,
With loving kindness conquer wrath,
With generosity quench greed,
And lies by walking on truth's path.
_Y._ Now you can run about in the garden or play with the Captain's
son.
_R._ Mother, I do not believe that goodness always works in this life.
_Y._ Why do you think so?
_R._ Because there are very bad boys, so bad that only a whipping will
cure them.
_Y._ Rahula!
_R._ Truly, mother, truly. Even the gardener says so.
_Y._ You must set the bad boys a good example.
_R._ No use, mother; they remain bad. I have tried it.
_Y._ You must have patience.
_R._ No use, mother; and the gardener says, A viper remains a viper.
_Y._ Even poisonous reptiles can be tamed.
_R._ Yes, but the gardener first pulls their fangs. Would you like me
to play with a viper?
_Y._ No, my boy.
_Excitement at the gate. KALA enters and soldiers of the
guard surround him._
_R._ What is going on?--O Mother! Kala Udayin is back!
_KALA UDAYIN (K) appears among the guards.
RAHULA runs to the gate._
_R._ Kala! Welcome home! Shake hands!
_K._ Be heartily greeted, my boy.
_R._ Did you see father?
_K._ I did, Rahula.
_R._ Tell me all.
_K._ I will tell mother.
_R._ Come to mother. She has been expecting you for many days.
_KALA kneels to the Princess._
_Y._ Gopa, take his bundle. [_The maid takes his bundle and carries it
into the house._] What news do you bring of Prince Siddhattha?
_K._ I followed the Prince from place to place and saw him last near
Benares in the forest of Uruvela.
_Y._ How is his health, and will he come back?
_K._ His health is probably good, but he does not think of coming
back--not yet. O my dear lady! If you could see him! he is as thin as
a skeleton. I could count all his ribs.
_R._ What is the trouble with father.
_K._ He is fasting. He lives on a hempcorn a day; think of it, one
little hempcorn a day!
_Y._ Oh, he will die! My poor husband. I must follow him and attend to
his wants. He needs his wife's loving care. I will leave my home and
follow him.
_K._ Could you help him, princess? He might not like it, and the monks
abhor women. Moreover, I was told that he takes food again, every
morning a cup of rice milk. The day I left he looked better. Still, he
was pretty pale.
_Y._ Tell me all you know of him.
_K._ I went first to Rajagaha, and there I heard wondrous tales about
the noble monk Gotama. All the people knew about him, they called him
a "sage" or "muni" and the "Bodhisatta."
_R._ What does that mean, Kala?
_K._ Bodhisatta is the man who seeks the bodhi--and the bodhi is
enlightenment or Buddhahood.
_Y._ What did the people of Rajagaha say?
_K._ When Prince Siddhattha came to Rajagaha, he created a great
excitement in the city. Never had been seen a mendicant of such noble
appearance, and crowds flocked to him. They thought he was a Buddha
and greeted him as a Buddha; but he said to them "I am not a Buddha;
I am a Bodhisatta, I seek Buddhahood, and I am determined to find it."
_Y._ Did you meet people who saw him?
_K._ Indeed, I did. They say he looked like a god. The news spread all
over the capital, and King Bimbisara himself went out with his
ministers to see the Bodhisatta. King Bimbisara came to the place
where the stranger stayed--under a forest tree near a brook--and
greeted him most respectfully saying, "Great monk, remain here with me
in Rajagaha; I see that you are wise and worthy. Live with me at the
royal palace. Be my adviser and counselor. You are not made for a
mendicant. Your hands are fit to hold the reins of empire. Stay here,
I beg you, and you shall not lack honor and rank." "Nay," replied
Siddhattha, "let me go my way in quest of enlightenment. I am bent on
solving the problem of existence, and I will become a Buddha." Said
the King, "Hear then, great monk. Go in quest of enlightenment, and
when you have found it come back to Rajagaha."
_Y._ Is King Bimbisara so religious?
_K._ King Bimbisara is ambitious. As is well known, he is a warrior
and a conqueror; but that is not all. He wants to be the greatest
monarch of all ages and he would have all the great events happen
under his rule. This is what he said to the Bodhisatta: "When I was a
youth I uttered five wishes, and they were these: I prayed, May I be
crowned King. This wish has been fulfilled. Then I wished, May the
holy Buddha, the Blessed One, appear on earth while I am King, and may
he come to my kingdom. This was my second wish, and while I gaze upon
you I know that it will be fulfilled. Further I wished, May I see the
blessed Buddha and pay my respects to him. This was my third wish. My
fourth wish was, May the Blessed One preach the doctrine to me, and my
fifth and greatest wish was this, May I understand the doctrine. I beg
you, therefore, great monk, when you have become a Buddha come back
and preach the doctrine to me and accept me as your disciple."
_Y._ And whither did Siddhattha go from Rajagaha?
_K._ He visited the great philosophers Arada and Udraka, but he found
no satisfaction in their theories. So he went on to Uruvela where the
ascetics live. I followed the Bodhisatta and learned that he stayed
with five disciples in the forest. I found shelter near by in the
cottage of the chief shepherd, a good old man with a pretty daughter,
Nanda. There I watched Siddhattha and his disciples from a distance.
He was the youngest but the wisest of them, and they reverenced him as
master. He outdid them all in fasting. One day Nanda, the shepherd's
daughter, saw him faint, and he might have died from exhaustion right
on the spot if Nanda had not given him rice milk to drink.
_Y._ O good Kala, what shall I do? What shall I do? Here I sit at
home, a poor, helpless woman, unable to assist him or to take care of
him! O Kala, advise me, what can I do?
_KING SUDDHODANA (S) and VISAKHA (V) come out of the palace.
The Princess retires into the palace. GOPA hides behind the
bushes._
_S._ I am glad to see you back. Have you seen my son?
_K._ I have sire.
_S._ Where did you find him?
_K._ At Uruvela, the place of mortification where saints try to see
visions and reach a state of bliss.
_V._ And has Siddhattha succeeded?
_K._ It does not seem so; he is starving himself to death.
_V._ Is he dying?
_K._ Not exactly, but I do not see how he can live--on that diet.
_S._ Oh, Visakha, how have I been deprived of my son through a whim!
_Both return into the palace. VISAKHA comes back._
_V._ It seems that Siddhattha is ruining himself.
_K._ At the rate he is going now, he won't stand it long. He may not
live another month. It is pitiable. You should have seen him. That
beautiful young man looks like a consumptive in his last stage. I did
not dare to tell what I thought. The Princess would not have borne
the sad news.
_V._ Too bad. It looks pretty hopeless.
_K._ I do not see how the Prince can survive.
_V._ What is the idea of these fasts?
_K._ These pious recluses believe that the self is imprisoned in the
body and that the senses are the prison gates. They want to liberate
the soul, and many of them behold visions, but Siddhattha seems to
doubt whether the saints of Uruvela proceed on the right track. Indeed
he denies the very existence of the self.
_V._ I know he does. His views should be branded as purely human
wisdom. As the senses are finger touch, eye touch, ear touch, nose and
tongue touch, so the mind is to him mere thought touch. He claimed
that the mind originates through a co-operation of the senses.
_K._ His disciples begin to break away from him.
_V._ That is right. They ought to have done so long ago. I always said
that Siddhattha is an unbeliever. He spurns faith and relies too much
on his own observation and reasoning. He will never find
enlightenment. He is too negative, too nihilistic, and his quest of
Buddhahood will end in a lamentable failure.
_K._ It would be a pity, sir. He is certainly in earnest to find the
truth--the real truth, not what the priests say nor the Vedas declare,
but the truth, provable truth.
_V._ Yes that is his fault. When the king speaks with you tell him
all, explain the hopelessness of his situation. The king ought to know
the facts.
_VISAKHA retires into the palace._
_K._ [_Calls in a low voice_] Gopa, Gopa!
[_GOPA appears from behind the bush._]
_K._ [_Aside_] I knew she would not be far.
_G._ What do you want?
_K._ I want to have a talk with you.
_G._ Well?
_K._ Let us set our marriage day.
_G._ I do not care to marry you--just yet.
_K._ I want a kiss, Gopa.
_G._ You shan't have it!
_K._ I will leave Kapilavatthu and go back to the Bodhisatta.
_G._ He will tell you that a youth must not kiss a girl.
_K._ That rule holds only for monks.
_G._ Go and turn monk. Then it applies to you.
_K._ The world would die out if everybody turned monk.
_G._ First, you are not everybody, and secondly, would it not be a
blessing if the whole world would try to be sanctified?
_K._ Pshaw! Mankind consists of different castes and professions, of
soldiers and merchants, of peasants and artisans and teachers. Mankind
is like a body with various limbs, a head and hands, feet and chest
and neck. A man who were head only could not live, and if mankind
consisted of Buddhas only we would starve. We need a Buddha, but there
must also be householders. Now quick give me a kiss.
_She pouts._
_K._ If you do not kiss me I shall go back to the forest of Uruvela.
Nanda, the shepherd's daughter, is a very pretty girl. She is as
pretty as you are. She is,--well, her cheeks are rosier than yours.
She is a little taller, and she is so graceful when she milks the
kine. The shepherd needs a helper. I am sure he would like to have a
son-in-law.
_RAHULA enters._
_R._ Gopa! Mother wants you.
_G._ [_Kisses K. quickly_] Here is a kiss, but you must forget Nanda.
[_Runs away._]
_K._ Stay a moment longer!
_G._ I have no time. [_Exit._]
_K._ I knew she would come around,--and she is much prettier than
Nanda. Nanda is a buxom country lass, a pleasant girl, but Gopa is as
proper as a princess. [_He continues with unction._] Bodhisatta longs
for the blessed state of Nirvana, and when he has found it, he will be
calm and without passion. He will walk on earth as a god among men. No
emotion will disturb the peace of his mind, and the happiness of the
great Brahma will be as nothing in comparison to the infinite bliss of
his Buddhahood. [_With a lighter tone_]: I adore him, but I do not
envy him. I do not long for the happiness of a god. I am a man with
human faults and human yearnings. I am satisfied with the happiness
and the sufferings of a man. Since I am assured of Gopa's love, I care
not for Nirvana. I think that this world is good enough for me.
_V._ [_Looks around like a spy._]
How peaceful lies this palace, yet I see
The war clouds lour upon its roofs.
The storm will break with sudden vehemence upon
These harmless unsuspecting people. Woe to them,
Their doom is certain. Desperate resistance
Succumbs before the overwhelming forces
Of Bimbisara.--And what will become
Of poor Yasodhara?--I like her well.
I might still save her from her people's ruin.
A princess, sweet and noble, and herself
Descended from an ancient royal house. But
I hate that little youngster Rahula.
Whate'er betide, my deep-laid schemes will speed
And I shall profit by my master's doom.
[Music: Chopin's Nocturno. Opus 37, No. 2.]
[CURTAIN]
THIRD SCENE.
[Darkness covers the scene. Distant thunder and lightning. Gradually
it grows light again and the scene of YASODHARA'S bedroom becomes
visible. All luxury has been removed; she sleeps on a mat on the
floor, RAHULA in bed.]
_R._ Mother! Mother!
_Y._ Sleep my boy, it is almost midnight.
_R._ Take me up, Mother.
_YASODHARA picks RAHULA up._
_R._ Why do you sleep on the floor, Mother?
_Y._ Because father does so. Let me lay you down on your couch, you
must sleep.
_R._ Tell me more of father.
_Y._ I will to-morrow.
_R._ Tell me now. Is father a king?
_Y._ No, my son. But he is going to found a kingdom.
_R._ Will he be king of it?
_Y._ I do not know, my boy, but his kingdom will not be like other
kingdoms. It will be the kingdom of truth--a spiritual kingdom, a
kingdom of righteousness.
_R._ Is father rich?
_Y._ He scorns riches.
_R._ Why does he?
_Y._ He seeks other riches, the riches of religion, of the mind, of
spirit.
_R._ Did he find them?
_Y._ I believe he did.
_R._ He sends you news through Kala Udayin.
_Y._ No, Rahula, I send Kala Udayin out to watch him and when Kala
comes back he tells me what he saw and heard. Kala does not speak to
father.
_R._ Why does Kala not speak to father?
_Y._ Grandfather forbade him. When we sent out Devadatta and Ananda,
they became attached to the life of a hermit. They joined father and
did not come back; but Kala will not turn monk.
_R._ But this time he will speak to father.
_Y._ How do you know?
_R._ I heard grandfather bid him to.
_Y._ What did he bid him?
_R._ He bade Kala that he should tell father to visit us.
|
.
14. Larva of _Sirex_.
15. Egg of _Rhynchites_, showing the parasitic larva.
16. The parasitic larva, more magnified.
17. Egg of _Platygaster_.
18. Egg of _Platygaster_, showing the central cell.
19. Egg of _Platygaster_, after the division of the central cell.
20. Egg of _Platygaster_, more advanced.
21. Egg of _Platygaster_, more advanced.
22. Egg of _Platygaster_, showing the rudiment of the embryo.
23. Larva of _Platygaster_.—_mo_, mouth; _a_, antenna; _kf_,
hooked feet; _r_, toothed process; _lfg_, lateral
process; _f_, branches of the tail.
24. Larva of another species of _Platygaster_. (The letters
indicate the same parts as in the preceding figure.)
25. Larva of a third species of _Platygaster_. (The letters
indicate the same parts as in the preceding figure.)
26. Larva of _Platygaster_ in the second stage.—_mo_, mouth;
_slkf_, œsophagus; _gsae_, supra-œsophagal ganglion;
_lm_, muscles; _bsm_, nervous system; _gagh_, rudiments
of the reproductive glands.
27. Larva of _Platygaster_ in the third stage.—_mo_, mouth;
_ma_, mandibles; _gsae_, supra-œsophagal ganglion; _slk_,
œsophagus; _ag_, ducts of the salivary glands; _bnm_,
ventral nervous system; _sp_, salivary glands; _msl_,
stomach; _im_, imaginal discs; _tr_, tracheæ; _fk_, fatty
tissue; _ed_, intestine; _ga_, rudiments of reproductive
organs; _ew_, wider portion of intestine; _ao_, posterior
opening.
28. Embryo of _Polynema_.
29. Larva of _Polynema_.—_asch_, rudiments of the antennæ;
_flsch_, of the wings; _bsch_, of the legs; _vfg_,
lateral projections; _gsch_, rudiments of the ovipositor;
_fk_, fatty tissue.
30. Egg of _Phryganea_ (Mystacides).—_A_¹, mandibular segment;
_C_¹-_C_⁵, maxillary, labial, and three thoracic
segments; _D_, abdomen.
31. Egg of _Phryganea_ somewhat more advanced.—_b_, mandibles;
_c_, maxillæ; _cfs_, rudiments of the three pairs of
legs.
32. Egg of _Pholcus opilionides_, showing the Protozonites.
33. Embryo of _Julus_.
34. Colony of _Bougainvillea fruticosa_, natural size, attached
to the underside of a piece of floating timber.
35. Portion of the same, more magnified.
36. The Medusa from the same species.
37. Larva of Prawn, Nauplius stage.
38. Larva of Prawn, more advanced, Zoëa stage.
39. Larva of Echino-cidaris œquituberculata seen from above ×
6/10.
40. Larva of _Echinus_ × 100.—_A_, front arm; _F_, arms of the
mouth-process; _B_, posterior side arm; _E_¹, accessory
arm of the mouth-process; _a_, mouth; _a_¹, œsophagus;
_b_, stomach; _b_¹, intestine; _o_, posterior orifice;
_d_, ciliated bands; _f_, ciliated epaulets; _c_, disc of
future _Echinus_.
41. _Comatula rosacea_.
42. Larva of _Comatula rosacea_.
43. Larva of _Comatula rosacea_, more advanced.
44. Larva of _Comatula rosacea_, in the Pentacrinus state.
45. Larva of Starfish (Bipinnaria), × 100.
46. Larva of Starfish (Bipinnaria), × 100, seen from the
side.—_a_, mouth; _b_, œsophagus; _c_, stomach; _c_¹,
intestine.
47. Larva of another Bipinnaria, showing the commencement of
the Starfish.—_g_, canal of the ciliated sac; _i_, rudiments
of tentacles; _d_, ciliated band.
48. Larva of Moth (_Agrotis_).
49. Larva of Beetle (_Haltica_).
50. Larva of Saw-fly (_Cimbex_).
51. Larva of _Julus_.
52. _Agrotis suffusa_.
53. _Haltica_.
54. _Cimbex_.
55. _Julus_.
56. Tardigrade.
57. Larva of _Cecidomyia_.
58. _Lindia torulosa_.
59. _Prorhynchus stagnalis_.
60. Egg of Tardigrade.
61. Egg of Tardigrade, after the yolk has subdivided.
62. Egg of Tardigrade, in the next stage.
63. Egg of Tardigrade, more advanced.
ON THE ORIGIN AND METAMORPHOSES OF INSECTS.
CHAPTER I.
_THE CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS._
About forty years ago the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of St.
Fernando in Chili arrested a certain M. Renous on a charge of
witchcraft, because he kept some caterpillars which turned into
butterflies.[1] This was no doubt an extreme case of ignorance; it is
now almost universally known that the great majority of insects quit the
egg in a state very different from that which they ultimately assume;
and the general statement in works on entomology has been that the life
of an insect may be divided into four periods.
Thus, according to Kirby and Spence,[2] “The states through which
insects pass are four: the _egg_, the _larva_, the _pupa_, and the
_imago_.” Burmeister,[3] also, says that, excluding certain very rare
anomalies, “we may observe four distinct periods of existence in every
insect,—namely, those of the egg, the larva, the pupa, and the imago,
or perfect insect.” In fact, however, the various groups of insects
differ widely from one another in the metamorphoses they pass through:
in some, as in the grasshoppers and crickets, the changes consist
principally in a gradual increase of size, and in the acquisition of
wings; while others, as for instance the common fly, acquire their full
bulk in a form very different from that which they ultimately assume,
and pass through a period of inaction in which not only is the whole
form of the body altered, not only are legs and wings acquired, but even
the internal organs themselves are almost entirely disintegrated and
re-formed. It will be my object, after having briefly described these
changes, to throw some light on the causes to which they are due, and on
the indications they afford of the stages through which insects have
been evolved.
The following list gives the orders or principal groups into which the
Class Insecta may be divided. I will not, indeed, here enter upon my own
views, but will adopt the system given by Mr. Westwood in his excellent
“Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects,” from which also,
as a standard authority, most of the figures on Plates I. to IV., when
not otherwise acknowledged, have been taken. He divides insects into
thirteen groups, and with reference to eight of them it may be said that
there is little difference of opinion among entomologists. These orders
are by far the most numerous, and I have placed them in capital
letters. As regards the other five there is still much difference of
opinion. It must also be observed that Prof. Westwood omits the
parasitic Anoplura, as well as the Thysanura and Collembola.
ORDERS OF INSECTS ACCORDING TO WESTWOOD.
1. HYMENOPTERA Bees, Wasps, Ants, &c.
2. STREPSIPTERA _Stylops_, _Zenos_, &c.
3. COLEOPTERA Beetles.
4. EUPLEXOPTERA Earwigs.
5. ORTHOPTERA Grasshoppers, Crickets, Cockroaches, &c.
6. THYSANOPTERA _Thrips_.
7. NEUROPTERA _Ephemeras_, &c.
8. TRICHOPTERA _Phryganea_.
9. DIPTERA Flies and Gnats.
10. APHANIPTERA Fleas.
11. HETEROPTERA Bugs.
12. HOMOPTERA _Aphis_, _Coccus_, &c.
13. LEPIDOPTERA Butterflies and Moths.
Of these thirteen orders, the eight which I have placed in capital
letters—namely the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth, are much the most important in the number and
variety of their species; the other five form comparatively small
groups. The Strepsiptera are minute insects, parasitic on Hymenoptera:
Rossi, by whom they were discovered, regarded them as Hymenopterous;
Lamarck placed them among the Diptera; by others they have been
considered to be most closely allied to the Coleoptera, but they are now
generally treated as an independent order.
The Euplexoptera or Earwigs are only too familiar to most of us. Linnæus
classed them among the Coleoptera, from which, however, they differ in
their transformations. Fabricius, Olivier, and Latreille regarded them
as Orthoptera; but Dr. Leach, on account of the structure of their
wings, considered them as forming the type of a distinct order, in which
view he has been followed by Westwood, Kirby, and many other
entomologists.
The Thysanoptera, consisting of the Linnæan genus _Thrips_, are minute
insects well known to gardeners, differing from the Coleoptera in the
nature of their metamorphoses, in which they resemble the Orthoptera and
Hemiptera. The structure of the wings and mouth-parts, however, are
considered to exclude them from these two orders.
The Trichoptera, or Caddis worms, offer many points of resemblance to
the Neuroptera, while in others they approach more nearly to the
Lepidoptera. According to Westwood, the genus _Phryganea_ “forms the
connecting link between the Neuroptera and Lepidoptera.”
The last of these small aberrant orders is that of the Aphaniptera,
constituted for the family Pulicidæ. In their transformations, as in
many other respects, they closely resemble the Diptera. Strauss
Durckheim indeed said that “_la puce est un diptère sans ailes_.”
Westwood, however, regards it as constituting a separate order.
As indicated by the names of these orders, the structure of the wings
affords extremely natural and convenient characters by which the various
groups may be distinguished from one another. The mouth-parts also are
very important; and, regarded from this point of view, the Insecta have
been divided into two series—the Mandibulata and Haustellata, or
mandibulate and suctorial groups, between which, as I have elsewhere
shown,[4] the Collembola (_Podura_, _Smynthurus_, &c.) occupy an
intermediate position. These two series are:—
MANDIBULATA.
Hymenoptera.
Strepsiptera.
Coleoptera.
Euplexoptera.
Orthoptera.
Trichoptera?
Thysanoptera?
HAUSTELLATA.
Lepidoptera.
Diptera.
Aphaniptera.
Hemiptera.
Homoptera.
Again—and this is the most important from my present point of
view—insects have sometimes been divided into two other series,
according to the nature of their metamorphoses: “Heteromorpha,” to use
the terminology of Prof. Westwood,[5] “or those in which there is no
resemblance between the parent and the offspring; and Homomorpha, or
those in which the larva resembles the imago, except in the absence of
wings. In the former the larva is generally worm-like, of a soft and
fleshy consistence, and furnished with a mouth, and often with six short
legs attached in pairs to the three segments succeeding the head. In the
Homomorpha, including the Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Homoptera, and certain
Neuroptera, the body, legs, and antennæ are nearly similar in their form
to those of the perfect insect, but the wings are wanting.”
HETEROMORPHA.
Hymenoptera.
Strepsiptera.
Coleoptera.
Trichoptera.
Diptera.
Aphaniptera.
Lepidoptera.
HOMOMORPHA.
Euplexoptera.
Orthoptera.
Hemiptera.
Homoptera.
Thysanoptera.
Neuroptera.
But though the Homomorphic insects do not pass through such striking
changes of form as the Heteromorphic, and are active throughout life,
still it was until within the last few years generally (though
erroneously) considered, that in them, as in the Heteromorpha, the life
fell into four distinct periods; those of (1) the egg, (2) the larva,
characterized by the absence of wings, (3) the pupa with imperfect
wings, and (4) the imago, or perfect insect.
I have, however, elsewhere[6] shown that there are not, as a matter of
fact, four well-marked stages, and four only, but that in many cases the
process is much more gradual.
The species belonging to the order Hymenoptera are among the most
interesting of insects. To this order belong the gallflies, the
sawflies, the ichneumons, and, above all, the ants and bees. We are
accustomed to class the Anthropoid apes next to man in the scale of
creation, but if we were to judge animals by their works, the chimpanzee
and the gorilla must certainly give place to the bee and the ant. The
larvæ of the sawflies, which live on leaves, and of the Siricidæ or
long-tailed wasps, which feed on wood, are very much like caterpillars,
having three pairs of legs, and in the former case abdominal pro-legs
as well: but in the great majority of Hymenoptera the larvæ are legless,
fleshy grubs (Plate II., Figs. 7-9); and the various modes by which the
females provide for, or secure to, them a sufficient supply of
appropriate nourishment constitutes one of the most interesting pages of
Natural History.
The species of Hymenoptera are very numerous; in this country alone
there are about 3,000 kinds, most of which are very small. In the pupa
state they are inactive, and show distinctly all the limbs of the
perfect insect, encased in distinct sheaths, and folded on the breast.
In the perfect state they are highly organized and very active. The
working ants and some few species are wingless, but the great majority
have four strong membranous wings, a character distinguishing them at
once from the true flies, which have only one pair of wings.
The saw-flies are so called because they possess at the end of the body a
curious organ, corresponding to the sting of a wasp, but which is in the
form of a fine-toothed saw. With this instrument the female sawfly cuts
a slit in the stem or leaf of a plant, into which she introduces her
egg. The larva much resembles a caterpillar, both in form and habits. To
this group belongs the nigger, or black caterpillar of the turnip, which
is often in sufficient numbers to do much mischief. Some species make
galls, but the greater number of galls are formed by insects of another
family, the Cynipidæ.
[Illustration: PLATE I.[7]—MATURE INSECTS.
Fig. 1, Cricket; 2, Earwig; 3, _Aphis_; 4, _Scolytus_; 5, Anthrax;
6, _Balaninus_; 7, _Cynips_; 8, Ant; 9, Wasp.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.—LARVÆ OF THE INSECTS REPRESENTED ON PLATE I.
Fig. 1, Larva of Cricket; 2, Larva of Aphis; 3, Larva of Earwig; 4,
Larva of _Scolytus_ (Beetle); 5, Larva of _Anthrax_ (Fly); 6, Larva of
_Balaninus_ (Nut Weevil); 7, Larva of _Cynips_; 8, Larva of Ant;
9, Larva of Wasp.]
In the Cynipidæ (Plate I., Fig. 7) the female is provided with an organ
corresponding to the saw of the sawfly, but resembling a needle. With
this she stings or punctures the surface of leaves, buds, stalks, or
even roots of various plants. In the wound thus produced she lays one or
more eggs. The effects of this proceeding, and particularly of the
irritating fluid which she injects into the wound, is to produce a
tumour or gall, within which the egg hatches, and on which the larva, a
thick fleshy grub (Plate II., Fig. 7), feeds. In some species each gall
contains a single larva; in others, several live together.
The oak supports several kinds of gallflies: one produces the well-known
oak-apple, one a small swelling on the leaf resembling a currant,
another a gall somewhat like an acorn, another attacks the root; the
species making the bullet-like galls, which are now so common, has only
existed for a few years in this country; the beautiful little spangles
so common in autumn on the under side of oak leaves are the work of
another species, the _Cynus longipennis_. One curious point about this
group is, that in some of the commonest species the females alone are
known, no one yet having ever succeeded in finding a male.
Another great family of the Hymenoptera is that of the ichneumons; the
females lay their eggs either in or on other insects, within the bodies
of which the larvæ live. These larvæ are thick, fleshy, legless grubs,
and feed on the fatty tissues of their hosts, but do not attack the
vital organs. When full-grown, the grubs eat their way through the skin
of the insect, and turn into chrysalides. Almost every kind of insect
is subject to the attacks of these little creatures, which are no doubt
useful in preventing the too great multiplication of insects, and
especially of caterpillars. Some species are so minute that they
actually lay their eggs within those of other insects (Figs. 15, 16).
These parasites assume very curious forms in their larval state.
But of all the Hymenoptera, the group containing the ant, the bee, and
the wasp is the most interesting. This is especially the case with the
social species, though the solitary ones also are extremely remarkable.
The solitary bee or wasp, for instance, forms a cell generally in the
ground, places in it a sufficient amount of food, lays an egg, and
closes the cell. In the case of bees, the food consists of honey; in
that of wasps, the larva requires animal food, and the mother therefore
places a certain number of insects in the cell, each species having its
own special prey, some selecting small caterpillars, some beetles, some
spiders. _Cerceris bupresticida_, as its name denotes, attacks beetles
belonging to the genus _Buprestis_. Now if the Cerceris were to kill the
beetle before placing it in the cell, it would decay, and the young
larva, when hatched, would find only a mass of corruption. On the other
hand, if the beetle were buried uninjured, in its struggles to escape it
would be almost certain to destroy the egg. The wasp has, however, the
instinct of stinging its prey in the centre of the nervous system, thus
depriving it of motion, and let us hope of suffering, but not of life;
consequently, when the young larva leaves the egg, it finds ready a
sufficient store of wholesome food.
Other wasps are social, and, like the bees and ants, dwell together in
communities. They live for one season, dying in autumn, except some of
the females, which hibernate, awake in the spring, and form new
colonies. These, however, do not, under ordinary circumstances, live
through a second winter. One specimen which I kept tame through last
spring and summer, lived until the end of February, but then died. The
larvæ of wasps (Plate II., Fig. 9) are fat, fleshy, legless grubs. When
full-grown they spin for themselves a silken covering, within which they
turn into chrysalides. The oval bodies which are so numerous in ants’
nests, and which are generally called ants’ eggs, are really not eggs
but cocoons. Ants are very fond of the honey-dew which is formed by the
Aphides, and have been seen to tap the Aphides with their antennæ, as if
to induce them to emit some of the sweet secretion. There is a species
of _Aphis_ which lives on the roots of grass, and some ants collect these
into their nests, keeping them, in fact, just as we do cows. Moreover
they collect the eggs in the autumn and tend them through the winter
(when they are of no use) with the same care as their own, so as to have
a supply of young Aphides in the spring. This is one of the most
remarkable facts I know in the whole history of animal life. One species
of red ant does no work for itself, but makes slaves of a black kind,
which then do everything for their masters. The slave makers will not
even put food into their own mouths, but would starve in the midst of
plenty, if they had not a slave to feed them. I found, however, that I
could keep them in life and health for months if I gave them a slave for
an hour or two in a week to clean and feed them.
Ants also keep a variety of beetles and other insects in their nests.
That they have some reason for this seems clear, because they readily
attack any unwelcome intruder; but what that reason is, we do not yet
know. If these insects are to be regarded as the domestic animals of the
ants, then we must admit that the ants possess more domestic animals
than we do.
Some indeed of these beetles produce a secretion which is licked by the
ants like the honey-dew; there are others, however, which have not yet
been shown to be of any use to the ants, and yet are rarely, if ever,
found, excepting in ants’ nests.
M. Lespès, who regards these insects as true domestic animals, has
recorded[8] some interesting observations on the relations between one
of them (_Claviger Duvalii_) and the ants (_Lasius niger_) with which it
lives. This species of _Claviger_ is never met with except in ants’
nests, though on the other hand there are many communities of _Lasius_
which possess none of these beetles; and M. Lespès found that when he
placed _Clavigers_ in a nest of ants which had none of their own, the
beetles were immediately killed and eaten, the ants themselves being on
the other hand kindly received by other communities of the same species.
He concludes from these observations that some communities of ants are
more advanced in civilization than others; the suggestion is no doubt
ingenious, and the fact curiously resembles the experience of navigators
who have endeavoured to introduce domestic animals among barbarous
tribes; but M. Lespès has not yet, so far as I am aware, published the
details of his observations, without which it is impossible to form a
decided opinion. I have sometimes wondered whether the ants have any
feeling of reverence for these beetles; but the whole subject is as yet
very obscure, and would well repay careful study.
[Illustration: PLATE III.—MATURE INSECTS.
Fig. 1, _Chloëon_; 2, _Meloë_ (after Shuckard); 3, _Calepteryx_;
4, _Sitaris_ (after Shuckard); 5, _Campodea_ (after Gervais);
6, _Acilius_; 7, _Termes_; 8, _Stylops_ (female); 9, _Thrips_.]
[Illustration: PLATE IV. YOUNG FORMS OF THE INSECTS REPRESENTED ON PLATE
III.—Fig. 1, Larva of _Chloëon_; 2, Larva of _Meloë_ (after Chapuis and
Candèze); 3, Larva of _Calepteryx_ (after Léon Dufour); 4, Larva of
_Sitaris_; 5, Larva of _Campodea_; 6, Larva of _Acilius_;
7, Larva of Termes (after Blanchard); 8, Larva of _Stylops_; 9, Larva
of _Thrips_.]
The order Strepsiptera are a small, but very remarkable group of
insects, parasitic on bees and wasps. The larva (Pl. IV., Fig. 8) is
minute, six-legged, and very active; it passes through its
transformations within the body of the bee or wasp. The male and female
are very dissimilar. The males are minute, very active, short-lived, and
excitable, with one pair of large membranous wings. The females (Pl.
III., Fig. 8), on the contrary, are almost motionless, and shaped very
much like a bottle; they never quit the body of the bee, but only thrust
out the top of the bottle between the abdominal rings of the bee.
In the order Coleoptera, the larvæ differ very much in form. The
majority are elongated, active, hexapod, and more or less depressed; but
those of the Weevils (Pl. II., Fig. 6), of _Scolytus_ (Pl. II., Fig. 4),
&c., which are vegetable feeders, and live surrounded by their
food,—as, for instance, in grain, nuts, &c.,—are apod, white, fleshy
grubs, not unlike those of bees and ants. The larvæ of the Longicorns,
which live inside trees, are long, soft, and fleshy, with six short
legs. The Geodephaga, corresponding with the Linnæan genera _Cicindela_
and _Carabus_, have six-legged, slender, carnivorous larvæ; those of
_Cicindela_, which waylay their prey, being less active than the hunting
larvæ of the Carabidæ. The Hydradephaga, or water-beetles (Dyticidæ and
Gyrinidæ), have long and narrow larvæ (Pl. IV., Fig. 6), with strong
sickle-shaped jaws, short antennæ, four palpi, and six small eyes on
each side of the head; they are very voracious. The larvæ of the
Staphylinidæ are by no means unlike the perfect insect, and are found in
similar situations; their jaws are powerful, and their legs moderately
strong. The larvæ of the Lamellicorn beetles (Figs. 1-6)—cockchafers,
stag-beetles, &c.—feed on vegetable substances or on dead animal
matter. They are long, soft, fleshy grubs, with the abdomen somewhat
curved, and generally lie on their side. The larvæ of the Elateridæ,
known as wireworms, are long and slender, with short legs. That of the
glowworm (Lampyridæ) is not unlike the apterous female. The male
glowworm, on the contrary, is very different. It has long, thin, brown
wing-cases, and often flies into rooms at night, attracted by the light,
which it probably mistakes for that of its mate.
The metamorphoses of the Cantharidæ are very remarkable, and will be
described subsequently. The larvæ are active and hexapod. The Phytophaga
(_Crioceris_, _Galeruca_, _Haltica_, _Chrysomela_, &c.) are vegetable
feeders, both as larvæ and in the perfect state. The larvæ are furnished
with legs, and are not unlike the caterpillars of certain Lepidoptera.
The larva of _Coccinella_ (the Ladybird) is somewhat depressed, of an
elongated ovate form, with a small head, and moderately strong legs. It
feeds on Aphides.
Thus, then, we see that there are among the Coleoptera many different
forms of larvæ. Macleay considered that there were five principal types.
1. Carnivorous hexapod larvæ, with an elongated, more or less flattened
body, six eyes on each side of the head, and sharp falciform mandibles
(_Carabus_, _Dyticus_, &c.).
2. Herbivorous hexapod larvæ, with fleshy, cylindrical bodies, somewhat
curved, so that they lie on their side.
3. Apod grub-like larvæ, with scarcely the rudiments of antennæ
(_Curculio_).
4. Hexapod antenniferous larvæ, with a subovate body, the second segment
being somewhat larger than the others (_Chrysomela_, _Coccinella_).
5. Hexapod antenniferous larvæ, of oblong form, somewhat resembling the
former, but with caudal appendages (_Meloë_, _Sitaris_).
The pupa of the Coleoptera is quiescent, and “the parts of the future
beetle are plainly perceivable, being encased in distinct sheaths; the
head is applied against the breast; the antennæ lie along the sides of
the thorax; the elytra and wings are short and folded at the sides of
the body, meeting on the under side of the abdomen; the two anterior
pairs of legs are entirely exposed, but the hind pair are covered by
wing-cases, the extremity of the thigh only appearing beyond the sides
of the body.”[9]
In the next three orders—namely, the Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts,
crickets, walking-stick insects, cockroaches, &c.), Euplexoptera
(earwigs), and Thysanoptera, a small group of insects well known to
gardeners under the name of _Thrips_ (Pl. I. and II., Figs. 1 and 2)—the
larvæ when they quit the egg already much resemble the mature form,
differing, in fact, principally in the absence of wings, which are more
or less gradually acquired, as the insect increases in size. They are
active throughout life. Those specimens which have rudimentary wings
are, however, usually called pupæ.
The Neuroptera present, perhaps, more differences in the character of
their metamorphoses than any other order of insects. Their larvæ are
generally active, hexapod little creatures, and do not vary from one
another in appearance so much, for instance, as those of the Coleoptera,
but their pupæ differ essentially; some groups, namely, the Psocidæ,
Termitidæ, Libellulidæ, Ephemeridæ, and Perlidæ, remaining active
throughout life, like the Orthoptera; while a second division, including
the Myrmeleonidæ, Hemerobiidæ, Sialidæ, Panorpidæ, Raphidiidæ, and
Mantispidæ, have quiescent pupæ, which, however, in some cases, acquire
more or less power of locomotion shortly before they assume the mature
state; thus that of _Raphidia_, though motionless at first, at length
acquires strength enough to walk, even while still enclosed in the pupa
skin, which is very thin.[10]
One of the most remarkable families belonging to this order is that of
the Termites, or white ants. They abound in the tropics, where they are
a perfect pest, and a serious impediment to human development. Their
colonies are extremely numerous, and they attack woodwork and furniture
of all kinds, generally working from within, so that their presence is
often unsuspected, until it is suddenly found that they have completely
eaten away the interior of some post or table, leaving nothing but a
thin outer shell. Their nests, which are made of earth, are sometimes
ten or twelve feet high, and strong enough to bear a man. One species,
_Termes lucifugus_, is found in the South of France, where it has been
carefully studied by Latreille. He found in these communities five kinds
of individuals—(1) males; (2) females, which grow to a very large size,
their bodies being distended with eggs, of which they sometimes lay as
many as 80,000 in a day; (3) a form described by some observers as Pupæ,
but by others as neuters. These differ very much from the others, having
a long, soft body without wings, but with an immense head, and very
large, strong jaws. These individuals act as soldiers, doing apparently
no work, but keeping watch over the nest and attacking intruders with
great boldness. (4) Apterous, eyeless individuals, somewhat resembling
the winged ones, but with a larger and more rounded head; these
constitute the greater part of the community, and, like the workers of
ants and bees, perform all the labour, building the nest and collecting
food. (5) Latreille mentions another kind of individual which he regards
as the pupa, and which resembles the workers, but has four white
tubercles on the back, where the wings afterwards make their appearance.
There is still, however, much difference of opinion among entomologists,
with reference to the true nature of these different classes of
individuals. M. Lespès, who has recently studied the same species,
describes a second kind of male and a second kind of female, and the
subject, indeed, is one which offers a most promising field for future
study.
Another interesting family of Neuroptera is that of the Ephemeræ, or
Mayflies (Pl. III., Fig. 1), so well known to fishermen. The larvæ (Pl.
IV., Fig. 1) are semi-transparent, active, six-legged little creatures,
which live in water; having at first no gills, they respire through the
general surface of the body. They grow rapidly and change their skin
every few days. After one or two moults they acquire seven pairs of
branchiæ, or gills, which are generally in the form of leaves, one pair
to the segment. When the larv
|
ers!” chattered Chip Jolliby.
“Let ’im see ’ow ’ard ’e can ’it hit,” advised Billy Bradley, the
English boy.
“Dern my picter! I am right here behind ye!” piped Obediah Tubbs.
“Put it into the pocket!” growled Buckhart, holding up his big mitt.
“Put it right there, old man!”
Having toed the slab, Arlington whistled in the first ball, which was a
sharp inshoot.
The batter struck, and the ball plunked into the Texan’s glove.
“Oh, dear me!” came from Ted Smart. “Didn’t he hit it hard!”
The entire Fardale team was chattering away now in a lively fashion,
every player on his toes and ready to do his duty.
Having led the batter to swing at the first one, Chester sought to
“pull” him with an outcurve.
Ligner was wary, however and refused to go after it.
“Get ’em over! Get ’em over, young feller!” he growled. “Can’t you find
the plate?”
Chester tried a high one, and again Ligner missed it.
“Wasn’t that an awful hit!” came from Smart. “I didn’t expect him to hit
it so far!”
Arlington was doing his best at the very outset. He could not lead
Ligner into reaching for wide ones. As a result, he was compelled to put
the ball over.
Then the batter did hit it. He drove it like a shot straight at Gardner,
who never flinched. The ball struck in Earl’s hands, but dropped to the
ground. Quick as thought Gardner picked it up and sent it across to
first, and the first batter was out.
Ligner paused near the base and stood with his hands on his hips,
staring at Gardner.
“Burned your mitts a little, kid, didn’t it?” he cried. “Next time I
will take your paws off. You will learn better than to stand in front of
those after a while.”
At this the cadets set up a derisive shout.
“That fellow is foolish, Mr. Man!” cried Smart, as soon as he could be
heard. “He never will seem to dodge ’em!”
“That’s the first one, Arlington,” said Gardner. “They’re half gone—half
gone!”
“You must be good at arithmetic!” derisively called one of the visitors
from the bench.
“Beautiful work, Gardner!” said Arlington, in satisfaction. “A fellow
can pitch with that kind of support!”
The second hitter was a stocky young Irish lad by the name of O’Rouke.
“He’s easy,” asserted Ligner. “All you have to do is wait, and he will
put a pretty one right over.”
Chester surveyed O’Rouke critically, his toe on the pitching plate. His
pose was one of grace, and he knew it. He knew also that in the grand
stand were several girls who were watching him anxiously. He had seen
his sister, accompanied by Doris Templeton and Zona Desmond, enter the
grand stand, and occasionally his eyes sought them.
“June,” said Zona, “I think your brother is just splendid! I think he is
the handsomest fellow in the whole school!”
June smiled.
“I am glad you think so,” she said.
“I know lots of girls who think so,” declared Zona, flashing Doris a
glance.
“I hope he wins this game to-day,” murmured June. “It will mean so much
to him. It will give him courage and confidence.”
“Of course he will,” nodded Zona.
“Oh, it isn’t sure. It is going to be a hard game. Every one says Dick
Merriwell acknowledged it would be a hard game.”
“Why didn’t he pitch?”
“Yes, why didn’t he?” broke from Doris.
“I don’t know,” June confessed. “It does seem strange he should use
Chester in such a game.”
“Perhaps he was afraid,” suggested Zona.
“Oh, I don’t believe that!” June exclaimed immediately.
“Nor I,” said Doris.
“Still you can’t tell,” persisted Zona. “Of course, he would hate to
lose a game. It would hurt his record.”
“I don’t believe he would put any one else in to pitch for that reason,”
declared Chester’s sister. “It’s not like him.”
“You think it isn’t like him,” smiled Zona, in a knowing manner. “But I
believe you’re mistaken.”
“Why are you always against Dick, Zona?” demanded Doris, with a touch of
resentment.
“Oh, I’m not! You’re quite mistaken if you think I am. Only I don’t
believe he is such a very superior boy, anyway. Even Chester says his
success is mainly good luck.”
“Like other fellows,” observed June, “Chester says many things he
doesn’t mean.”
At this point O’Rouke hit the ball and drove out a liner, which Obediah
Tubbs failed to reach, although he jumped for it.
The batter was a swift runner, and he started instantly when the bat hit
the ball. Getting such a good start, he crossed first and dashed for
second.
Both Jolliby and Flint raced after the ball, but Jolliby’s legs carried
him to it first. He caught it up and wheeled, seeing that O’Rouke was
trying to stretch the hit into a two-bagger.
In the matter of throwing the lanky centre-fielder of the home team was
a wonder. He now sent the ball on a dead line into the hands of Obediah
Tubbs, who received it and jumped into the air as O’Rouke slid, spikes
first, for the bag. The runner made the slide in that manner in order to
drive Tubbs away; but the leap of the fat boy in the air permitted him
to escape being spiked, and he came down with all his weight fairly on
the sliding player.
Obediah’s bulk stopped O’Rouke as if the fellow had struck a stone wall.
His foot was six inches from the bag, and Tubbs had fallen on him.
“Judgment!” cried the fat boy shrilly. “Dern my picter! He came near
opening a seam in me that time! But, by Jim! I bet he won’t try to put
his calks into me again!”
In truth the breath had been knocked out of O’Rouke, and he lay still
for four or five seconds after Obed got up.
“The man is out!” was the umpire’s decision.
“What a shame!” yelled Ted Smart.
Arlington walked down toward second, receiving the ball from Tubbs as
the latter tossed it to him.
“You nailed him fast, Obed, my boy,” he said.
“You bet I did, by jinks!” grinned Tubbs.
“Why didn’t they get an elephant to play second base!” snarled O’Rouke,
as he brushed the dust from his suit and walked off the diamond.
“Struck a snag, didn’t you, Mike?” asked Tom Grace, the captain of the
Great Northern, as O’Rouke returned to the bench.
“That’s what I did,” nodded the fellow. “I thought I’d fix him with my
spikes that trip, but he just jumped into the air and came down on me
like a brick block. I thought he had broken every rib in my body. You
fellows want to look out for him when you slide to second.”
Hardy, the next batter, sent a nasty little bounder down to Bradley, who
fumbled it long enough for the batter to safely reach first.
“Now we’re going, boys,” laughed Grace, as he stepped out to hit. “We
might as well clinch the game right here in this inning.”
“Of course you will do it!” cried Ted Smart. “We know you will! We’ll
take delight in seeing you clinch the game!”
Chester held Hardy close to first, but the fellow was a good base
runner, and he started to steal on the second ball pitched.
Grace gave his bat a wild flourish in front of Buckhart, but the Texan
was undisturbed by this, and he proceeded to snap the ball on a line to
Tubbs, who caught it in time to be waiting for Hardy as the latter made
a desperate lunge for the bag.
“Tag, you’re it!” piped the fat boy, as he “nailed” the ball onto the
runner.
Three men were out, and the Great Northern had not scored in the first
inning. Although they were surprised by the result, the players trotted
onto the field, laughing and joking. There were three pitchers with the
team, and they had decided to use their weakest man in the box, for they
were sure he would be good enough to hold the cadets down.
The next surprise came when Gardner bunted the second ball pitched and
scudded down to first with such speed that he reached the bag safely.
“Dear me, isn’t that too bad!” cried Ted Smart, as the Fardale cheer
died away.
“That’s the tut-tut-tut-time you fuf-fuf-fuf-fooled him!” laughed Chip
Jolliby, prancing about on the coach line back of first base.
Barron Black, the second hitter, finally picked out a good one and
sacrificed himself in driving Gardner down to second.
With one man out, Dave Flint came up. Flint was beyond question one of
the finest batters on the Fardale team. He seldom lifted a ball into the
air, and his line drives were generally safety placed. On this occasion
he selected an outcurve that was on the outer corner and lined it into
right field.
With a good lead off second, Gardner literally flew over third and came
home on the throw to the plate. This throw enabled Flint to reach
second.
“That doesn’t amount to anything,” declared the captain of the visitors.
“We can give you a dozen runs and then beat you out.”
“’Ow remarkable!” drawled Billy Bradley. “’Ow hextremely confident you
hare!”
Dick was directing the game by signals from the bench, having a bat in
his hands, which he held in various ways understood by all the players.
At the same time he was talking to Arlington.
“You’re getting the support,” he said. “If they back you up that way you
will make those fellows hustle to win this game. They are overconfident
now and think they can take it anyhow. The time for us to get a start is
right away.”
“But they are hitters!” retorted Chester. “By George! I did my best to
fool those fellows and they got at the ball!”
Dick nodded.
“They know how to hit, all right,” he admitted. “It depends a great deal
on your success in keeping them from hitting safely at critical times. I
want you to win this game, Arlington, and I sincerely hope you do.”
Billy Bradley was the batter, but his hit to right bounded straight into
the fielder’s hands, and he was thrown out at first. At the same time
Flint was held on third by the catcher.
Chip Jolliby now strode out, and Factor, the pitcher, paused to laugh at
him.
“Where did this chalk mark come from?” chuckled Factor. “Bet you have to
stand twice in a place to cast a shadow.”
“You’re awful fuf-fuf-fuf-funny!” chattered Chip. “Just you
pup-pup-pup-pitch the ball, and perhaps you won’t fuf-fuf-fuf-feel so
fuf-fuf-fuf-funny!”
“Try this,” invited Factor, as he sent in a high one.
Jolliby caught it on the end of the bat and drove it over the infield,
bringing Flint home.
Then came big Bob Singleton. The cadets were wildly excited, for they
believed Bob would improve this opportunity to slug the ball. Singleton
went after it hard, but Factor was on his mettle, and big Bob finally
fanned, which retired Fardale with two runs in the first.
“What are you doing, Factor?” muttered Grace, as he walked in with the
pitcher. “They hit you that trip.”
“Oh, what’s the use!” returned Factor. “We can take this game any time
we want it. I am not going to pitch my arm off for a lot of kids like
these.”
“Better not fool with them too much. We can’t afford to let them beat
us.”
“They can’t win this game in a thousand years!” was the retort.
Although the Great Northern went after runs in the second inning and
succeeded in getting a man on third and another on second, with only one
man out, a beautiful play extinguished their hopes and shut them off
with startling suddenness. At this the cadets rose in a body and gave
the Fardale cheer.
“That was squeezing out of a tight corner,” confessed Arlington, as he
reached the bench. “They had me guessing then.”
“Get at it, boys, and make some more runs!” urged Dick.
Obediah Tubbs was distinctly seen to shut his eyes and dodge awkwardly
as the first ball was pitched. It struck him glancingly, and the umpire
sent him to first.
“The next time I will take a wing off you, Fatty!” declared Factor. “You
want to look out for that!”
“Dern your picter! You will have to put more speed into it than that!”
retorted Obed, having reached the bag. “I’d never knowed I was hit if
the empire hadn’t told me to take my base.”
Buckhart seemed eager to hit, and Factor now tried to coax him into
going after bad ones. The result was that Brad finally worked out a pass
to first, and two runners were on the bags when Arlington stepped out to
the plate.
There was a hush.
“Now watch him!” growled Hector Marsh, nudging Fred Preston. “He thinks
he will do something great! Bet he strikes out.”
“I will bet he doesn’t get a safe hit,” said Preston.
“Look at the pose he assumes!” sneered Walker. “Wouldn’t that freeze
your feet!”
After a wide out, Chester let a good one pass, and a strike was called
on him. Factor tried to deceive him with a drop, but Chester was wary
and stopped the swing of his bat so quickly that the umpire declared it
a ball.
“Oh, hit it! hit it!” exclaimed the pitcher. “What are you making
motions like that for?”
Arlington did not reply. With the next ball pitched, however, he swung
and met it full and fair. At first it seemed certain the ball would go
over the fence, and a roar of delight rose from the cadets. It struck
against the top of the fence, however, and bounded back. Although it did
not go over, this hit was sufficient to let both Tubbs and Buckhart
score.
Immediately the cadets began to sing “Fardale’s Way.”
Factor now keyed himself up and pitched at his best. Gardner drove out a
short fly that was captured, while Black followed with a longer one that
was taken by an outfielder, on which Arlington reached third. Flint now
came up once more and was given an ovation. This time he drove a hot one
along the ground, and Grace barely touched it as it went bounding past.
On this Arlington scored.
The Fardale boys were wild with delight. They shouted until they were
hoarse.
Bradley did his best to follow the good example that had been set for
him, but at last Factor woke up and struck the latter out, which retired
the home team; but not, however, until three tallies had been added to
their score, which left them, at the close of the second inning, five in
the lead.
CHAPTER III.
GREAT NORTHERN FINDS ARLINGTON.
By this time the cadets were jubilant, and Chester Arlington was greatly
puffed up over his success. The Fardale boys had anticipated nothing
like this, and they were beginning to believe their team would take the
game with ease.
“This is Arlington’s day,” declared Clint Shaw. “He struck it right this
time.”
“He’s pitching a great game,” muttered Tom Walker.
“Rats!” growled Marsh. “Pitching nothing! It’s the support he’s had.
Those chaps have hit him right along, but good luck has prevented them
from piling up runs.”
“There has been lots of luck to it,” nodded Preston.
“I should say so!” snarled Marsh; “but you fellows wait—wait and see! If
they keep on hitting the ball that way, they will put him to the stable
before the game is over.”
Again Arlington’s support enabled him to hold the enemy down and keep
them from scoring.
Chester was in high spirits as he came in to the bench and sat down
beside Merriwell.
“I thought I could hold them down to-day,” he laughed.
“You’re doing well,” declared Dick. “Keep the good work up.”
At the first opportunity Buckhart slid up to Dick’s side and muttered:
“You want to watch him close, partner. See how those fellows found the
ball. Don’t sit still and let them pound out a victory when they get
started. If we can hold them down now we have got the game. Arlington
will take all the credit if we win.”
“He deserves some credit,” declared Dick.
“But you can see the kind of support he is getting. Why, Gardner could
pitch a winning game with that support!”
Although June Arlington was well pleased by what was happening, she knew
enough about baseball to understand that great credit was due her
brother’s backers for the success he was having.
Zona Desmond, however, did not look at it in this light.
“I knew what he could do if he had the chance,” laughed Zona. “He hasn’t
been given a fair show before this. Now, just look what is happening,
and he is pitching against the hardest team Fardale will have to face
this season. Aren’t you delighted, June?”
“Of course I am,” nodded June.
“But I think it was funny of Dick to put him into such a hard game,”
declared Zona. “If Dick is the greatest pitcher in this school, why
doesn’t he pitch the hard games and let the other fellows pitch the
easier ones?”
“Perhaps he has a good reason for not pitching to-day.”
The yellow-haired girl gave her head a toss.
“Very likely he didn’t care about taking chances himself. He was
afraid.”
“You know better, Zona!” burst from Doris. “You know Dick is not afraid
of anything!”
“Oh, that’s what you think! Other people may think differently.”
“I am sure Doris is right,” said June quietly. “I know Dick is afraid of
nothing.”
“Well, it is a fine thing for a fellow when every girl he knows seems to
fancy him such a wonder!” retorted Zona, with an unpleasant laugh.
The third inning proved to be a whitewash, Fardale not even succeeding
in getting a player down to first.
In the fourth inning the Great Northern got a man to third base with
only one out. But Chester’s success made him confident of shutting off
the score. His confidence vanished, however, when the next player lined
the ball out for two bags and the enemy secured a run.
Buckhart glanced toward Captain Merriwell and shook his head.
Nevertheless, Dick did not seem at all disturbed, although Tom Grace was
roaring with laughter on the coaching line and declaring that the
slaughter had begun.
“Accidents will happen, old man,” said Gardner, as he returned the ball
to Chet. “Don’t mind that.”
“But you should have stopped it!” declared Arlington.
“Why, I couldn’t touch it!”
“You didn’t try!”
Earl’s face flushed.
“Oh, he has had his lesson!” averred Grace. “He knows how those liners
feel! Bet his hands are burning yet!”
“If you’re afraid,” said Chet, “you had better let some one else play
that position.”
This injustice touched Gardner keenly, but he made no retort.
The following batter lifted a long one into the field, and the runner on
second believed he saw his opportunity to score.
By a splendid run Black succeeded in pulling the fly down, upon which he
immediately threw to Gardner, who wheeled and snapped the ball to Tubbs
for a double play.
This splendid work delighted the cadets and relieved Arlington. As he
came in to the bench, however, Chester was growling at Gardner.
“If you had stopped the liner,” he said, “they could not have scored!
You didn’t go after it until it was past you!”
Earl was beginning to get sore over this, and he gave Chet a resentful
look as he warmly retorted:
“If you’re not satisfied with my playing I will get out of the game!”
“That will do, both of you!” said Dick sharply. “No one was to blame for
that run. And no man in Gardner’s place could have touched the ball.”
At this Chester suddenly shut up, although he continued to feel angered
because the run had been made.
“We still have a good lead,” said Dick. “Get into it, fellows, and hold
them down! Perhaps you can add a few tallies right here!”
The cadets had not lost their confidence, and by a combination of good
work and good luck they also landed a man on third with only one out.
By this time Factor was nervous. He had not anticipated this sort of a
game, and he realized that his reputation with his own team depended on
his success in the present contest. Fully aware that he was regarded as
the weakest pitcher the Great Northern had, and that he had been used
against the schoolboys because Grace did not wish to wear out a better
man, he saw before him the prospect of release in case Fardale should
win.
The cheering and singing of the cadets seemed once more to put vigor and
determination into the players, and they went after Factor hotly. The
next batter happened to be Singleton, and big Bob got in one of his
wonderful long drives to the fence, on which he took three bags and sent
a man ahead of him home.
Factor’s nervousness increased.
“What’s the matter with you, Bill?” growled Tom Grace. “Are you going to
let those kids blanket you? You claim to be a pitcher!”
Factor set his teeth, determined to end it right there.
Once more Obediah Tubbs managed to get hit by the ball, and this added
to the unsteadiness of the visiting pitcher. Then came Buckhart, who
smashed the leather a fierce one, scoring Singleton and landing Tubbs on
third, while he himself took second.
Arlington walked out, smiling and confident, resolved to clinch his own
game then and there. As a result of his overconfidence Factor was able
to make him swing ineffectively twice and might have struck him out had
he not lost control and hit Chet with the ball.
This filled the bases.
Grace called for “time” and walked into the diamond.
“See here, Bill Factor,” he said under his breath, “if you’re off your
trolley you had better go to the bench. I will put Peterson in.”
“Don’t,” begged Factor. “I’m all right! I can win this game!”
“Play ball! Play ball!” roared the cadets.
“Dear me!” shouted Ted Smart, waving his arms in the air. “It can’t be
you’re frightened! Why, of course you’re not frightened! We know you
will win! You can’t help winning! It’s just as easy as can be. You’re
only playing a lot of kids, you know.”
“Poor old Factor! Poor old Factor!” sang a lot of the cadets in unison.
“I will give you one more show,” growled Grace. “It’s your last chance!”
This knowledge did not add to Factor’s steadiness, and, after having one
strike and two balls called, Gardner tucked in a beautiful little single
that scored two men.
Immediately Grace ordered Factor out of the box and replaced him with
Peterson, who was a left-hander. Peterson had a nasty drop that curved
in toward the batter’s ankles, and in short order he retired the home
team.
At this stage of the game, however, the score was eight to one in favor
of Fardale, and Arlington confidently declared he would never let the
enemy overtake them.
The next two innings proved to be hard ones, and neither side scored.
The cadets saw that in Peterson they had a problem that was difficult to
solve. Had this pitcher been put in at the beginning of the game, it is
doubtful if Fardale would have obtained a run. As it was, it began to
appear as if the schoolboys had secured a lead sufficient to give them
the game.
No longer were the members of the athletic team laughing and joking, for
at last they realized that they were “up against the real thing.”
As the innings passed and the home team continued to hold its lead,
Arlington’s confidence increased until it reached the point where he was
altogether too sure. Overconfidence is often as fatal in a hard game of
baseball as lack of confidence. It has defeated many a team that should
have been victorious.
The seventh proved to be a disastrous inning for Fardale. The visitors
came to bat with the head of their list up.
Ligner justified his name and his position by catching an outcurve near
the end of the bat and driving out a two-bagger. O’Rouke followed with a
clean single to right field, and Ligner came home with three feet to
spare. The throw to the plate in an effort to stop this run let O’Rouke
advance to second.
Yet Arlington had lost none of his confidence, and it still seemed that
the cadets had a safe lead.
Chester believed he had found Hardy’s weak spot, which was a high ball
close to the shoulder, but he had not discovered that the batter was one
of those rare men who have no weak spots. This being the case, Chet was
not a little surprised and disgusted when Hardy dropped back on a close
one, caught it fairly, and singled. O’Rouke was held at third by the
catcher, although it seemed that he might have scored.
It was now up to Tom Grace, the captain of the Great Northern, and the
look on this man’s face indicated he meant business. Chester was smiling
as Grace took his position to hit.
“Having a good time, my boy?” inquired the batter.
“Splendid!” retorted Arlington.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. I hope you don’t meet with any
disappointment.”
“Don’t worry about me,” advised Chet, as he whistled in a high ball.
“Get ’em down, kid! Get ’em down!” cried Grace. “You have got to do it
or furnish me with a stepladder! I am only five feet ten, and I can’t
reach that high!”
When Arlington tried a slow drop, Grace stepped forward to the limit of
his box and picked it up with a sweep of the bat that drove it over the
infield and out between Black and Jolliby, neither of whom could catch
it.
O’Rouke scored and Hardy followed him to the plate, making the third run
of the inning without a man retired.
No wonder the smile faded from Arlington’s face.
By this time Hector Marsh was convulsed with delight, although he was
trying to conceal the fact.
“Here’s where they make a hundred!” he muttered in Preston’s ear. “They
are onto little Chet at last, and he will never stop them.”
“It begins to look that way,” confessed Fred. “Wait a minute and you
will see Merriwell take Arlington out.”
“He’s a fool if he does!” declared Hec. “This game isn’t important, and
this is Merriwell’s opportunity to let Arlington stay in and get his
bumps.”
June Arlington had grown pale, for she realized the danger, and it was
with difficulty she repressed her agitation.
“Why don’t they catch those balls?” exclaimed Zona Desmond.
“They can’t,” asserted Doris.
“I don’t believe they’re trying,” declared Zona. “They are jealous
because Chester is pitching so well, and they don’t want to catch them.
What do you think, June?”
“I am afraid Dick will have to go in to save the game,” confessed June.
“Nonsense!” cried Zona, tossing her head. “How can he save it?”
“He might stop that hitting.”
“If those fellows will catch the ball it will be all right. I tell you
they are not supporting your brother, June.”
“I don’t think that is the matter.”
“Well, I do! Any one can see it is!”
Again Brad Buckhart had cast an appealing look toward Dick. All along
the Texan had felt the visitors had a hitting team and might make a
spurt any time, and now he was sure the dangerous moment of the game had
been reached.
Chester set his teeth and faced Minot, the next batter.
Minot was a good waiter, and he compelled the Fardale pitcher to put the
ball over the plate. Getting one that satisfied him, the batter drove it
swiftly along the ground between first and second.
By a rapid play, which was astonishing for one so corpulent, Tubbs
cuffed the ball to one side, although he did not capture it. Singleton
was compelled to get off first to secure the ball, which permitted Minot
to reach the bag in safety.
With two men on the bases, Brinkley followed the example that had been
set by his companions and drove out a two-bagger, which scored Grace and
Minot.
Still not a Great Northern man had been put out in the inning.
Although the cadets had cheered Tubbs for stopping the ball, there
seemed a note of apprehension in their voices.
Hal Darrell was talking with Day and Whitney, and now Darrell said:
“See here, Day, old man, we’re going to lose this game if something
isn’t done right away.”
“What do you think ought to be done?” questioned the chairman of the
committee.
“I think Merriwell ought to get in and pitch the game out.”
“Why doesn’t he do it?” exclaimed Whitney. “He is there on the bench,
and he can go in any time.”
“Perhaps he thinks it won’t be right to take Arlington out now.”
“Do you favor interfering?” asked Day.
“Surely I am not in favor of keeping still and seeing this game lost,”
answered Hal.
“Perhaps Arlington will take a brace,” observed Whitney.
“He’s got to take a brace pretty quick,” said Darrell. “If he doesn’t
this game will be gone to the dogs before he knows it.”
“If the next man hits safely,” said Day, “I will speak to Merriwell.”
He had his opportunity a moment later, for Costigan, after fouling
twice, drove out a grounder that could not be touched by the infield,
and Brinkley took a chance to score on it. The ball was thrown to the
plate, but the throw was bad and pulled Buckhart off so far that he
could not tag Brinkley in time to stop the run.
The Great Northern had now made six runs in this fatal inning, and
Fardale was but one score in the lead. Costigan was on second, and not
one of the hilarious visitors was out.
“The game is lost!” declared Darrell.
Immediately Day hurried to Dick.
“Look here, Captain Merriwell,” he panted, “you have got to take that
fellow out.”
“Is that an order from you?” asked Dick.
“It is an order from the committee.”
“All right,” said Dick, as he quickly rose to his feet and made a
signal.
Immediately Buckhart stepped onto the home plate to prevent Wallace from
hitting.
Dick walked onto the diamond.
Instantly the cadets rose in a mass and roared his name.
“Well! well! well!” laughed Tom Grace. “At last we have put a blanket on
your pitcher. He gets to the stable. Back, back to the stable, my pretty
boy.”
Chester was white as a sheet. The moment he saw Merriwell rise from the
bench he dropped the ball and walked out of the box.
“I am sorry, Arlington,” said Dick, in a low tone; “but I have got to
take you out.”
“I am glad of it!” declared Chet. “It is fiendish luck! What’s the
matter with those duffers behind me? Have they gone to pieces?”
“You are being hit hard, that’s all,” said Dick. “You’ve pitched a fine
game up to this inning, but those Great Northern chaps are hitters, and
they have solved your delivery.”
“That’s what you think,” retorted Chet; “but I know I’m not getting
proper support. I am ready to go out.”
Although he was in no condition to pitch, Dick warmed up a little and
went into the box.
“Now we will give this baby his bumps,” laughed Grace.
Merriwell had been studying the batters, and he felt that his only
chance to stop the hitting was to “use his head.” He could not depend on
his best curves, for his side was too lame to permit him to throw them.
Chester had been using speed, and now Dick began pitching a slow ball,
which proved troublesome to the batters. After swinging twice at these
slow ones, Wallace snapped:
“Oh! put a little ginger into your arm! What’s the matter with you?
Speed up, kid—speed up!”
“Well, here’s speed for you,” retorted Dick; but again he threw a
provokingly slow ball, with the result that Wallace popped up a little
fly that dropped into Merriwell’s hands.
Like a flash Dick whirled and threw to second, catching Costigan off the
bag, and two men were out.
“Ha! ha! ha! ’Rah! ’rah! ’rah! Ziggerboom! Riggerboom! Merriwell!
Merriwell! Merriwell!” burst from the cadets.
“Talk about luck!” grated Chester Arlington, who had witnessed this
play. “That’s his luck! Why can’t I have some of it?”
“Say, youngster,” called Tom Grace, “let me see your horseshoe. Where do
you keep it?”
Dick paid no attention to this. He concentrated every faculty on the
effort to retire Peterson, knowing the Great Northern pitcher was not
nearly as good a hitter as Ligner, who followed him.
Peterson finally lifted a high infield fly, which Earl Gardner
smothered, and the joy of the cadets was expressed in another wild
cheer, for at last the enemy had been checked, with Fardale still one
run in the lead.
Arlington was savage enough when the boys came in to the bench.
“I had that game won,” he declared. “It was not my fault they made those
runs. Why didn’t you chaps keep on playing baseball?”
This was more than Chip Jolliby could stand.
“Oh, go sus-sus-sus-soak your head!” he chattered, in disgust. “You need
something to take the sus-sus-sus-welling out of it.”
“Be careful!” panted Chet. “I won’t stand that from anybody.”
“Don’t talk to us about support!” indignantly exclaimed Earl Gardner.
“No fellow ever got better support on this field than you got.”
“That’s all right,” muttered Chet. “I saw you shirk. I saw you dodge a
liner.”
“After the game I will tell you what I think about that,” returned Earl.
“I can’t waste breath on you now.”
Although Fardale made a great effort to again increase her lead,
Peterson was too clever for the boys, and they could not score on him.
In the eighth inning Dick again worked his slow ball with success, only
one single being made off his delivery.
“We have got ’em, pard!” muttered Buckhart, as the cadets again gathered
at their bench. “You saved the game!”
“I hope so,” said Dick; “but we ought to have a few more runs.”
“Don’t fool with the kids, Peterson,” called Grace.
Peterson had no intention of fooling, and he struck out the first two
hitters who faced him in the eighth. The next man lifted a foul that was
captured by Wallace.
The Great Northern now came up for their last time at bat, and their
captain urged them to wait for Dick’s slow ones.
“He can’t use speed,” said Grace. “He’s got a lame side. A fellow told
me that before the game. Don’t get eager, fellows. Make him put the ball
over, and don’t go after it too soon.”
This advice was taken, and the first batter got a safe hit.
The next man sacrificed him to second, and there seemed a possibility
that the visitors would tie the score. At this point the strain and
excitement was intense.
By steady headwork Dick caused the next hitter to bat an easy one to
Bradley, who threw the fellow out at first.
“Whoop!” roared Buckhart, relieved and delighted. “We’ve got them now.
They are done to a turn. You hear me warble!”
There is an old saying that “no game is over until it is finished.” This
proved to be the case now, for the next hitter met one of Dick’s slow
ones and drove it far into the outfield. In their desperate dash to
catch this fly neither
|
do, give him a little tweak. Repeat this as often as he tries to bite,
and he will soon learn that if he sits still he is all right. Now feed
him from the thick glove. In a surprisingly short time he will give up
all idea of biting, and you can stroke him or pick him up with your
hand, and carry him about in your pocket. He will grow wonderfully
attached to you, and when once tamed thoroughly he will never run away;
although he may pay short visits to his mates, he will return to you.
But pray remember this, that his deadly enemy is the cat.
His cage should be made as much as possible of metal, and kept
scrupulously clean. It should be provided with an exercising wheel, or
treadmill, although when a squirrel is perfectly tame and permitted to
run about he will get all the exercise he needs on his little excursions
about the house or up in the trees.
Never give a squirrel any seasoned cake or soft bread to eat. Nuts,
grains, such as dried corn, and now and then a bit of apple, are enough
for him, and he should always have access to plenty of fresh, clean
water. Do not make the mistake of supposing that when your squirrel has
become on sufficiently good terms with you to be permitted to take
little trips among his old haunts he will forage for himself. When he
once becomes accustomed to being fed he speedily forgets how to find
food for himself in the natural way.
Squirrels are remarkably intelligent, and a whole book might be written
about them and their habits, after the manner in which Mr. Frank
Buckland wrote his celebrated volume about rats. A little incident that
happened to one of my own pet squirrels shows how intelligent they are,
and how appreciative of kindness. A little flyer that was seated on the
window-sill of an upper-story room suddenly disappeared. Thinking he had
gone out upon the roof, I called him in the usual way repeatedly, but no
squirrel came.
I searched for him for some time, and finally concluded that he had
decided to take a vacation. Three days after the little fellow had
disappeared I was sitting with my uncle upon the piazza, when we heard a
scratching noise, which appeared to come from a tin leader or rain pipe
that extended from the roof down the corner of the house to a cistern.
The pipe made a sharp angle at the piazza, and it was from this point
that the sound seemed to come. As soon as we began to talk the sound
stopped, to be repeated the moment we became quiet. I tapped the pipe
gently, and spoke, and the frantic scratching from the inside convinced
me of the truth at once. It was poor little "Chatters"; and now the
question was how to get him out.
At last the plan was suggested of removing a section of the pipe and
lowering a cord, which was done. I shall never forget the sensations I
felt when I lowered that miniature life-line. Presently I felt a tug,
and soon, sure enough, I could feel something climbing up. It was
suggested that it might be a rat, but in a moment a little squirrel's
head appeared, and "Chatters" gave one leap, landed on my shoulder, and
then quickly hid himself in my pocket. If any boy spends his summer in
the country, he will find more pleasure taming these little animals than
cruelly pursuing them with sling-shot or stones, or shooting them with a
rifle for the sake of so-called "sport."
THE REBELS DID NOT RUN.
A CUBAN WAR PICTURE.
BY THOMAS R. DAWLEY, JR.
Darkness turned to the gray of dawn and revealed the hazy outline of the
Cuban camp. An expanse of wood and bush and swamp, dotted here and there
with lofty palms. A labyrinth of winding paths guarded by impenetrable
thickets. Within an open space, far within, scattered with the palm-leaf
tents of the Cuban patriots, smouldered the camp-fires.
[Illustration: A GAUNT PEASANT MOUNTED ON A SHAGGY PONY.]
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The word spread through the rebel camp,
and the camp bestirred itself. A gaunt peasant, mounted on a shag-headed
pony, brought the news, and it was voiced from mouth to mouth. The gray
fog lifted slowly. Through the dim haze the rebels saw the gaunt peasant
on his shag-headed pony as though fastened there.
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The camp was impatient to hear the rest.
Nearly two months had passed since the rebel general had gone with his
army down into Pinar del Rio to fulfil his promise of marching from one
end of Cuba to the other. The Spaniards drew a line across a narrow part
of the island, and put their soldiers there, and called it the Trocha.
They said they had Maceo entrapped. He never could pass the Trocha.
The rebels had waited patiently, longingly, for the chief's return.
Morning after morning they had huddled over their fires, or those who
had blankets remained swathed in them until the sun came out and warmed
the steaming earth. Then the rebels foraged. They chewed sugar-cane for
breakfast, and stewed beef and sweet-potatoes for dinner. They begged
cigarettes from their comrades, and there were many who went without.
The Spaniards had not been after them for days, for they had gone off to
hold the Trocha or chase Maceo down in Pinar del Rio.
Occasionally the Havana papers found their way into the camp. They
brought news always discouraging. Maceo was continually fleeing before
the valor of Spanish arms. He would certainly be forced to throw himself
against the Trocha, where disastrous defeat awaited him. Once a battle
was fought, and, according to the papers, Maceo had left six hundred of
their comrades on the field. The camp doubted. A giant mulatto, who had
seen eight years' service in the last war, said the Spaniards lied! They
always lied!
Thus down the labyrinth of winding paths, through wood and bush and
swamp, the rebel camp had waited. And now Maceo had crossed the Trocha!
The peasant brought the news, and the peasant did not lie.
The morning mists rolled up and away. The camp-fires crackled with a new
vigor as their smoke followed the mists. The air was cool and crisp, for
Cuban winters know cold nights and mornings. Ill-clad rebels gathered
around the fires, while others refused to unwind themselves from
tattered blankets captured in the last raid. They looked over the fires
and through the smoke. The gaunt peasant was still there. He was big and
bony. He looked like a giant on the little dingy horse; his bones were
so big, and the horse was so little. And it seemed that his bones swung
on hinges, well oiled. He gesticulated wildly. His arms went up and
down, and his body turned from side to side. A rebel chief, tall and
dignified, with grizzled mustaches, stood by his brown tent and listened
carefully to every word he said.
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! The peasant did not lie. Once more he
threw out his arms wildly. Then he brought both palms down upon the
pommel of his saddle, and straightening his long arms, hunched his
shoulders upon them and rested there. He had finished.
The chief's whistle sounded through the camp. The rebel band was happy.
It had been in the swamp so long. It was impatient. It longed for a
move; anything for a move, and the chief's whistle meant that it was
going to move now.
The sun warmed the earth, and the camp rose. There was a hurrying to and
fro, a sound of cracking twigs and numerous voices. Sorry-looking nags
were pulled away from scattered heaps of cane-top fodder bordering the
camp, over which they had been chewing and dreaming all night.
A mule which did not propose to budge was called a rude name. Cubans are
not violent. They are not addicted to using harsh words. The Cuban
simply tugged at the mule's long halter-rope, called him by his wrong
name, turned and tugged again. The mule was obdurate. A half-naked black
spanked the animal suddenly. The mule relented and stepped quickly
forward, and the Cuban fell headlong. The half-naked black grinned with
a scared expression; another roared. The fallen rebel picked himself up,
and laughed too.
There was a jingling of bridle-bits and a rustling of saddle-gear; a cry
of impatience as a girth broke in the attempt to tighten it. A little
Major yelled an order to a distant subaltern. A Captain demanded his
spurs from an orderly; another his gun. The negro element worked
mechanically and said little.
The last rope was coiled, the last buckle tightened, and the men flung
themselves astride their saddles.
The rebel band was moving.
Two scouts with long machetes at their sides and carbines ready resting
upon their thighs galloped down the path. Others followed. They wound in
and around and through the wooded expanse. The path forked and twined
and forked again, leaving little islands of dense brush and scrubby
trees. The scouts followed these twining paths, each in his own way,
and the rebel band came scurrying on behind.
The many twining paths merged into a grove of guava-trees, and were lost
in the dry matted grass. Out came the scouts from between the islands of
brush. Into the guava grove they spurred their horses, bending here and
dodging there to escape the low branches, and out upon the open they
halted.
A long savanna spread before them. A scout urged his horse out upon the
plain, and he was followed by another. The two galloped to the right and
rose on a ridge overlooking a stretch of country beyond. There they
paused; and as one, bending in his saddle, peered into the distance, the
other shielded his eyes and looked too. Then they wheeled and rode up
and down the ridge. Nothing! Nothing but cane-fields, palm-trees, and a
tall chimney in the distance.
The halted ones advanced. In a reeling, waving line they came sweeping
over the plain. They wheeled to the left and they wheeled to the right,
and as the plain narrowed they wheeled together again, and plunged into
a road through a broad field of cane bearing the marks of repeated
forages.
Led by the tall grizzly chief, the rank and file emerged from the guava
grove and scurried into one long, ragged, irregular column aiming
straight for the road.
The road aimed for the tall chimney.
The grizzly chief could see his advance galloping on ahead, and his rank
and file came swinging on behind. The cane-field changed from green to
brown and black. It had been burned. Beneath the tall chimney could be
discerned rootless walls, charred riblike rafters, and broken sheds
grinning between dark green mango-trees.
Suddenly, where the road seemed to end between the mango-trees and a
gray wall, appeared two horsemen. The gallop of the advance changed to a
walk. It moved cautiously. Two little puffs of smoke and the crack of
distant rifles told that the enemy was there. The rebel band halted, and
the advance-guard came swinging back down the road.
A Lieutenant touched his hat and said, "Orders, my chief?"
"Tell them to spread out and reconnoitre! Maceo has crossed the Trocha,
and we must advance to meet him."
The Lieutenant spurred ahead and met the flying guard. It stopped. The
men looked over their shoulders worriedly as the Lieutenant delivered
his message.
"Maceo has crossed the Trocha." The words were like magic, and the men
turned and urged their horses into the burned field. The charred and
rotten cane broke beneath the horses' hoofs as they made a wide circle,
with the tall chimney for a centre. The horsemen at the end of the road
disappeared.
The rebel band advanced. Again the horsemen appeared at the top of the
road--two, four, six, eight, dozens of them. In rapid succession they
rode out from the gray walls and dark mango-trees. There was another
crack of rifles and puffs of blue smoke.
"Remingtons!" exclaimed the chief, as the advance-guard cautiously
halted in the wide circle which it had mapped out for itself. "A local
guerilla force!" And raising himself in his stirrups, the grizzly chief
turned to his men, and flourishing his long blade, shouted: "Scatter
out! Advance, and let them have it!"
To the sound of thumping hoofs and snapping canes the rank and file of
the rebel band went plunging through the field.
The guerrilleros drew up in one serried rank just where the ground
sloped into the cane-fields. They would meet the on-coming storm. They
knew the rebels would run; they always ran. And they raised their loaded
carbines and fired. As the smoke cleared away they saw a wide circle of
yelling rebels and their horses dashing through the cane. They stuffed
cartridges into their carbines and fired again.
Their shots were answered. They saw the puffs of smoke, they heard the
"ping! ping!" of rebel Winchesters, and they saw the circle growing
smaller as the horses grew larger. It seemed that they were monsters as
they reared above the cane, crushing it down with their heavy hoofs and
breasts. They saw gleaming steel flashing high in the sunlight, and they
heard the rebel cry, "Á la machete!"
"Crack! crack!" rang out the Spanish Remingtons. "Ping! ping!" answered
the rebel Winchesters, and a Spaniard cried, "I'm hurt!" as he swayed
from his saddle. A comrade caught him and swung him back, and the
serried rank could stand it no longer. It gave way--broke and ran.
Helter-skelter by the ruined buildings, through the yard, scampered the
frightened ponies. Down by a gaping broken wall the road commenced
again. With loose rein and unguiding bridle the horses reared and
plunged into one another, jolting the wounded man terribly. His carbine
clanked on the ground, and he knew his only chance was to hang on.
The fleeing Spaniards heard the rebel yells close behind them, and the
"ping! ping!" of their Winchesters. "Tack! tack!" the bullets struck the
gaping corner wall, and a long stretch of road lay before them.
In the distance a church tower, and red tile roofs spread beneath it.
The sunlight glinted upon them as it never had done before, and to the
fleeing Spaniards they seemed as though made of gold and silver. Would
they ever reach the sheltering cover?
And now rang out a fierce, exultant yell. The guerilleros knew that the
rebels had reached the corner wall. They dug their spurs frantically
into their horses' sides as they clung closer to their necks.
Again the rebel cry of victory rang out. But the distance was greater,
and the Spaniards knew that the band was not pursuing.
Maceo had crossed the Trocha! And that was the time the rebels did not
run.
[Illustration]
THE REASON WHY.
Now the football season's here
Our muscles we prepare,
And, 'though perhaps it may seem queer,
We cultivate our hair.
We don't do this, you must well know,
Because we have to, but
We let it sprout and tangle so
Because we have to butt.
IN THE OLD HERRICK HOUSE.[1]
[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 879.
BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.
CHAPTER VII.
"Come, do hurry up, Elizabeth, and promise," urged Valentine. "The time
is going on, and the aunts will come home and catch us. You must be down
stairs as if nothing had happened when they do come. Of course I know
you are not going to give me away. If I had not thought I could depend
on you pretty well, I should not have come. We were good friends when we
were here before, and, after all, you are my own sister."
"I know, Val, and I want to help you," said Elizabeth, slowly; "but--"
"But what?"
"It does not seem right to deceive Aunt Caroline."
"Oh, what difference does that make? I am sure you used to deceive her
enough when you came to this room all the time and had the Brady girls
here, and everything else. You have changed very much, I think."
"I know I have changed. You see, I am a whole year older, and in a year
you learn lots of things, and I am sure it is not right to deceive any
one."
"I do call it a shame," exclaimed Valentine, walking about the room.
"Here have I come all this distance expecting to find a sister who would
help me, and now you go and turn your back on me. There is no use
expecting anything of a girl. There never was one that was worth
anything but Marjorie. I was going to tell you the whole story, and you
know you like to hear things."
"Oh, I know I do!" cried poor Elizabeth. "I am just crazy to hear. What
shall I do about it? I wish I had some one to advise me."
"Come, Elizabeth--there's a good girl! Don't tell, and I will begin
right away to explain. I know you won't, so I will tell you, anyhow! You
see, the other day at school--"
"Wait, wait, Val!" interrupted Elizabeth. "I must not hear, for if you
once tell me I shall have to keep to it, for it would be a bargain; but
if you don't I can decide later. I am going down stairs to think it
over."
Valentine, left alone, scarcely knew what to think.
"I am in for it now," he said to himself. "Who ever would have thought
of that meek little Elizabeth going back on me? I'm in an awful scrape,
and I have a good mind to run away now, only I might meet Aunt Caroline
on the doorstep, just as the Brady girls did. No, I have got to stick it
out, now that I am here, and perhaps after all Elizabeth will come
around. She is awfully curious to know what it is all about, that is one
thing, and it may bring her to her senses. It is awfully poky up in this
room all alone, and I do wish she would come back."
It was an hour and more before she did. Then the door was quietly
opened, and Elizabeth stood before him.
"Well, you are going to promise now, aren't you?"
"No, Val, I have come to suggest something. If you will come over to one
of the other rooms and hide, I will help you all I can. Aunt Caroline
would not find you if you were in one of the other rooms--the one next
to mine, for instance. Even that does not seem quite right, but it is
better than being here. I have been thinking it over, and I am sure it
is not right to have you here when Aunt Caroline told me never to come
into this room again, and I actually had to go to her desk to steal the
key. Will you come to one of the other rooms?"
"No. It has got to be this room or none. I might just as well go sit in
the parlor as be in any room but this. Great Scott! how the fellows will
laugh!"
"What fellows?"
"Never mind. Do you think I am going to tell you anything, Miss
Spoilsport, Tattletale, and everything else?"
"Oh, Val, I am so sorry! I do want to help you!" Elizabeth was crying
now.
"Oh, don't stand there blubbering! Go down and tell auntie all about it.
How Val came and made you steal the key, and made you open the door, and
made you do everything else. It was all his fault--oh yes!"
"Val, you are hateful!" cried Elizabeth, drying her eyes. "You know I am
not that kind of a girl at all. I am sure I want to help you, and I want
to know dreadfully why you came, but I know if I asked any one but you
whether I ought to have let you into this room, they would say no. Mrs.
Loring would, I know."
"And who is Mrs. Loring?"
"Patsy's mother."
"Oh, Patsy again! Everything is Patsy now. That is the reason you don't
want to help me, because you have got a new friend. Even your own
brother is of no account now."
"That is not a bit true, and you have no right to say it; and I don't
think you are a very good brother to ask me to do what is not right."
"But there is no harm in it, really, Elizabeth! I am not doing the room
any harm, and it can't possibly hurt Aunt Caroline to have me here.
Where is the wrong of it?"
"The key," persisted Elizabeth. "I ought not to have taken the key."
"Oh, nonsense! You got it, and that's all there is about it. You can't
undo what you have done, and now the best thing is to keep quiet about
it and it won't hurt any one. But if you were to go and tell it would
make a terrible fuss, and every one would be upset, and nobody would be
a bit better for it."
There seemed to be some truth in this reasoning. After all, it would be
easy to keep her aunt in ignorance, thought Elizabeth. She would never
do such a thing again; but now that it was done--
Valentine saw that his argument had some effect, and he hastened to
follow it up.
"And I do want to tell you all about it!" he added, craftily.
"Oh, Val," said Elizabeth, hurriedly. "I want to hear about it and I
want to help you. And, after all, it is too late about the room.
I--I--think I'll promise!"
"That you won't tell?"
"That I won't tell."
"Elizabeth, good for you! You're a brick! I knew you would come out all
right. I just knew it."
"But wait! I have not altogether promised. Only almost."
"Oh, it's the same thing. I'm sure of you now!"
And Valentine capered about the room in excitement, until Elizabeth
remembered that it was important that he should not be heard, and warned
him to keep still.
"After all, it is not a secret for always," he said. "In two weeks you
can tell them all about it if you want to. You see I am not binding you
down forever." This with an air of generosity.
"It will be harder to tell then than now," remarked Elizabeth. "But I
must go! I hear some one calling me. I'll tell you for certain when I
come back."
She slipped out of the room, and it was but just in time. Her aunts had
returned, and Miss Herrick wished to see her in the library. She met the
maid who was looking for her on the stairs. The library was directly
under the closed room, and Elizabeth wished that she could again warn
Valentine to be very quiet. He was so careless.
She found her aunt in an unwonted frame of mind. Miss Herrick put her
arm about Elizabeth and drew her to her side.
"I have been hearing very good accounts of my niece," she said. "I met
Mrs. Arnold this afternoon, and she told me that your teacher speaks
very highly of you, Elizabeth."
How this demonstration would have pleased Elizabeth yesterday, or even
this morning! Now she felt like a hypocrite.
"And she is very anxious that I should allow you to take
drawing-lessons." Here Miss Herrick paused and sighed heavily. "And you
wish to yourself, do you not, Elizabeth?"
It had been the dearest wish of Elizabeth's heart since she began
school, but now she felt as if she would be doing wrong if she were to
take advantage of her aunt's kindness.
"I--I don't know," she faltered.
"If that is not human nature," exclaimed Miss Rebecca, who had not
spoken before. "When you were not allowed to draw, nothing could keep a
pencil out of your hand, and now that you are given permission you don't
wish to do it."
"Oh, I do want to, Aunt Rebecca!" cried Elizabeth, recovering herself;
"I want to, dreadfully. Are you really going to let me, Aunt Caroline?"
"I suppose so. Mrs. Arnold put it before me in such a light that I could
not very well refuse. She says she has an excellent teacher, and if you
have so much talent, Elizabeth, it seems wrong not to give my consent.
But it is very hard for me to say yes! You must be a very good girl if I
do."
Elizabeth hid her face in her aunt's shoulder. If she had heard this
earlier she would not have yielded to Valentine's entreaties. It was too
late now. She had allowed him to stay in the locked room, she had almost
promised not to tell. There was a weight like lead on her heart.
"Stand up straight, Elizabeth," said Miss Herrick, her momentary
tenderness passing. "Naturally you cannot understand my repugnance to
the idea of your perfecting yourself in drawing and painting, and it is
not to be expected that you should. It is connected with events which
happened before you were born." Again she paused.
At any other time Elizabeth's curiosity would have been aroused, and her
indignation also, at the fact that there were more mysteries, but now
she paid no heed. If only she were not deceiving her aunt!
"There must be something queer about our family," she thought,
desperately, "that we are all the time hiding something from one
another. I do wish I were one of the Lorings. They never have any
mysteries or secrets, and it is so nice."
Suddenly there was a loud thump overhead. Miss Herrick started and
looked terrified. Elizabeth exclaimed aloud, and then again hid her face
behind her aunt. Even Miss Rebecca seemed stirred from her usual
indifference.
"What was that?" murmured Miss Herrick. "Was it--was it in the room
overhead?"
Miss Rebecca nodded. "It sounded so," she said.
"What can it be?"
They listened, but there was no further sound.
"Shall I go and see, Aunt Caroline?" asked Elizabeth, in a timid voice.
"You, child! Why should you go? If we hear anything more I will send
James. It is very strange."
"Perhaps the cat has been shut up somewhere," suggested Miss Rebecca;
"or probably one of the servants has been in one of the empty rooms
getting something. It does not necessarily follow that it is _that_
room, Caroline. I would not give it another thought."
"True, the box of oranges was put in the upper store-room. You are
right, Rebecca. Strange how my thoughts always fly to the one place when
I hear anything overhead. I suppose it was because we were talking about
the drawing-lessons when it happened."
And she relapsed again into thought.
"So the locked room has something to do with Aunt Caroline not liking to
have me learn to draw," said Elizabeth to herself. "I thought so. But,
oh dear, it will never do for Val to make so much noise! I must go and
tell him."
She slipped away very soon, and after going to her own room crept down
the short flight of stairs and along the passageway to the door of the
mysterious chamber. She found Valentine sitting on the floor, convulsed
with laughter.
"Did you hear me?" he asked, in a stage whisper. "I haven't dared to
move since. I upset a chair. Giminy! it scared me to death! And I
expected the whole family to march in the door the very next minute.
Didn't you hear me at all?"
"Hear you! I should think we did. It was a very narrow escape, and I
have come to tell you that you must be more careful. You had better not
stir at all, for we are in the library, right underneath. And oh, Val, I
do feel so guilty! Aunt Caroline is so kind, and says I can take
drawing-lessons, and here I am deceiving her! I suppose you would not
let me off now?"
"Well, I should like to see myself letting you off now! No, sir. You
have just the same as promised, and that is the end of it."
Elizabeth sighed deeply and was about to leave him, but he detained her.
"I say, Elizabeth, what about dinner? I'm awfully hungry."
"Hungry again? Why, I brought you a lot of things to eat."
"Gee whiz, girl! Do you think I can live for hours on crackers and cake?
Don't you think you can smuggle up some dinner for me?"
"I will try," said Elizabeth, though somewhat doubtfully; "but I don't
see how I am to do it."
"Put some things in a basket, and pretend they are for the Brady girls."
"I have not had anything to do with the Brady girls for ages," returned
Elizabeth, with some contempt. "Not since I ran away."
"Ran away? You ran away? Ho, ho! so you're not so awfully good after
all! What did you run away for?"
"I can't tell you. I can never tell you. And now I must go."
"Well, I like that," said Valentine, as he closed the door behind her;
"she ran away, and isn't going to tell me about it! But I hope she will
remember my dinner."
It was easy enough to remember his dinner, but not so simple a matter to
secure it. Elizabeth was so absorbed in thinking it over that she forgot
to eat anything herself.
"You are not eating a morsel," said Miss Herrick. "This will never do! I
had hoped that going to school and companionship with other children
would keep up your appetite. Don't you feel well?"
"Oh yes, Aunt Caroline, only I am not hungry. Perhaps, if you don't
mind, I could have something to eat later."
It was an inspiration. In this way she could get something for
Valentine. But she was doomed to disappointment.
"I do not approve of eating just before you go to bed," said her aunt.
"Eat now or not at all."
Elizabeth was quite desperate. She must take the chance of finding
something in the pantry. When dinner was over and her aunts had returned
to the library she slipped into the pantry. Unfortunately nothing had
been left there. All that she could find for Valentine were a few more
crackers and some bread. However, it would keep him from starving.
Her brother received them with small thanks, but they were better than
nothing. Then he wanted Elizabeth to stay with him, but this she would
not do.
"I must go down stairs again to say good-night, and then I must go to
bed," she said, firmly.
"Come here instead, and I will tell you the whole story," suggested
Valentine, who had no desire for a lonely evening.
"No, this is the last time I am coming to-night. I--I think, Val, I will
not hear your story at all. If I have deceived Aunt Caroline I have
deceived her, but I am not going to be paid for it. I have been thinking
it over. You are not to tell me. Good-night!"
It was half an hour later, and Valentine had come to the conclusion
that he might as well go to bed himself, when there was a faint tap at
the door. The room was lighted by but one candle--they had thought that
a gas-light might show beneath the door, and attract attention--and the
place was so gloomy and mysterious that when the knock came Valentine
was startled in spite of himself.
"It is ghosts, maybe," he muttered. "This room is so queer and uncanny."
The tap was repeated, and he moved cautiously to the door. There stood
Elizabeth, her dark eyes shining in the candle-light, and a deep color
burning in her cheeks. For a moment she said nothing. Valentine was the
first to speak.
"Good for you! So you have come to hear the story. Come in," he
whispered.
"No, I am not coming in. I have only come to tell you that--that--"
"What?"
An awful dread seized Valentine's heart.
"That I cannot give that promise. I am going down now. I have been
thinking and thinking, and I know it isn't right to deceive, and I don't
want to hide anything. There is too much hiding in our family. I am
going down now to tell Aunt Caroline you are here."
Valentine did not speak. She could scarcely see his face, for it was in
shadow, but somehow it frightened her.
"Oh, Val, say something! I am so sorry, but I must. Will you ever
forgive me?"
"No. You have the same as broken your promise."
He closed the door, and she turned and ran down stairs. Her aunts were
sitting as she had left them. Miss Herrick was writing notes at the
desk, while her sister read by the lamp on the table. The shelves which
lined the walls were filled with books, and the engravings and etchings
which hung above added to the sombre aspect of the room. It was
absolutely still except for the scratching of Miss Herrick's pen, and
for a moment or two Elizabeth stood there in the silence unnoticed.
"Aunt Caroline," she said at last.
It was in such a weak voice that no one heard her.
"Aunt Caroline!" she repeated.
"Yes," said Miss Herrick; but still her pen travelled swiftly across the
page. It was provoking to be interrupted.
"Aunt Caroline!" said Elizabeth for the third time.
"What is it, Elizabeth?" said her aunt, at last laying down her pen. "I
hear you, and I have answered. Don't stand there repeating my name like
a parrot. Why are you not in bed?"
"Because I have something to tell you. I could not go to bed. I--I have
something to tell you."
"So it appears. Suppose you tell me now, instead of this endless
repetition. Come, I have no time to waste."
"Aunt Caroline," said Elizabeth, drawing nearer, and standing with her
hands clasped behind her back, as she did when she had anything of
importance to say, "Val is here."
"Val? What Val? What do you mean?"
"My brother Val."
"Is here? Oh no! you are mistaken, Elizabeth. Let me feel your hands.
You ate no dinner, and you are feverish. Your eyes are very staring.
Rebecca, do you suppose the child is delirious, or is she walking in her
sleep?"
"I am not either, Aunt Caroline. I am not de--that long word, and I am
wide awake. Val is here. He came this afternoon, and he is up in the
locked room."
Miss Herrick rose to her feet, and even Miss Rebecca dropped her book.
"She is certainly ill. Rebecca, ring the bell for James to go for the
doctor."
[Illustration: "I TELL YOU I AM NOT ILL, AUNT CAROLINE," CRIED
ELIZABETH.]
"I tell you I am not ill, Aunt Caroline," cried Elizabeth. "Val came and
said that he wanted to hide, and that he must hide in that room. I got
the key from your desk--you left your desk unlocked--and I let him into
the room. It was very wrong, Aunt Caroline. I know it was wrong. And I
am so sorry. That is the reason I am telling you, because I ought not to
have done it. If you don't believe that he is here, come and see."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
A VIRGINIA CAVALIER.
BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The next day, the 31st of October, 1753, George set forth on his arduous
mission. He had before him nearly six hundred miles of travelling, much
of it through an unbroken wilderness, where snow and ice and rain and
hail at that season were to be expected. In the conference with the
Governor and his advisers, which lasted until after midnight, George had
been given _carte blanche_ in selecting his escort, which was not to
exceed seven persons, until he reached Logstown, when he could take as
many Indians as he thought wise. He quickly made up his mind as to whom
he wanted. He wished first a person of gentle breeding, as an
interpreter between himself and the French officers. He remembered
Captain Jacob Vanbra
|
His pristine shape, and manit-man become;
There still he dwells, the all-pervading soul
Of men and manittoos--yea, of creation’s whole.
XXVI.
“All that is good does from Cawtantowit flow;
All that is evil Chepian doth supply;
Praying for good we to Cawtantowit bow,
And shunning evil we to Chepian cry;
To other manittoos we offerings owe,
Dwell they in mountain, flood, or lofty sky;
And oft they aid us when we hunting go,
Or in fierce battle rush upon the foe.
XXVII.
“And manittoos, that never death shall fear,
Do likewise in this mortal form abide;
What else, my brother, is there beating here?
What heaves this breast--what rolls its crimson tide?
Whilst, like Cawtantowit, doth the soul appear
To live through all and over all preside;
And when her mortal mansion here decays,
She to Sowaniu’s blessed island strays,
XXVIII.
“There aye to joy; if, whilst she dwelt with men,
She wisely counseled and did bravely fight,
Or watchful caught the beavers in the glen,
Or nimbly followed far the moose’s flight;
But if a sluggard and a coward, then
To rove all wretched in the glooms of night,
Misled by Chepian, a poor wandering ghost,--
In swamps and fens and bogs and brambles lost.
XXIX.
“And now, my brother, rightly worship we,
When to Cawtantowit we make our prayer?
Or when for help to Chepian we flee,
And pray that us from every harm he spare?
For every harm is all his own, we see,
And good Cawtantowit has ne’er a share--
Then why should not I Chepian sue to be
Much sparing of his harm to mine and me?”
XXX.
Williams made answer, “When red warriors brave
The fight’s dark tempest and for glory die,
Does Waban tremble whilst the battles rave,
And at the hurtling arrows wink his eye?
Or, basely cowering, does he mercy crave
Of the red hatchet o’er him lifted high?
Who prays to Chepian is a cringing slave,
And, dying, fills at last a coward’s grave.”
XXXI.
Strongly these words to Waban’s pride appealed;
Yet back upon him did the memory rush
Of by-gone ages, and of many a field
Where fought his fathers, who with victory flush,
Not to Cawtantowit, but to Chepian kneeled,
And thanked his aid.--They cowards! and the blush,
That in their worship fear should seem revealed,
Was scantly by his tawny hue concealed.
XXXII.
At last he said, “My brother doubtless knows--
He has a book which his Great Spirit wrote:
Brave were my fathers, yet did they repose
With hope in Chepian, and his aid besought
When forth they marched to shed the blood of foes;
But maybe they, like Waban, never thought
That they were cowards, when they fiercely prayed
That Evil One to give their vengeance aid.
XXXIII.
“Waban will think, and should it seem like fear--
Waban ne’er shrunk when round him battle roared,
And at the stake when bound, his torturers near,
Among the clouds thy brother’s spirit soared
And scorned her foes--but should it seem like fear
To worship Chepian, whom his sires adored,
He will no more be that dread demon’s slave;
For ne’er will Waban fill a coward’s grave.”
XXXIV.
Thus in grave converse did they pass the day,
Till night returning brought them slumbers sweet;
And, with the morrow, shone the sun’s broad ray
Serenely down on Waban’s lone retreat.
Then Williams might have journeyed on his way,
But doubt and darkness still restrained his feet;
And so with Waban made he further stay
To learn about the tribes that round him lay.
XXXV.
Hence may he secretly to Salem write,
And friends approving, still his plans arrange;
For Waban soon will bear his peltry light
To Salem’s mart, and there may interchange
The mute epistles, meant for friendly sight,--
Unseen of eyes inimical or strange,
Lest rumor of them reach the bigot’s ear,
And persecution find him even here.
XXXVI.
Among the several tribes around to go,
And sound the feelings of each different clan,
Seemed not unmeet; but little did he know
How they might treat a pale-faced outlawed man,
Friendless and homeless, wandering to and fro,
And flying from his own white brethren’s ban;
They, for a price, might strike the fatal blow,
Or bear him captive to his ruthless foe.
XXXVII.
Better it were, so deemed our Father well,
To seek and win the savage by degrees,
Since to his lot the dangerous duty fell,
(For such did seem high Heaven’s all-wise decrees),
To found unarmed a State where rung the yell
Of barbarous nations on the midnight breeze;
Against the scalping-knife with no defence
Or safeguard but his heart’s benevolence.
XXXVIII.
With only this, his buckler and his brand--
This, yet unproved and doubted by the best,--
In cheerless wilds, mid many a savage band,
Spurned from his home, by Christian men opprest,
Must he the warrior’s weapon turn, his hand
Unnerve, and gently o’er his rugged breast
Gain mastery. The panther by the hare
Must be approached and softened in his lair.
XXXIX.
That night, returning from the accustomed pool,
Came Waban laden with the beavers’ spoils,
And joy seemed dancing in his very soul
As he displayed the produce of his toils;
Much he rejoiced, and Williams heard the whole,--
How long he watched, how many were his foils;
Then how the cunning beasts were captured all,
As through the fractured ice they sought to crawl.
XL.
“Bravely,” said Williams, “has my brother done,
No more the cunning wights will mock his skill.
Waban is rich; will he not hie him soon
To the pale wigwams, and his girdle fill
With the bright wampum?--Ere to-morrow’s sun
Shall hide behind the crest of yonder hill,
Waban may gain the pale-faced stranger’s town,
And in his brother’s wigwam sit him down.”
XLI.
“The hunter goes,” said Waban in reply;
Then fired his calumet and curled its smoke,
And silent sate in all the dignity
Which conscious worth can give the human look.
But when the fragrant clouds to mount on high
Had ceased, he from the bowl the embers shook,
And spread on earth the brown deer’s rustling hide,
Expanding to the eye its naked side.
XLII.
Then thus he spake: “My brother doth require
Waban to show where neighboring Sachems reign;--
Doubtless he seeks to light his council fire
Within some good and valiant chief’s domain,
That he may shun the persecutor’s ire,
And pray his God without the fear of men.
On Waban’s words my brother may repose,
Whilst these far feet imprint the distant snows.”
XLIII.
Then from the hearth a quenchéd brand he took,
And on the skin traced many a curving line;
Here rolled the river, there the winding brook,
Here rose the hills, and there the vales decline,
Here spreads the bay, and there the ocean broke,
Along red Waban’s map of rude design.
The work now finished, he to Williams spoke,
“Here, brother, on the red man’s country look.
XLIV.
“Here’s Waban’s lodge, thou seest it smokes between
Dark rolling Seekonk and Cohannet’s wave;[8]
Both floods on-flowing through their borders green,
In Narraganset’s basin find their grave.
O’er all the country ’twixt those waters sheen
Reigns Massasoit, Sachem good and brave;
Yet he has subject Keenomps far and near,
Who bring him tribute of the slaughtered deer,
[8] Cohannet, the Indian name for Taunton, is here applied to
the river.
XLV.
“And bend his battle bow.--Strong is he now,
But has been stronger. Ere dark pestilence
Devoured his warriors--laid his hundreds low,--
That Sachem’s war-whoop roused to his defence
Three thousand bow-men; and he still can show
A mighty force, whene’er the kindling sense
Of common wrong does in the bosom glow,
And prompts to battle with the offending foe.
XLVI.
“His highest chief is Corbitant the stern;
He bears a fox’s head and panther’s heart,
He ’gainst Awanux does in secret turn,
Sharps his keen knife, and points his thirsty dart;
His council fires in Mattapoiset[9] burn,
Of Pokanoket’s woods his licensed part.
Cruel he is, and terrible his train--
Light not your fires within that wolf’s domain.
[9] Mattapoiset, now Swansey.
XLVII.
“Here, tow’rd the winter, where the fountains feed
These rolling rivers, do the Nipnets dwell;
They Massasoit bring the skin and bead,
And rush to war when rings his battle yell;
Valiant are they, yet oft their children bleed,
When the far West sends down her Maquas fell;
Warriors who hungry on their victims steal,
And make of human flesh a dreadful meal.
XLVIII.
“Here lies Namasket tow’rd the rising sun;
There Massasoit spends his seasons cold;
The warriors there are led by Annawan,
Of open hand and of a bosom bold;
Here farther down, Cohannet’s banks upon,
Spreads broad Pocasset, strong Apannow’s hold;
The bowmen there tread Massasoit’s land,
E’en to Seconnet’s billow-beaten strand.
XLIX.
“Still tow’rd the rising sun might Waban show
And count each tribe, and each brave Keenomp name;
But then his brother does not wish to go
Nearer the pale-face and the fagot’s flame;
But rather tow’rd the tomahawk and bow,
And would the friendship of the red man claim:
Therefore will Waban, on the western shores,
Count Narraganset’s men and sagamores.
L.
“Two mighty chiefs--one cautious, wise and old,
One young and strong, and terrible in fight--
All Narraganset and Coweset hold;
One lodge they build, one council fire they light;
One sways in peace, and one in battle bold;
Five thousand warriors give their arrows flight;
This is Miantonomi, strong and brave,
And that Canonicus, his uncle grave.[10]
[10] See note.
LI.
“Dark rolling Seekonk does their realm divide
From Pokanoket, Massasoit’s reign;
Thence sweeping down the bay, their forests wide
Spread their dark foliage to the billowy main;
Thence tow’rd the setting sun by ocean’s side,
Stretches their realm to where the rebel train,
Ruled by grim Uncas, with their hatchets dyed
In brother’s blood, on Pequot stream abide.[11]
[11] See note.
LII.
“Canonicus is as the beaver wise,
Miantonomi as the panther bold;
But tow’rd the faces pale their watchful eyes
Are oft in awful thinking silence rolled;
And often in their heaving bosoms rise
Thoughts that to none but Keenomps they have told;
They seem two buffaloes the herds that lead,
Scenting the hunters gathering round their mead.
LIII.
“When first his fire Awanux kindled here,
Haup’s[12] chief was weak, and broken was his heart;
Disease had swept his warriors far and near,
And at his breast looked Narraganset’s dart;
Awanux gave him strength, and with strange fear
Did M’antonomi at the big guns start;
He dropt his hatchet; but his hate remains,
And only counsel wise his wrath restrains.
[12] Haup, or Mount Hope, the summer residence of Massasoit.
LIV.
“He sees the strangers spreading far around,
And earth turn pale as fast their numbers grow,
And fiercely would he to the battle bound,
And for his country strike the deadly blow,
But that behind the Pequot’s yells resound,
And on his left the Nipnet bends the bow;
And even thus his hatchet scarcely sleeps,--
It dreams of Haup, and in its slumber leaps.
LV.
“But, brother, still Miantonomi is
A valiant Sachem--yea, and generous too,
And gray Canonicus is just and wise,
His hands are ever to his tongue most true;
If from their lands my brother’s smoke should rise,
Whate’er those Sachems promise, they will do;
But Waban still doth not his friend advise
To cross the Seekonk where their country lies.
LVI.
“Brother, attend and hear the reasons why;--
There at Mooshausick dwells a dark pawaw,
Who hates Awanux, doth his God defy,
And Chepian worships with the deepest awe;
He’ll give my brother’s town a cloudy sky,
And to his councils under-sachems draw;
E’en now he whets the Narraganset knife,
Points at our clan, and thirsts for human life.
LVII.
“Safer on Seekonk’s hither border may
My brother build, and wake his council blaze;
Clear are the meads--the trees are swept away
By mighty burnings in our fathers’ days.
There early verdure spring and flow’rets gay,
Long grows the grass, and thrifty is the maize;
And good old Massasoit’s sheltering wing
Will shield thy weakness from each harmful thing.”
LVIII.
“Brother, I thank thee,” said our Founder here,
“Oft have I seen thy chief on Plymouth’s shore;
I will to-morrow seek those meadows clear,
And thy fair Seekonk’s hither banks explore.
But will not Waban pass Namasket near,
Where oft that wise and good old Sagamore,
Brave Massasoit, spends the season drear?”
“He will, my brother”--“Then let Waban hear:
LIX.
“Tell thou that Sachem, generous and wise,
That Williams lingers in thy cabin low,
That he his children and his country flies,
To shun the anger of a Christian foe;
And that to him his pale friend lifts his eyes,
And asks protection.--Tell him that his woe
Springs from this thought, and from this thought alone,
God can be worshipped but as God is known.”
LX.
A pause ensued, and Waban silent sate;
Yet to himself his lips repeating were;
At length he answering broke the pause sedate,
“Waban remembers, and the talk will bear.”
Then he in silence fired his calumet,
And gave its vapors to the wigwam’s air,
Whilst Williams wrote, with stationery rude,
His first epistle from the lonely wood.
LXI.
’Twas on the inner bark stript from the pine,
Our Father penciled this epistle rare;
Two blazing pine-knots did his torches shine,
Two braided pallets formed his desk and chair;
He wrote his wife the brief familiar line,
How he had journeyed, and his roof now where;
And that poor Waban was his host benign,
And bade her cheer and gave him blankets fine.
LXII.
Then bade her send the Indian presents, bought
When first they suffered persecution’s thrall,--
The strings of wampum, and the scarlet coat,
The tinseled belt and jeweled coronal;
The pocket Bible, which his haste forgot,
For he had cheering hopes of Waban’s soul;
Then gave her solace to the bad unknown,
That God o’errules and still protects his own.
LXIII.
And to the hunter Williams now presents
The secret charge, with all directions meet;
For Waban means to take his journey hence
Ere dawns the day upon his lone retreat;
And then once more did sleep our Founder’s sense
And knowledge steal away till morn complete;
When he awoke and found his host was gone,
The lodge all silent, and himself alone.
LXIV.
His fast he broke with the accustomed prayer,
And trimmed him for his walk to Seekonk’s side;
Calm was the morn, and pure the winter air,
As from the wigwam forth our Founder hied;
So tall the pines--so thick the branches were,
That, through their screens, the heavens were scarce espied;
But melting snows and dripping foliage prove
The South blows warmer in the fields above.
LXV.
Now from the swamp to upland woods he past,
Where leafless boughs branched thinner overhead,
And saw the welkin by no cloud o’ercast,
And felt the settled snows give firmer tread.
Now all was calm, no wild and thundering blast
Mixed earth with heaven, as through the boughs it sped;
And far as eye the boundless forest traced,
Glimmered the snow and stretched the lonely waste.
LXVI.
Onward he went, the magnet still his guide,
And through the wood his course due westward took;
Across his path, with antlers branching wide,
The red deer often from the thicket broke;
The timid partridge, at his rapid stride,
On whirring wings the sheltering bush forsook,
And the wild turkey foot and pinion plied,
Or from her lofty bough uncouthly cried.
LXVII.
At last a sound like murmurs from the shore
Of far-off ocean, when the storm is bound,
Grows on his ear, increasing more and more
As he advances, till the woods resound
And seem to tremble with the constant roar
Of many waters--Ay, the very ground
Beneath him quivers,--and, through arching trees
Bright glimmering and gliding on, he sees
LXVIII.
The river flowing to its dizzy steep
’Twixt fringing forests, from so far as sight
Can track its course, and, rushing, oversweep
The rocky precipice all frothy white,
With noise like thunder in its headlong leap,
And springing sun-bows o’er its showery flight,
And bursting into foam, tumultuous go
Down the deep chasm, to smoke and boil below.
LXIX.
Thence, hurrying onward through the narrow bound
Of banks precipitous, its torrents go,
Till by the jutting cliffs half wheeling round,
They pass from sight among the hills below.
There paused our Father, ravished with the sound
Of the wild waters, and their rapid flow,
And there, alone, rejoiced that he had found
Thy Falls, Pawtucket, and where Seekonk wound.
LXX.
And as he dallied on its margin still,
His restless thought did on the future pause:
Here might his children drive the busy mill,
Here whirl the stones, here clash the riving saws;
But little did he think the torrent’s will
Would ever yield so far to human laws,
As from the maid the spindle to receive
And spin for her, and her fair raiment weave.
LXXI.
Reluctantly he left the scene, and fast
Down Seekonk’s eastern bank pursued his way,
Seeking for Waban’s meads; yet often cast
His glances o’er the river, where the gray
Primeval giants, meet for keel or mast,
Stood, towering and distinct, in proud array;
And wore to his presaging eyes the air
Of lofty ships and stately mansions fair.
LXXII.
Still onward, by the eastern bank he sped;
Here stretched the thicket deep, there swampy fen,
Here sunk the vale, there rose the hillock’s head;
Oaks crowned the mound, and cedars gloomed the glen,
Where’er he moved;--at length his footsteps led
Where a bright fountain, sparkling like a gem,
Burst from the caverned cliff, and, glittering, wound
Its copious streamlet, with a murmuring sound,
LXXIII.
Far down the glade; and groves of cedars green,
With woven branches on the winter side,
Repelled the northern storm, whilst clear and sheen,
Crisped by its pebbly bed, the glancing tide
Gleamed in the sun, or darkened where the screen
Of boughs o’erhung its music-murmuring glide;--
It laughed along;--and its broad Southern glade
Was bordered deep by woods of massy shade.
LXXIV.
Charmed with the scene, our sire explored the place,
And penetrated deep the thickets round;
At length his vision opened on a space
Level and broad, and stretching without bound
Southward afar; nor rose o’er all its face
A tree, or shrub, or rock, or swelling mound;
Yet, in large herds dotting the snows, appear,
With antic gambols, the far bounding deer;
LXXV.
And, further down, the Narraganset flood,
Unfurrowed yet by keel--its fretted blue
With isles begemmed, and skirted by the wood
Of far Coweset,--opens on his view;
So long he had beneath the forest trod,
That, when the prospect on his vision grew,
His soul as from a prison seemed to fly
And range in thought through an immensity.
LXXVI.
Raptured he paused.--Here then was Waban’s mead;
In yonder little glen, the fountain by,
He’d rear his shelter--here his flocks should feed,
Cropping the grass beneath the summer sky;
There by his cot he’d sow the foodful seed,
And round his garden raise a paling high;
And there at twilight, should his herds be seen,
Following the tinkling bell from pastures green.
LXXVII.
Ay, here, in fancy, did he almost see
A lovely hamlet in the future blest,
Where Christians all might mutually agree
To leave their God to judge the human breast;
A place of refuge whitherto might flee
The hapless exile for his faith opprest,
And find his lately trammelled conscience free,
And for the scourge and gibbet--charity.
LXXVIII.
He thought he saw the various spires ascending
Of many churches, all of different kind,
And heard the Sabbath bells harmonious blending
Their calls to worshippers of various mind;
And saw the people as harmonious wending
To several worships, as their faith inclined;
And felt that Deity might bend the ear,
Such harmony from various chords to hear.
LXXIX.
But still across his mind a shadow came--
A doubt that seemed a superstitious fear;
For yet no Indian throng, with loud acclaim,
Had bid the welcome of Whatcheer! Whatcheer!
Till when he should be tossed;--as did proclaim
That nameless stranger--that mysterious seer;--
But from Haup’s Sachem he a grant will gain;
Such were best welcome from that Sachem’s train.
LXXX.
Full of this thought, he turned at close of day,
And gained the humble lodge as night came down;
And he could scarcely brook the short delay,
Till Waban, coming from the white man’s town,
Should from Namasket, where the Sachem lay,
The cheering welcome bring, or blasting frown;
For thou, Soul-Liberty, couldst then no more
Than build thy hopes on that rude sagamore.
CANTO THIRD.
[SCENES. The Wigwam--Massasoit and other Chiefs--The Wilderness--A
Night in the Wilderness--The Narraganset or Coweset Country--Coweset
Height.]
No pain is keener to the ardent mind,
Filled with sublime and glorious intents,
Than when strict judgment checks the impulse blind,
And bids to watch the pace of slow events
To time the action;--for it seems to bind
The ethereal soul upon a fire intense,
Lit by herself within the kindling breast,
Prompting to act, while she restrains to rest.
II.
Two nights had passed, and, Waban lingering still,
Williams began to doubt his steadfast faith;
Quick was his foot o’er forest, vale and hill,
His swerveless eyes aye keeping true his path.
Why does he tarry? and the doubts instil
Suspicions in our Sire of waking wrath
Against his purpose in the barbarous clan,
Whose fears e’en then on future dangers ran.
III.
But on the morrow’s morn, while Williams mused,--
Anxious and wondering at the long delay,--
The wigwam’s entrance, by the deer-skin closed,
Abruptly opened, and a warrior gay
Glided within it. To the sight unused
Of Keenomp trimmed as for the battle fray,
Williams, recoiling, gazed with fixed surprise
On the fierce savage and his fearful guise.
IV.
The eagle’s plumes waved round his hair of jet,
Whose crest-like lock played lightly o’er his head;
On breast and face the war-paints harshly met,
Down from his shoulders hung his blanket red,
With seeming blood his hatchet haft was wet,--
Its edge of death was by his girdle stayed;
Bright flashed his eyes, and, ready for the strife,
Gleamed in his hand the dreadful scalping-knife.
V.
He placed a packet, bound, in Williams’ hands,
And fired his pipe, and sitting, curled its smoke,
The while our Founder broke the hempen bands,
And gave the contents an exploring look.
There found he, answered, all his late commands
To Waban, ere the wigwam he forsook;
And from his wife a brief epistle too,
Which told her sorrows since their last adieu:
VI.
How came the messengers with arméd men
To search her mansion for “the heretic;”
How his escape provoked their wrath--and then
How they condemned him for his feigning sick;
But with the thought consoled themselves again,
That he had perished in the tempest thick;
God’s righteous retribution, setting free
Their Israel from his heinous heresy.
VII.
But, as he reads, the warrior starting cries,
“War! war! my brother.”--Williams drops his hand,
And at the voice perceives, in altered guise
Till now unknown, the generous Waban stand
Erect and tall, with fiercely flashing eyes,
The while he pressed the hatchet in its band;
“Brother, there’s war!” “With whom?” our Founder said;
“Have I not friends among my brothers red?”
VIII.
“Haup’s valiant Sachem is my brother’s friend,”
Red Waban answered; “and I come before
Him, and the train of Keenomps who attend
Him, coming here--our mightiest Sagamore--
To ask my brother that his aid he lend
’Gainst Narraganset’s hatchet stained with gore;
Miantonomi lifts it o’er his head,
Gives the loud whoop, and names our valiant dead.”
IX.
No time there was for Williams to reply
Ere near the lodge there rose a trampling sound,
And warriors entered, stained with every dye,
Crested and plumed, with--to their girdles bound--
The knife and hatchet; whilst the battle cry
Burst from the crowds that flocked the lodge around,
And lighted up, in every Keenomp’s eye
That stared within, a dreadful sympathy.
X.
Amid the train came Massasoit old,
But not too old for direst battle fray;
Strong was his arm as was his spirit bold;
His judgment, bettered by experience gray,
The wildest passions of his tribe controlled,
And checked their fury in its headlong way;
Still with the whites his peace he had maintained,
The terror of whose aid his foes restrained.
XI.
There too came Corbitant, austere of mood,
And Annawan, who saw, in after times,
Brave Metacom, and all of kindred blood,
Slain, or enslaved and sold to foreign climes;
And strong Appanow, of Pocasset’s wood,
And other chiefs of names unmeet for rhymes;
And round our Father, in the fearful trim
Of savage war, they gathered, wroth and grim.
XII.
Each fired his pipe, and seat in silence took;
Around the room a dreadful ring they made;--
Their eyes stared fiercely through the wreathing smoke,
And luridly their gaudy plumage played,
The while, obscured, they did scarce earthly look,
But seemed like fiends in their infernal shade;
And still the vapors rose and naught they spoke,
Till Massasoit thus the silence broke:
XIII.
“And is my brother here? What does he seek?
Tow’rd Wamponand, upon the passing wing,
A singing bird there went; its opening beak
Was by Namasket’s wigwam heard to sing
That thou art friendless, homeless, poor and weak,
Seeking protection from an Indian King.
Do the white Sagamores their vengeance wreak,
E’en as the red ones, on their brethren?--Speak.”
XIV.
Sire Williams answered: “’Twas no idle song
Sung by that bird which passed Namasket near;
I am an exile these drear wilds among,
And hope for kindness from the red men here.
Oft had thy friendship to the pale-faced throng,
That first Patuxet[13] peopled, reached my ear;
And a whisper told me thou wouldst still be kind
To those who fly, and leave their all behind.”
[13] Patuxet is the Indian name for Plymouth.
XV.
Then rose the tawny monarch of the wood
To speak his memory, as became a chief;
And back he cast his crimson robes, and stood
With naked arm outstretched a moment brief;
Commanding silence by that attitude,
And to his words attention and belief.
Often he paused, his eyes on Williams fixt,
Whilst rang applause his weighty words betwixt.
XVI.
“Brother,” he said, “full many a rolling year
Has cast its leaves and fruitage on the ground,
And many a Keenomp, to his country dear,
Has sate in death beneath his grassy mound,
Since first the pale Awanux kindled here
His council blaze, and so began to found
His tribes and villages, and far and near,
With thundering arms, to wake the red man’s fear.
XVII.
“Brother, attend! When first Awanux came,
He was a child, not higher than my knee;
Hunger and cold consumed and pinched his frame;
Houseless on yonder naked shore was he;
Waves roared between him and his corn and game,
Snows clad the wilds, and winter vexed the sea;
His big canoe shrunk from the angry flood,
And death was on the barren strand he trod.
XVIII.
“Brother, attend! I gave the infant food;
My lodge was open and my fire was warm;
He gathered strength, and felt a richer blood
Renew the vigor of his wasted arm;
He grew--waxed strong--the trees began to bud;
He asked for lands a little town to form;
I gave him lands, and taught him how to plant,
To fish and hunt,--for he was ignorant.
XIX.
“Brother, attend! Still did Awanux grow;
Still did he ask for land;--I gave him more--
And more--and more, till now his hatchet’s blow
Is at Namasket heard, with crash and roar
Of falling oaks, and, like the whit’ning snow,
His growing numbers spread my borders o’er;
Scarce do they leave a scant and narrow place
Where we may spread the blanket of our race.”
XX.
Here paused the chief, as if to ask reply;
Of thankless guests he spoke, and seemed to say
That the white strangers grasped too eagerly,
Nor heeded aught their benefactor’s sway.
Ne’er to the Indian did our Sire deny
His share of Heaven’s free gifts; and, to allay
The ominous mistrust, he answered mild
The dusky king of Pokanoket’s wild:
XXI.
“Brother, I know that all these lands are thine,
These rolling rivers, and these waving trees,--
From the Great Spirit came the gift divine;
And who would trespass upon boons like these?
I would take nothing, if the power were mine,
Of all thy lands, lest it should Him displease;
But for just meed shouldst thou some part resign,
Would the Great Spirit blame the deed benign?”
XXII.
“’Tis not the peäg,” said the sagamore,
“Nor knives, nor guns, nor garments red as blood,
That buy the lands I hold dominion o’er--
Lands that were fashioned by the red man’s God;
But to my friend I give, and take no more
Than to his generous bosom seemeth good;
But still we pass the belt, and for the lands,
He strengthens mine, and I make strong his hands.”
XXIII.
“Weak is my hand, brave chief,” our Sire replied;
“Aid do I need, but none can I bestow;
Yet on the vacant plain, by Seekonk’s tide,
I fain would build, and peaceful neighbors know;
But if my brother has that plain denied,
Far tow’rds the setting sun will Williams go,
And on the lands of other chiefs abide,
Whose blankets are with ampler room supplied.”
XXIV.
As thus our Founder spake, this murmur low
Circled that savage group of warriors round,
“The stranger will to Narraganset go!”
“A hungry wolf shall in his path be found!”
Rejoined stern Corbitant, whose eyes did glow
With kindling wrath;--then from his belt unbound
His hatchet and beneath his blanket hid;--
Warrior to warrior glanced, as this he did.
XXV.
Again Haup’s Sachem broke the fearful pause:
“Brother, be wise; I gave thy brethren lands;
They smoked my pipe, and they espoused my cause;
They made me strong; and all the neighboring bands
Forsook the Narraganset Sachem’s laws[14]
And mine obeyed.--We weakened hostile hands;
All dropt their arms and
|
," book 1, chap.
25._
Evidently Babylon was still "the land of graven images," and the
desolation foretold by the prophet had not yet befallen its palaces. But
that prophetic word, written eight hundred years before, was still upon
the scroll of the Book, the sure Word of God, who sees the end from the
beginning.
[Illustration: EGYPT'S GLORY DEPARTED
"The idols of Egypt shall be moved." Isa. 19:1.]
The view given us by Apollonius is perhaps the last glimpse we have of
Babylon's passing glory. Even then for centuries the walls had been a
quarry from which stones were drawn for Babylon's rival, Seleucia, on
the Tigris. And Strabo, the Greek geographer, who also wrote in the
first century, had described Babylon as "in great part deserted,"
adding,
"No one would hesitate to apply to it what one of the comic
writers said of Megalopolitæ, in Arcadia, 'The great city is a
great desert.'"--_"Geography," book 16, chap. 1._
Already pagan writers had begun to describe its condition in the terms
of the prophecy uttered so long before. And now what is its state? The
doom foretold has fallen heavy upon the city, upon its palaces, and
"upon the graven images of Babylon." For a century and more, travelers'
accounts have frequently borne witness to the exact fulfilment of the
prophecy in the remarkable desolations of that city, once mistress of
the world.
"Babylon shall become heaps," said the prophecy, "and owls shall dwell
there." This is what Mr. Layard, the English archeologist, found on his
visit in 1845:
"Shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of
the land.... On all sides, fragments of glass, marble, pottery,
and inscribed brick are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and
blanched soil, which, bred from the remains of ancient
habitations, checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the
site of Babylon a naked and a hideous waste. Owls [which are of
a large gray kind, and often found in flocks of nearly a
hundred] start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal
skulks through the furrows."--_"Discoveries Among the Ruins of
Nineveh and Babylon," chap. 21, p. 413._
The prophecy said, "Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there." The
words might be construed to mean that the famous site would never become
the place of a Bedouin village. But it is literally true, say travelers,
that the Arabs avoid the place even for the temporary pitching of their
tents. They consider the spot under a curse. They call the ruins
_Mudjelibe_, "the Overturned." (See "Encyclopedia of Islam," art.
"Babil.")
As late as 1913, Missionary W.C. Ising visited the site where Professor
Koldeway was excavating the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace. He wrote:
"Involuntarily one is reminded of the prophecy in the
thirteenth of Isaiah and many other places, which, in course of
time, have been fulfilled to the letter. No one is living on
the site of ancient Babylon, and whatever Arabs are employed by
the excavators have built their mud huts in the bed of the
ancient river, which at the present time is shifted half a mile
farther west."--_European Division Quarterly, Fourth Quarter,
1913._
Egypt and Edom
The massive ruins by the Nile bear witness to prophecy fulfilled. When
Egypt rivaled Babylon, the word was spoken: "It shall be the basest of
the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations."
Eze. 29:15. It was not utterly to pass, as Babylon, but to continue in
inferior state. Thus it came to pass. Once populous Edom, famed for
wisdom and counsel, now lies desolate, according to the word: "Edom
shall be a desolation: every one that goeth by it shall be astonished."
Jer. 49:17.
The Testimony of History
[Illustration: RUINS OF EDOM
"Edom shall be a desolate wilderness." Joel 3:19.]
Thus the centuries bear testimony to the fulfilment of the prophetic
word. The panorama of all human history moves before us in these
writings of the prophets. Flinging their "colossal shadows" across the
pages of Holy Writ, as Farrar says, we see--
"The giant forms of empires on their way
To ruin."
It is no human book that thus from primitive times forecasts the march
of history through the ages.
The Lord not only spoke the word in warning and entreaty for those to
whom it first came, but it is written in the Scriptures of truth as a
testimony to all time, that the Bible is the word of God, and that all
His purposes revealed therein and all the promises of the blessed Book
are certain and sure. The prophets who bore messages from God to
Nineveh, and Babylon, and Tyre, spoke messages also for our day.
Fulfilled prophecy is the testimony of the centuries to the living God.
The evidence of prophecy and its fulfilment is God's challenge and
appeal to men to acknowledge Him as the true God and the Holy Scriptures
as His word from heaven.
"I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went
forth out of My mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they
came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an
iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have even from the beginning declared
it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee.... Thou hast heard,
see all this; and will not ye declare it?" Isa. 48:3-6.
Surely no one can look at the evidence in history of the fulfilment of
prophecy without seeing that of a truth the One who spoke these words
knew the end from the beginning; and finding the living God in the sure
word of prophecy, one must be prepared to listen to His voice in all the
Scriptures, when it speaks of sin and the way of salvation through Jesus
Christ.
Further, the prophetic word also has much to say of events yet future,
of the course of history in modern times. It behooves us to give heed to
what that word speaks concerning our own times and the events that are
to take place upon the earth before the end. The apostle Peter exhorts
us to the study in these words:
"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day
dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." 2 Peter 1:19.
[Illustration: THE GREAT IMAGE
"He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to
pass." Dan. 2:29.]
[Illustration: DANIEL INTERPRETING NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM
"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great Image." Dan. 2:31.]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] "In the book of Jonah," says _Records of the Past_, "Nineveh is
stated to have been an exceeding great city of three days' journey; and
that being the case, the explanation that Calah on the south and
Khorsabad on the north were included seems very probable. The distance
between these two extreme points is about thirty miles, which, at ten
miles a day, would take the time required."--_Vol. XII, part 1, January
and February, 1913_.
PROPHETIC OUTLINE OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY
THE PROPHECY OF DANIEL 2
"There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to
the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days."
In a dream by night the Lord gave to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a
clear historical outline of the course of world empire to the end of
time and the coming of the eternal kingdom.
The king was a thoughtful monarch; and having reached the height of his
power, he was one night meditating upon "what should come to pass
hereafter." Not for his sake alone, but for the enlightenment and
instruction of men in all time, the Lord answered the wondering question
of the king's meditation by giving him the dream. "He that revealeth
secrets," said Daniel the prophet, "maketh known to thee what shall come
to pass."
[Illustration: BABYLON IN HER GLORY
"Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees'
excellency." Isa. 13:19.]
And that we may know at the beginning that there is nothing fanciful and
uncertain about this great historic outline reaching to the end of the
world, we note first the assurance with which the prophet closed his
interpretation: "The dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof
sure."
The details of the dream had been taken from the king's mind, while
conviction as to the wondrous import of it remained. This was in God's
providence, to show the folly of the worldly-wise men of Babylon, and to
bring before the king the prophet of the Lord with a divine message. The
prophet Daniel, under the inspiration of God, brought his dream again to
the king's mind:
"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose
brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was
terrible.
"This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver,
his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of
iron and part of clay.
"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote
the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to
pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the
gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer
threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was
found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great
mountain, and filled the whole earth."
The prophet next declared the interpretation. And now follows the
history of the world in miniature.
Babylon
"Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given
thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the
children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the
heaven hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them
all. Thou art this head of gold."
[Illustration: THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL
"Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." Dan.
5:28.]
The parts of the image, then, of various metals, from head to feet,
represented successive empires, beginning with Babylon; and the kingdom
of Babylon, represented by Nebuchadnezzar, was the head of gold.
History shows how fitly the golden head symbolizes the Babylonian
kingdom. Long before, the prophet Isaiah had described it as "the glory
of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." Isa. 13:19. And
now, in Nebuchadnezzar's day, it was the golden age of the Babylonian
kingdom. No such gorgeous city as its capital ever before stood on
earth. And Nebuchadnezzar was the great leader of its conquests, and the
beautifier and builder of its walls and palaces. "For the astonishment
of men I have built this house," one tablet reads; and hundreds repeat
the story.
"Those portals
for the astonishment of multitudes of people
with beauty I adorned.
In order that the battle storm
to Imgur-Bel
the wall of Babylon might
not reach;
what no king before me
had done."--_East India House Inscription._
Thus Nebuchadnezzar's records of stone today repeat the proud boast
faithfully reported in the Scripture, "Is not this great Babylon, that I
have built?" Dan. 4:30. To the king it seemed that such a city could
never fall. One inscription reads:
"Thus I completely made strong the defenses of Babylon. May it
last forever."--_Rawlinson, "Fourth Monarchy," Appendix A._
Medo-Persia
But the prophet Daniel, proceeding with the divine interpretation,
interrupted all such proud thoughts with the declaration, "After thee
shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee."
Now the look was forward into the future. And the word came to pass.
Babylon's decline was swift after Nebuchadnezzar's death. Daniel the
prophet himself lived to interpret the handwriting on the wall at
Belshazzar's feast:
"God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.... Thou art weighed in
the balances and art found wanting.... Thy kingdom is divided, and given
to the Medes and Persians." Dan. 5:26-28.
The breast and arms of silver, in the great image, represented the
Medo-Persian kingdom, which followed the Babylonian, "inferior" to it in
brilliancy and grandeur, as silver is inferior to gold. Medo-Persia,
however, enlarged the borders of the world empire; and the names of
Cyrus and Darius are written among the mightiest conquerors of history.
But the prophet does not stop to dwell upon the grandeur of fleeting
earthly kingdoms. The interpretation hastens on to reach the setting up
of a kingdom that shall not pass away. Following Medo-Persia, a third
power was to rise,
Grecia
"And another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the
earth."
The "third kingdom" after Babylon was Grecia, which overthrew the empire
of the Medes and Persians. And Grecia's dominion fulfilled the
specifications of the prophecy, which indicated a yet wider expansion of
empire. Its sway was to be over "all the earth," said Daniel the
prophet, foretelling its history. Arrian, the Greek historian, writing
afterward, said that Alexander of Greece seemed truly "lord of all the
earth;" and he adds:
"I am persuaded there was no nation, city, nor people then in
being whither his name did not reach; for which reason,
whatever origin he might boast of, or claim to himself, there
seems to me to have been some divine hand presiding both over
his birth and actions."--_"History of the Expedition of
Alexander the Great," book 7, chap. 30._
The sides of brass in the great image represented Grecia, the brazen
metal itself being a fitting symbol of those "brazen-mailed" Greeks,
celebrated in ancient poetry and song,
"Among the foremost, armed in glittering brass."
A Power Rising in the West
While Grecia's supremacy under Alexander was disputed by none, there was
a power rising in the West that was soon to enter the lists for the
prize of world dominion.
Some of the ancient writers say that at the time of his death Alexander
had in mind to push westward to strike down the growing power of the
city of Rome, of which he had heard. Plutarch says that this man
Alexander,
"who shot like a star, with incredible swiftness, from the
rising to the setting sun, was meditating to bring the luster
of his arms into Italy.... He had heard of the Roman power in
Italy."--_"Morals," chap. on "Fortune of the Romans," par. 13._
Lucan, the ancient Roman poet, repeats the thought:
"Driven headlong on by Fate's resistless force,
Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course:
His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,
And desolation followed where he passed....
"Ev'n to the utmost west he would have gone,
Where Tethys' lap receives the setting sun."
--"_Pharsalia._"
But in the prime of his years, Alexander was cut down, and Rome had yet
more time in which to develop its strength preparatory to the deciding
contest for the mastery of all the world. Sure it is that after Grecia,
there followed the Roman Empire, the strongest and mightiest and most
crushing of them all. This fourth universal empire the prophet proceeded
to describe, as represented by the legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream of the great image.
Rome
"The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh
in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these,
shall it break in pieces and bruise."
How appropriately the iron of the image fits the character of the fourth
great empire! Gibbon, the historian, calls it "the iron monarchy of
Rome." It broke in pieces the kingdoms, subduing all, just as prophecy
had declared so long before. As iron is strongest of the common metals,
so according to the prophecy--"as iron that breaketh all these"--this
fourth kingdom was to be more powerful than any before it. Strabo, the
geographer, who lived in the days of Tiberius Cæsar, said,
"The Romans have surpassed (in power) all former rulers of whom
we have any record."--_"Geography," book 17, chap. 3._
Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, who lived in Rome in the third
century,--under the "iron monarchy,"--wrote thus of this prophecy:
"Already the iron rules; already it subdues and breaks all in
pieces; already it brings all the unwilling into subjection;
already we see these things ourselves."--_"Treatise on Christ
and Antichrist," sec. 33._
Hippolytus also saw clearly from the prophecy that the empire of his day
would be divided, and he wrote of the kingdoms that were "yet to rise"
out of it. For Daniel's interpretation explained clearly the meaning of
the mingling of clay with the iron in the feet and toes of the great
image.
The Kingdoms of Modern Europe
"Whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part
of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the
strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry
clay.
"And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the
kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
"And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle
themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to
another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."
"The kingdom shall be divided." So declared the prophet of God. In the
height of its power, Rome scouted the thought that so mighty a fabric
could ever be broken up. Horace sang in his "Odes,"
"How, added to a conquered world,
Euphrates 'bates his tide,
And Huns, beyond our frontiers hurled,
O'er straitened deserts ride.
* * * * *
"The Goths beyond the sea may plot,
The warlike Basques may plan;
Friend, never heed them! vex thee not;
For this our mortal span
Of little wants."
--_Book 2, Marris's Translation._
But the words were written on the ancient parchment in the days of
Babylon, "The kingdom shall be divided;" and true to the word of the
prophet, the Roman Empire fell apart with the mixture of nations and
peoples that swept into it. The elements did not hold together, even as
the mixture of iron and clay in the image did not cleave together.
Broken up by the invasions of fresh nations from the north, the Western
Empire was divided into lesser kingdoms, out of which have grown the
modern nations of western Europe.
Not one word in the outline of the prophecy thus far has failed of
fulfilment. These modern kingdoms growing out of divided Rome have never
been reunited. "They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men," said
the prophecy. Nearly all the reigning houses of Europe today are related
by intermarriage; the prophecy said it would be so; but "they shall not
cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." So we see
it. No statesman, no master of legions, has been able to join these
nations together again in one great empire. Charles V had the thought in
mind, some think. Napoleon dreamed of doing it. But it was not to be.
Nevermore was there to be one universal monarchy.
We may know that as surely as the course of world empire has followed
the exact outline of the prophecy put on the inspired record in the days
of Babylon of old, just so surely the specifications of the closing
portion of the outline will be fulfilled.
The fourth great kingdom was to be divided. Rome was the fourth empire:
it was divided. The kingdoms of the divided empire are acting their part
before our eyes today.
The Next Great Event
And what next? That is the question for us. Now the prophetic outline
that began with ancient Babylon touches the things of our own day. The
word spoken before Nebuchadnezzar so long ago is now spoken especially
to us:
"In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom,
which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to
other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
"Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain
without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the
clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the
king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and
the interpretation thereof sure."
"In the days of these kings,"--these kingdoms of our own time,--the next
great world-changing event is to be the coming of Christ to begin the
setting up of his everlasting kingdom. That is the grand climax toward
which all the course of history has been tending. At last the end is to
come.
"Down in the feet of iron and of clay,
Weak and divided, soon to pass away;
What will the next great, glorious drama be?--
Christ and His coming, and eternity."
As the stone, cut out of the mountain "without hands," smote the image,
so that all its parts, representative of earthly dominion, were ground
to dust and blown away, so Christ's coming kingdom, set up "without
hands," by no human power, but by the power of the eternal God, will end
all earthly dominion and bring the utter destruction of sin and sinners
out of the earth.
"The dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."
Then may all eyes well be turned toward the next great step foretold in
the prophetic outline--the coming of Christ's glorious everlasting
kingdom, which shall not pass away.
"Look for the waymarks as you journey on,
Look for the waymarks, passing one by one,
Down through the ages, past the kingdoms four,--
Where are we standing? Look the waymarks o'er."
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH BY MISSIONARY W.C. ISING
Ruins of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, in which was the hall of
Belshazzar's Feast.]
[Illustration: THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST
"This same Jesus... shall so come in like manner." Acts 1:11.
COPYRIGHT STANDARD PUB. CO.]
[Illustration: THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM
"Behold, thy King cometh,... lowly, and riding upon an ass." Zech.
9:9.]
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
"Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin
unto salvation." Heb. 9:28.
Too often the second coming of Christ is looked upon simply as a
doctrine. It is, however, more than a doctrine merely to be believed; it
is an impending event, something that is to take place on earth, and the
most stupendous, all-transcendent event for the world since Christ came
the first time to die on Calvary for the sins of men.
This second coming of Christ, like His first coming, has been the theme
of divine prophecy from the beginning. This was emphasized by the
apostle Peter in his second recorded sermon. He pressed upon the people
of Jerusalem the fact that the things "which God before had showed by
the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer" (Acts 3:18),
had been fulfilled to the letter before their eyes. Not a word had
failed. Just so, he said, all that the prophets had spoken of His second
coming would be fulfilled:
"He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom
the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things,
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the
world began." Acts 3:20, 21.
The Promise of His Coming
As iniquity began to abound, God sent a message to the antediluvian
world, declaring that Christ's coming in glory would end the reign of
sin:
"Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold,
the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment
upon all." Jude 14, 15.
The promise of Christ's coming was the "blessed hope" in the patriarchal
age. In Job's dark hour of trial his heart clung to the promise, and he
was kept from despair:
"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter
day upon the earth:... whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall
behold, and not another." Job 19:25-27.
The psalmist sang of it:
"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour
before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him." Ps. 50:3.
And the prophets of later times were unceasingly moved upon to talk of
the glory of that coming, of events preceding it, and of the preparation
for it.
"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold
their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not
silence." "Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world,
Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold,
His reward is with Him, and His work before Him." Isa. 62:6, 11.
The message of His coming is to be heralded to the ends of the earth;
for it is "good tidings of great joy" to every one who will receive it.
On that last night with His disciples before the crucifixion, when His
heart was sorrowful even unto death, as the burden of all our
iniquities was about to be laid upon Him, Christ's love for His own made
precious to Him the thought of His second coming to gather them home at
last, safe from all sin and trouble; and He said:
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me.
In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.
In that assurance the heart finds rest. O the preciousness of the
promise, "I will come again"! "I am coming for you," is the cheering
message. "Yes, Lord," we reply, "we will wait, and watch, and be ready,
by Thy grace."
The Manner of His Coming
Christ's second coming is to be visible to all the world. There is to be
nothing secret or mystical about it. The revelator says:
"Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him." Rev. 1:7.
Christ Himself described the scene to His disciples as it will appear to
the eyes of all:
"As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the
west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matt. 24:27. "Then
shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and
glory." Mark 13:26.
The day of the Lord--the close of probation, the initial outpouring of
the judgments of God--will come "as a thief in the night," but Christ's
personal appearing will be visible to all. The heavens will open, the
earth quake, the trump of God resound, and such glory as mortal eye has
never seen will burst upon the world when He comes as King of kings and
Lord of lords.
"He comes not an infant in Bethlehem born,
He comes not to lie in a manger;
He comes not again to be treated with scorn,
He comes not a shelterless stranger;
He comes not to Gethsemane,
To weep and sweat blood in the garden;
He comes not to die on the tree,
To purchase for rebels a pardon.
Oh, no; glory, bright glory,
Environs Him now."
[Illustration: THE TRANSFIGURATION A TYPE OF HIS COMING
"Behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him."
Matt. 17:3.]
"This Same Jesus"
The Lord would have His children understand that this One who comes in
power and glory is the same Saviour of men who once walked by blue
Galilee. As the disciples were watching their Saviour, and ours,
ascending bodily into heaven from Olivet, until "a cloud received Him
out of their sight," suddenly two angels stood by them, who said:
"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen Him go into heaven." Acts 1:9, 11.
[Illustration: CHRIST SET AT NAUGHT BY THE ROMANS
"Behold your King!" John 19:14.]
"This same Jesus"! It was the loving Friend and Elder Brother, Son of
man as well as Son of God, who was passing from their sight. He will
come back the "same Jesus," though in glory indescribable, having "all
the holy angels with Him."
The prophet Habakkuk thus described Christ's glorious appearing, as it
was represented to him in vision:
"His glory covered the heavens,
And the earth was full of His praise.
And His brightness was as the light;
He had rays coming forth from His hand;
And there was the hiding of His power."
Hab. 3:3, 4, A.R.V.
Surely it is the "same Jesus," and the mark of the cruel nails is the
shining badge of His power to save.
"I shall know Him
By the print of the nails in His hands."
As the redeemed see Him who was crucified for them coming in glory, they
will cry, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save
us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and
rejoice in His salvation." Isa. 25:9.
But that day will be a day of darkness as well as of light. The unready,
the unrepentant, will realize too late that in rejecting Christ's pardon
and love and sacrifice, they have rejected the only means by which they
might have been prepared to meet the coming King, before whose face no
sin can endure. "Every eye shall see Him," the apostle says, and he
describes the terror of that day to the unprepared:
"The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the
chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free
man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and
said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face
of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for
the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"
Rev. 6:15-17.
The scenes of that great day are so beyond human comprehension that it
is difficult to realize that such a time is actually before us.
"Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that great day."
The Purpose of His Coming
The Scriptures make very clear the purpose of Christ's second coming and
the events of that great day. It has been the hope of the children of
God through all the ages. The apostle Paul calls it the "blessed hope."
"The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our
Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus 2:11-13.
The saints of God have fallen asleep in death with their faith reaching
forward to Christ's glorious appearing. So the veteran apostle fell,
with eyes upon "that day."
"I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not
to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." 2 Tim.
4:6-8.
Christ's second coming is the grand climax of the plan of salvation. Not
till then are the children of God ushered into the eternal kingdom. Then
the crowns of life are bestowed, and the saved all go together through
the gates into the city--patriarch and prophet, apostle and reformer,
and the child of God of this last generation. Of the ancient worthies it
is written:
"These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not
the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect." Heb. 11:39, 40.
What a glorious day it will be when the ransomed of all the ages, march
in together through the gates into the city!
It is to take His children to their eternal home that Christ comes the
second time. This was His promise to the disciples:
"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am,
there ye may be also." John 14:2, 3.
Not in detail, but in their general order, let us follow the events of
that great day.
[Illustration: CHRIST COMING IN GLORY
"The Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with
Him." Matt. 25:31.]
The Prelude to His Coming
as the revelator saw it and heard it in a vision of the last day:
"There came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne,
saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings;
and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon
the earth,... and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon
came in remembrance before God." Rev. 16:17-19.
"The heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every
mountain and island were moved out of their places." Rev. 6:14.
His Glorious Appearing
Then bursts upon the world the glory of our Saviour's coming:
"Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall
all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet." Matt. 24:30, 31.
"I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like
unto the Son of man, having on His head a
|
on and we won’t feel any of the rocks and
roots and bumps that may be under us.”
“It sounds fine all right,” laughed Grant. “We’d better get to work
soon, too, for it’ll be dark before long.”
“I should think Pop would be back by now, too,” said John. “You don’t
suppose anything could have happened to him, do you?”
“Why, I don’t see how—” began Fred, when he suddenly ceased speaking and
listened intently.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Grant.
“Ssh,” whispered Fred. “I thought I heard some one call.”
CHAPTER II—A MISHAP
All three boys bent their heads and listened intently. The only sound
that came to them, however, was the soft sighing of the breeze through
the treetops and the occasional call of some bird preparing to settle
down for the night. The sun was low in the west, just sinking below the
fringe of the forest which skirted the little lake. All seemed quiet and
serene.
“What did you think you heard, Fred?” demanded Grant after the lapse of
several moments.
“I thought I heard a call. In fact I was almost—”
Once more he stopped suddenly and listened. “What was that?” he
exclaimed.
“I heard something, too,” whispered John excitedly. “Listen!”
“I don’t hear a thing,” muttered Grant. “I must be deaf.”
“There it is again,” cried Fred suddenly.
“I heard it, too,” exclaimed John. “It came from that end of the
island.”
“That’s the direction Pop took,” said Grant in alarm. “Perhaps there has
something happened to him.”
“We’ll soon find out anyway,” cried Fred. “Come along!” and he began to
run at top speed in the direction George had gone a short time before.
Close behind him followed Grant and John. Every boy was worried and
beset with a thousand and one evil thoughts as to what might have
befallen their light-hearted and well-loved comrade. Almost everything
conceivable in the way of misfortune suggested itself to their anxious
minds.
“Keep close to the shore, Fred,” called Grant. “He was fishing, you
know.”
Fred did keep as close to the shore as possible, but it was no easy task
a great many times. The island was rough and rocky and heavily wooded,
the trees growing down to the water’s edge in many places. Crashing
through the underbrush and making a great deal of noise the three boys
raced along. Whether or not the cry which John and Fred had heard was
repeated they could not say, for the tumult of their own mad course
drowned out all other noises.
After what seemed a long time they came to the end of the island. Here
the forest gave way to the rocks which ran out a considerable distance,
forming a small peninsula. At the tip end were several big boulders
which had become separated from the main island after long years of
action by the water and in order to reach them it was necessary to jump
across several feet from one to the other. Towards these boulders the
three boys made their way.
“I don’t see anybody,” panted John.
“Nor I,” agreed Fred. “I don’t hear anything, either.”
“Listen,” warned Grant, holding up his hand.
“And look, too,” murmured Fred under his breath.
Suddenly John started forward excitedly. “Look,” he cried, “there he
is.”
“Where? Where?” demanded Grant.
“Down there in the water. Don’t you see him?”
“Help! Help!” came the call, and John, Fred and Grant sped to the
assistance of their comrade. His head showed above the water and he
splashed a great deal in an effort to remain afloat. That he was very
rapidly becoming weaker, however, was plain to be seen.
“Give me a hand, somebody,” cried George.
“All right, Pop. We’ll be right with you,” Grant reassured him.
George was struggling in the water close to one of the big boulders. Its
sides were so steep and high, however, that he was unable to climb out.
From his actions it also appeared as if he were keeping himself afloat
merely with his hands.
“Get a stick, Grant,” cried Fred. “You can hold it out for him to take
hold of.”
“Where is one? Find one, quick!” exclaimed Grant excitedly.
“Here you are,” said John. “This one will do. Take this.”
He held out a stick some six or eight feet long which had been lying on
the shore at his feet. Grant seized it eagerly and hastened to George’s
assistance.
“Hurry up, Grant!” called George. “I can’t last much longer!”
“Here you are!” cried Grant, leaning out from the shore as far as he
dared and holding the stick toward his friend. “Grab hold of this.”
After one or two unsuccessful attempts George succeeded in catching hold
of the stick. Grant drew him up as close to the rock as possible and
then Fred and John bending down over the edge seized him by his arms and
quickly pulled him out of the water and to safety.
“How did you happen to—” began Fred, when John suddenly interrupted him.
“What have you got around your legs?” he demanded in astonishment.
“My fishing line,” said George, smiling weakly. “It tripped me up.”
“Well, I should think it might,” exclaimed John. “How in the world did
you ever get it wound around you like that?”
“I had my rod in one hand,” said George, “and I tried to jump from that
rock over there to this one. I landed here all right, but when I jumped
the line got twisted around my ankles and I lost my balance. It finally
tripped me up and I fell into the water. When I got there the line kept
getting more and more tangled up the harder I kicked, until finally I
could hardly move my feet at all. I had to keep afloat just by using my
hands.”
“That was certainly a bright trick,” exclaimed Fred. “Why, you might
have drowned.”
“I thought I was going to be,” said George grimly. “I was getting pretty
tired.”
“Where’s your rod?” inquired Fred.
“At the other end of the line. A steel rod doesn’t float, you know.”
“That’s true,” laughed Fred. “Haul in that line, John.”
Of course all the line unrolled from the reel before the rod was rescued
but it was finally brought safely to shore. A large section of the line,
however, had to be sacrificed as it was found almost impossible to
untangle the mass that had wound itself around George’s legs and ankles,
and a knife was necessary to free him.
“Where are your fish, Pop?” inquired Fred. “I suppose you dropped them
all when you fell in,” and he nudged Grant as he spoke.
“I had only one,” replied George ruefully. “He did fall in and I lost
him.”
“What kind was it?”
“A black bass.”
“A big one, I suppose.”
“No, he wasn’t either. He was pretty small. I didn’t have any luck at
all.”
“You ought to have taken one of the canoes,” said Grant. “You can’t
expect to catch anything from the shore.”
“He’d probably upset the canoe,” said Fred. “I don’t think we should
allow him to do anything alone after this.”
“Huh!” was George’s only reply to this sally.
“Feel like walking, Pop?” asked Grant. “If you do we’d better go back to
camp and get some dry clothes for you.”
“I was just thinking that,” said George. “I’m commencing to feel chilly.
These nights in the Adirondacks are pretty cool, I find.”
“They certainly are,” John agreed. “Let’s go back.”
“I could eat something, too,” remarked Fred. “The cool air also seems to
give you an appetite.”
“Come on,” cried Grant, and a moment later the four young campers were
retracing their steps to the tent.
Arriving there, George made haste to change his wet garments for some
dry ones. Fred and John collected wood for the fire while Grant made
ready to cook the dinner. A short time later the odor of sizzling bacon
filled the air, lending an even keener edge to four appetites that were
sharp already. The first meal in camp was voted a great success by every
member of the party, and all agreed that Grant was a wonderful cook.
“Isn’t this great!” exclaimed George, when the dishes had all been
washed.
The four young friends were seated around a camp-fire crowned by a great
birch log that blazed so brightly it lighted up everything for a
considerable distance round about them.
“It surely is,” agreed John. “I don’t see how you could beat this.”
“Just think of it,” said Fred. “We’re here for all summer, too.”
“Oh, the summer will go fast enough. Don’t worry about that,” Grant
warned him. “It’ll be over before we know it.”
At last the fire burned low until it was nothing but a mass of glowing
embers. John arose to his feet and yawned. “I’m going in and try those
new beds we made this afternoon,” he said. “I’m tired.”
“I’m sleepy, too,” exclaimed Grant. “Let’s all turn in.”
The few remaining coals from the fire were carefully scattered so that
they could do no damage during the night. These four friends had had
enough experience in the woods to know what a forest fire means. They
also knew that all good woodsmen were careful about such things and
always had regard for the rights of others.
Every one was sleepy and it was not long before four tired and happy
boys were stretched upon four sweet-smelling balsam beds, sound asleep.
How long he slept John could not tell when he suddenly awoke with the
feeling that he had heard a cry for help.
CHAPTER III—JOHN HEARS SOMETHING
John sat upright and peered about him in the darkness, every nerve
alert. He heard nothing, however. Perhaps he had been mistaken after
all. George’s mishap that afternoon had been on his mind and probably he
had dreamed of it.
Somehow the feeling that he had heard a cry still seemed very distinct,
however, and it gave him a most unpleasant sensation. He listened
intently. He could hear the deep and steady breathing of his three
comrades lying asleep around him, and he heaved a sigh of relief. At
least nothing had happened to them.
Not a sound came to break the silence of the night and John began to
feel sure that he had been deceived. He prepared himself to lie down
again and go to sleep. He must have had a nightmare, he thought. Who
could be in trouble on a calm, still night like this? At any rate it was
none of their party and undoubtedly was no one at all. It had all been a
dream, though a most unpleasant one, and John shivered unconsciously at
the recollection. His nerves had all been set on edge, but gradually he
quieted down and once more settled himself to rest.
Barely had he closed his eyes, however, when the cry was repeated. There
was no mistaking it this time, and John instantly was wide awake once
more, the cold shivers dancing up and down his spine. Never had he heard
such a voice. Some one evidently was in terrible distress mingled with
fear with which hopelessness seemed combined. The voice trailed off in a
wail of despair that brought John’s heart up into his mouth.
It seemed to him that the cry must have awakened his companions as well,
but no, he could still hear their regular breathing even above the
violent pounding of his heart. What should he do? There was no question
about it this time; it had not been a dream. Some one was in trouble and
needed help, and evidently needed it badly. Consequently it was needed
quickly, too, and John was determined to do his best.
He leaned over in the darkness and felt for the boy who was lying next
to him.
“Grant,” he whispered. “Grant, wake up.”
Grant merely groaned and stirred uneasily.
“Wake up, Grant,” he repeated, shaking his friend by his shoulder. “Wake
up, I tell you.”
“What do you want?” demanded Grant sleepily. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter enough,” exclaimed John. “There’s somebody in trouble out here
on the lake and he’s calling for help.”
“Is that so?” cried Grant, now wide awake. “Are you sure?”
“I heard him call twice.”
“Was it a man?”
“I think so. I never heard such a voice. It was awful.”
“We’d better go see what we can do then,” exclaimed Grant. “Which
direction did the voice come from?”
“I couldn’t say; it seemed to come from all over. Oh, Grant, it was
awful.”
“Sure you didn’t dream it?”
“Positive. I know I heard it.”
“Come along then,” said Grant. “We’ll go outside and get one of the
canoes and see what we can find. Maybe we’ll hear it again.”
“I don’t know; it sounded to me as though it was the death cry of some
one. I never heard such a thing in all my life.”
“Get your sweater and some trousers,” directed Grant. “Don’t wake Fred
and Pop yet. We’ll see what we can do first.”
John and Grant rose carefully to their feet and laid aside their
blankets. Feeling their way, they soon located their clothes and a
moment later, partly dressed, they stepped forth from the tent. The
night was clear, and the moon, in its last quarter, lighted up the trees
and the water in a ghostly manner.
“Are the paddles—” began Grant, when the cry was repeated. This time it
seemed only a short distance from their camp and out on the lake.
Perhaps some one had upset a boat and was struggling in the water.
“There it is,” cried John, clutching Grant excitedly by the arm. “Did
you hear that? Isn’t that terrible?”
“Is that what you heard before?” demanded Grant.
“Yes, the same voice. Hurry! We mustn’t waste a second.”
“Wait a minute, String,” and in Grant’s voice was the suggestion of a
laugh.
“What’s the matter?”
“Well, if that’s what you heard the other times, I wouldn’t be in a
great hurry if I were you.”
“Why not? Are you crazy, Grant? Can’t you tell by that voice that some
one is in trouble? Aren’t you going to help him?”
“Did you ask me if I was crazy?”
“I did, and I think you are, too. Please hurry, Grant.”
“Oh, no, I’m not crazy,” said Grant, and there was no mistaking the fact
that he was laughing now. “I’m not crazy, but you’re loony.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s a loon you hear out there.”
“A loon,” exclaimed John in amazement. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a bird. That noise you hear is made by a bird named a
loon. Haven’t you ever heard one before?”
“Never. I don’t see how a bird could sound so like a human being.”
“That’s what it is just the same,” said Grant, and he was almost doubled
up with laughter now. “I think I’d better wake up Pop and Fred and tell
them about your friend that’s calling for help.”
“Are you positive it’s a loon?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then don’t ever tell a soul,” begged John eagerly. “I’d never hear the
last of it as long as I lived. It would be awful if George ever knew.”
“You’re not the first one who’s ever been fooled,” laughed Grant. “You
probably won’t be the last, either.”
“Please don’t tell on me, though, Grant. Promise me you won’t.”
“We’ll see,” said Grant evasively. “I can’t make any promises though.”
“How should I know that it was a loon?” demanded John. “I never heard
one before and you yourself say that other people have been fooled the
same way.”
“That’s true. Still it’s almost too good a joke on you to keep.”
“What is a loon, anyway?”
“It’s a bird; it belongs to the duck family, I guess. They live around
on lakes and ponds like this and spend their nights waking people up and
scaring them.”
“I should say they did,” exclaimed John with a shudder. “I never heard
such a lonesome-sounding, terrible wail in all my life.”
“There it is again,” said Grant laughingly, as once more the cry of the
loon came to their ears across the dark waters of the little lake.
“Let’s go back to sleep,” exclaimed John earnestly. “That sound makes my
blood run cold, even though I know it is made by a bird.”
“Don’t you think we ought to tell Fred and Pop about it?” inquired Grant
mischievously. “It seems to me they ought to be warned.”
“You can tell them about it if you don’t mention my name in connection
with it,” said John. “If you tell on me though, I swear I’ll get even
with you if it takes me a year.”
“All right,” laughed Grant, “I won’t say anything about it. At least,
not yet,” he added under his breath.
“What did you say?” demanded John, not having caught the last sentence.
“I said, ‘let’s go to bed.’”
“That suits me,” exclaimed John, and a few moments later they had once
more crawled quietly over their sleeping comrades and again rolled in
their blankets, were sound asleep.
The sun had not been up very long before the camp was astir. Sleepy-eyed
the boys emerged from the tent, blinking in the light of the new day. A
moment later, however, four white bodies were splashing and swimming
around in the cool waters of the lake, and all the cobwebs of sleep were
soon brushed away.
“That’s what makes you feel fine,” exclaimed George when they had all
come out and were dressing preparatory to eating breakfast. “A swim like
that makes me feel as if I could lick my weight in wildcats.”
“You must have slept pretty well last night, Pop,” remarked Grant.
“I did. Never slept harder in my life.”
“Well, I didn’t,” exclaimed Fred. “It seemed to me I was dreaming all
night long. Maybe my bed wasn’t fixed just right.”
“What did you dream about, Fred?” asked Grant curiously.
“Oh, all sorts of things. I thought I heard people calling for help.
That seemed to be my principal dream for some reason.”
“That’s funny,” said Grant. “You didn’t dream anything like that, did
you, String?”
“No, I didn’t,” said John shortly.
CHAPTER IV—SETTING SAIL
“What shall we do to-day?” exclaimed George when breakfast was over.
“We might go fishing,” suggested Fred. “I want a big trout some time
this summer, you know.”
“Oh, it’s too sunny for trout to-day,” Grant objected.
“All right then,” said Fred. “What do you want to do?”
“How about taking a sail?”
“Is there enough wind?”
“Of course there is, and unless I’m very much mistaken its going to get
stronger all the time.”
“Suppose we take our lunch along,” said John. “We can be gone as long as
we want then and can go ashore and eat wherever we happen to be.”
“Good idea, String,” cried George heartily. “I do believe you’re getting
smarter every day.”
“What do you think of my scheme?” demanded John, completely ignoring his
friend’s sarcasm.
“It’s all right,” said Grant. “I’m in favor of doing it.”
“We can take a couple of rods with us, can’t we?” said Fred. “We might
get a few fish for dinner.”
“That’s right,” agreed Grant. “We can anchor and fish from the boat if
we want.”
“Let’s get started,” exclaimed John.
A small catboat was a part of the equipment the boys had in order to
help them enjoy their summer more thoroughly. It now lay at anchor in a
little cove a short distance from the place where the tent was located.
It was a natural harbor and afforded excellent shelter for the boats
from the squalls and not infrequent storms that were apt to spring up
during this season of the year. The lake was between two and three miles
in length so that a comparatively heavy sea could be stirred up by the
winds.
The island on which the four boys had pitched their tent was the only
one in the lake and it was very nearly in the center. It was owned by a
friend of John’s father who had obtained permission for his son and his
three friends to camp on it that summer. The sailboat and two canoes
were included with the island, so that there was no question but that
these four boys were very fortunate indeed to be able to enjoy it all.
For months they had been looking forward to this summer and they had
planned innumerable excursions and expeditions as part of their camping
experiences. Now that the time was really at hand they meant to enjoy
every minute of it to the utmost.
“Fred and I will get the boat ready,” exclaimed John. “You two can
collect the rods and fix up the lunch.”
“Put me near the food and I’m satisfied,” said George. “Come on, Grant.”
John and Fred made their way down to the spot where the canoes were
hauled up on the shore. The catboat lay moored at anchor some fifty or
sixty feet out from the bank so that it was necessary to paddle to reach
her. One of the canoes was selected and the two boys soon pushed off
from shore.
“That’s a pretty good looking boat I should say,” remarked Fred as he
glanced approvingly at the little white catboat. “I wonder if she’s
fast.”
“She looks so,” said John.
“You can’t always tell by the looks though, you know.”
“That’s true too. We ought to be able to tell pretty soon though.”
“I wonder if they have water sports or anything like that up here in the
summer,” said Fred. “If they do it would be fun to enter.”
“It certainly would,” agreed John. “I don’t believe there are enough
people on this lake though. As far as I can see we are about the only
people here.”
“I thought you said there was another camp down at the north end of the
lake.”
“That’s right, there is. I don’t know who’s in it though.”
“We might sail down and find out.”
“Let’s do that; it won’t take long.”
They had now arrived alongside the catboat, which was named the Balsam,
and after having made fast the canoe, they quickly climbed on board.
“Any water in her?” exclaimed John.
“I don’t know. I was just going to look.”
“Lift up the flooring there and you can tell. It must have rained since
she’s been out here and we’ll probably have to use the pump.”
“We certainly shall,” said Fred, who had raised up the flooring
according to John’s suggestion. “Where is the pump anyway?”
“Up there under the deck. You can pump while I get the cover off the
sail here and get things in shape a little, or would you rather have me
pump?”
“No, I’ll do it. If I get tired, I’ll let you know.”
It did not take long to bail out the boat, however, and before many
moments had elapsed the mainsail was hoisted and the Balsam was ready to
weigh her anchor and start. The sail flapped idly in the breeze which
seemed to be dying down instead of freshening as Grant had predicted.
The boom swung back and forth, the pulleys rattling violently as the
sheet dragged them first to one side and then the other.
John and Fred sat on the bottom of the boat and waited for their
companions to appear with the luncheon. The two boys were dressed in
bathing jerseys and white duck trousers. At least they had formerly been
white, but constant contact with boats and rocks had colored them
considerably. The feet of the young campers were bare, they having
removed the moccasins which they usually wore. The day was warm and in
fact the sun was quite hot. The previous night had been so cool it did
not seem possible that it could be followed by a warm day, but such is
often the case in the Adirondacks.
“Where do you suppose they are?” exclaimed Fred at length. “It seems to
me they ought to have been ready by this time.”
“Here they come now,” said John. “Look at Pop; that basket is almost as
heavy as he is.”
“He’s got lots of food in it, I guess. I’m glad too for I’m hungry
already.”
“Why, you finished breakfast only about an hour ago.”
“I can’t help that. I’m always hungry in this place.”
“Ahoy there!” shouted George from the shore. “Come in and get us.”
“The other canoe doesn’t leak you know,” replied John, neither he nor
Fred making any move to do as George had asked.
“We know that,” called George. “What’s the use of taking them both out
there though?”
“Why not?” demanded John. “The exercise will do you good.”
“Are you coming after us?” asked Grant.
“Not that we know,” laughed Fred.
“I guess we paddle ourselves then, Pop,” said Grant to his companion.
“All right,” agreed George. “I’ll get square with them though.”
“How are you going to do it?”
“You let me paddle and I’ll show you.”
They spoke in a low tone of voice so that their friends on board the
Balsam could not hear them and in silence they embarked upon the second
canoe. Grant sat in the bow while George wielded the paddle in the
stern. They approached the catboat rapidly where John and Fred sat
waiting for them with broad grins upon their faces.
“You must think we run a ferry,” exclaimed Fred as the canoe drew near.
“Not at all,” said Grant. “We just thought that perhaps you’d be glad to
do a good turn for us.”
“We’re tired,” grinned John. “Think how hard we had to work to get the
sail up and to pump out—”
“Oh, look at that water bug,” cried George suddenly, striking at some
object in the water with his paddle. Whether he hit or even saw any bug
or not will always remain a mystery. One thing is sure, however, and
that is, that a great sheet of water shot up from under the blade of the
paddle and completely drenched both John and Fred.
“What are you trying to do?” demanded Fred angrily.
“He did that on purpose,” exclaimed John. “Soak him, Fred.”
“Look out,” cried George, “you’ll get the lunch all wet.”
“You meant to wet us,” Fred insisted.
“Why, Fred,” said George innocently; “I just tried to hit that water
bug. How should I know that you would be splashed?”
“Huh,” snorted John. “Just look at me.”
“That’s too bad,” said George with a perfectly straight face. “If you
had come in after us we’d have all been in the same canoe and you
probably wouldn’t have gotten wet.”
“You admit you did it on purpose then?”
“I don’t at all. I just thought perhaps it was some sort of punishment
inflicted on you for being so lazy.”
“Didn’t he do it on purpose, Grant?” demanded Fred.
“I don’t know,” replied Grant, striving desperately to keep from
smiling. “I know he didn’t tell me he was going to do it.”
“Well, it was just like him anyway,” said John. “He knew we couldn’t
splash him back because he had the lunch in the canoe with him.”
“Take it, will you?” asked Grant, holding the basket up to John. “Here
are the fishing rods too.”
George and Grant followed soon after and the second canoe was made fast
to one of the thwarts of the other.
“I’ll put the lunch up here,” said Fred, at the same time depositing the
basket up forward under the protection of the deck.
“Slide the rods in there too, will you?” exclaimed George. “Look out for
the reels that they don’t get caught under anything.”
“Everything ready?” asked John.
“Let ‘er go,” cried George enthusiastically. “I’m ready.”
“Come and help me pull up the anchor then,” said John.
“I’m your man,” cried George. “You know I’m always looking for work.”
“I’ve noticed that,” laughed Grant. “You’re always looking for work so
that you’ll know what places to keep away from.”
Four light hearted young campers were now on board the Balsam. In spite
of their words a few moments before not one of them had lost his temper.
They knew each other too well and were far too sensible not to be able
to take a joke. Outsiders, listening to their conversation, might have
thought them angry at times, but such was never the case.
“Get your back in it there,” shouted Grant gayly to John and George who
were busily engaged in hauling in the anchor chain. George stood close
to the bow with John directly behind him as hand-over-hand they pulled
in the wet, cold chain.
“This deck is getting slippery,” exclaimed George. “All this water that
has splashed up here from the chain has made it so I can scarcely keep
my feet.”
“I should say so,” agreed John earnestly and as he spoke one foot slid
out from beneath him. He lurched heavily against his companion, and
George thrown completely off his balance, waved his arms violently about
his head in an effort to save himself, but all to no avail. He fell
backward and striking the water with a great splash disappeared from
sight.
CHAPTER V—THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
“Man overboard!” shouted Grant, running forward as he called. He did not
know whether to laugh or to be worried. One thing was certain though and
that was that George like his three companions was perfectly at home in
the water. All four were expert swimmers so that barring accidents they
had little to fear from falling overboard.
“He’s all right,” cried John. “Help me hold this anchor, somebody.”
Grant grasped the chain and one more heave was sufficient to bring the
anchor up on the deck of the Balsam. Before this could be done, however,
George came to the surface choking and spluttering.
“I’ll fix you for that, String,” he gasped, shaking his fist at John.
“For what?” demanded John.
“You know all right.”
“Why, Pop,” said John reprovingly.
“Keep her up into the wind, Fred,” shouted Grant who was seated at the
tiller. “Let your sheet run. Here, Pop, give me your hand.”
“I’d better go down to the stern and get aboard there,” said George. “I
think it will be a little easier.”
“All right; go ahead.”
George floated alongside the Balsam until he came to the stern and a
moment later had swung himself on board the boat. He was drenched to the
skin but laughing in spite of himself.
“Do you want to change your clothes, Pop?” asked Grant.
“No, it’s hot to-day. They’ll dry out in no time.”
“Ease her off then, Fred,” Grant directed. “We may as well get started.”
Fred put the helm over, the sail filled and the Balsam began to slip
through the water at a good rate. The four boys sat around the tiny
cockpit, Fred at the tiller and Grant tending sheet. In a few moments
they had emerged from the little harbor and had entered upon the open
waters of the lake.
“Well, String,” observed George who was busily engaged in wringing water
from the bottoms of his duck trousers, “you certainly did it well.”
“Did what well?” demanded John.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You meant to shove me overboard and I know it so there’s no use in you
trying to bluff. You were very skillful about it and I guess you got
square with me all right. We’ll call it even and quit.”
“I did do it pretty well, didn’t I?” grinned John.
“Yes, you did, but I think the way I soaked you and Fred was just as
good.”
“You didn’t see a water bug then?”
“No, and you didn’t slip either.”
“Yes, I did; on purpose though. Let’s call it off now.”
“I’m agreeable,” laughed George, “even if you did get the better of me.”
“How about me?” demanded Fred. “Pop wet me just as much as he did String
and I don’t see that I am even with him yet.”
“You ‘tend to your sailing,” laughed George. “That’ll have to satisfy
you.”
“I can steer you on a rock you know,” warned Fred.
“Don’t do it though,” begged Grant. “I’m an innocent party and I’d
suffer just as much as the others.”
“Where shall we sail?” asked George.
“Fred and I thought we might go down to the other end of the lake,” said
John. “There’s a camp down there, I believe, and we might see who is in
it.”
“Go ahead,” exclaimed George. “Meanwhile I think I’ll try to get my
clothes dry,” and suiting the action to the word he divested himself of
everything he had on, which was not much. The few articles of clothing
thus taken off he spread flat on the deck of the boat so that they might
get the full benefit of the sun’s rays.
The day was bright and not a cloud appeared in the sky. A gentle breeze
blew across the lake barely ruffling the water. Consequently the Balsam
sailed on an even keel and scant attention was necessary to keep her
pointing in the right direction.
“How about trolling?” exclaimed Fred all at once.
“What do you mean by that?” asked George.
“You mean to say you don’t know what trolling is?”
“If I had I wouldn’t have asked you, would I?” laughed George.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Fred. “Trolling is fishing in a certain way.
When you troll you sit in a moving boat and trail your line out behind
you. As a rule you use a spoon or live bait so that it gives the
appearance of swimming. People usually fish for pickerel that way.”
“Let’s try it,” cried George enthusiastically. “Who’s got a spoon?”
“I have,” said Grant. “Hold this sheet and I’ll put it on my line.”
“Any pickerel in this lake, I wonder,” remarked John.
“There ought to be lots of them,” said Fred.
“Bass and perch too, I guess,” John added.
“Perch are fine eating,” exclaimed George. “I’ve eaten them cooked in a
frying pan with lots of butter and bacon,” and he sighed blissfully at
the recollection.
“Did you ever eat brook trout fried in bacon and rolled in corn meal?”
asked Fred.
“Not yet,” laughed George. “I hope to before long, though.”
“Well when you do you’ll know you’ve tasted the finest thing in the
world there is to eat,” said Fred with great conviction.
“Is it better than musk melon?”
“A thousand times.”
“Whew!” whistled George. “Is it better than turkey?”
“A million times.”
“Say,” exclaimed George. “Is it better than ice cream?”
“It’s better than anything, I tell you,” Fred insisted.
“I’ll take your word for it,” laughed George. “I’d like to try it myself
pretty soon though.”
“Here’s your spoon,” said Grant, holding out the rod to George.
“You’re going to fish, yourself,” said George firmly.
“Not at all. I got it for you.”
“Why should I try it any more than you?”
“Because I want you to. Go ahead.”
“If you insist, I suppose I’ll have to,” laughed George and dropping the
spoon overboard he let the line run out.
“How much line do I need?” he asked.
“Oh, about fifty or sixty feet I should think,” said Grant.
“Well, I don’t know much about it,” remarked John breaking in on the
conversation; “but it doesn’t seem to me that we are making enough
headway to keep that metal spoon from sinking.”
“I’m afraid not myself,” agreed Grant. “The wind seems to be dying down
all the time and we’ll be becalmed if we’re not careful.”
“I’ll try it a few minutes anyway,” said George. “I might get
something.”
“All you’ll get is sunburned, I guess,” laughed Fred. “You’d better put
your clothes on or you’ll be blistered to-morrow.”
“That’s right, Pop,” said Grant. “I’d get dressed if I were you.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” George agreed. “Here, String, you take the rod.”
Scarcely had John taken the rod in his hands when he felt a violent tug
at the line. The reel sang shrilly and then was still.
“You’ve hooked one,” cried Fred excitedly. “Reel in as fast as you can.”
“Bring the boat around, Fred,” shouted Grant. “Come up into the wind.”
Fred did as he was directed, while John strove desperately to reel in
his line. At first there was no resistance and then all at once the rod
bent double.
“Say!” exclaimed George, “it must be a whale!”
“It
|
meant to tell her younger sister the real facts of the case.
'Mrs. Stacey has been here, and she told me that there were some other
people coming to the Manor House. When I said we didn't want them, she
said the Manor House was not ours, and that we should not be able to
keep them out. When I asked her why, she said because we had no money.'
'Mrs. Stacey was quite wrong, and she had no business to speak to you
like that. I am sure Mr. Stacey would be very angry if he knew,' said
Stella, who looked rather angry herself. 'Besides which,' she added in a
calmer tone, 'we have not lost all our money; we have more than a
thousand pounds. And you were not quite right about Mr. Stacey either,
for he did not suggest that I should go out as a governess, and he is at
this minute answering an advertisement for a secretaryship for me.'
Vava was silent for a minute; then she said in a queer little voice,
very unlike her usual cheerful one, 'But he did say I was to go to a
school, didn't he?'
'Would you dislike that very much?' said Stella, more to try her sister
than because she had much doubt of the answer.
'I should hate it, Stella; I would rather scrub floors than be a
charity-girl with a red cloak and a round hat and short hair, with
perhaps people giving me pennies as I walked along the street.'
'There is no chance of your going to a charity school,' replied Stella,
'there will be enough money to send you to a proper boarding-school, if
that is necessary, for there are lots of schools where you do not pay
much more than fifty pounds a year; but I should like you to live with
me in London, and go to day-school there.'
'Oh Stella, how lovely! and we could go to the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's
and the Tower every day for a walk!' cried Vava with delight.
'I am afraid we could not go daily expeditions, Vava, because I should
be in an office all day and you will be at school; but we should have
Saturdays and Sundays together, and anything would be better than being
parted--wouldn't it?--even if we are poor.'
Vava did not answer, but the squeeze that she gave to Stella's arm was
quite answer enough. They had arrived at the door of the Manor House,
and the old housekeeper came forward to meet them.
'My dears, come into my little room and have some tea; you must be
perished with cold, and I have got some lovely scones that cook has made
on purpose for you. Come straight in, won't you, Miss Stella?'
'Thank you, nursie,' said Stella with a pleasant smile, as she followed
the housekeeper to her room; while Vava danced along in front of the old
woman, calling her all sorts of affectionate names for her
thoughtfulness in getting hot scones for them on this cold day.
It was not a usual thing for the girls to have tea with the housekeeper,
though they did sometimes do it. But Stella, though surprised at the way
the housekeeper asked them, thought it was to save them from having a
lonely tea in the dining-room without their father; and to the
housekeeper's relief she went straight to the latter's room, and partook
very cheerfully of the homely meal set before them. Twice during the
meal Stella thought that she heard voices in the passage which she did
not recognise as belonging to the servants, who, indeed, were not in the
habit of speaking in such loud tones about the house; but she paid no
attention to it.
The housekeeper, who had formerly been the girls' nurse, and was still
called 'nursie' by them, talked more than usual.
At last Vava observed, 'Nursie, I believe you are feverish.'
'Miss Vava!' exclaimed the old woman, 'what can you be thinking about?
What makes you think I am feverish? I am not a bit hot, unless this big
fire is making my face a bit red.'
'I am not talking about your face; it is your voice that is feverish,
and your eyes are glittering dreadfully,' said Vava.
'Vava,' said Stella, 'do not say such dreadful things.' She also looked
at the housekeeper, who did look nervous, if not feverish, as Vava had
suggested, and whose face certainly got very flushed as a knock came to
the door.
The butler, throwing it open, said to a gentleman and a lady who
accompanied him, 'This is the housekeeper's room, sir, and this'----Here
he caught sight of Stella and Vava, and with a muttered, 'I beg your
pardon, young ladies, I am sure,' he shut the door, and his footsteps
were heard hurrying down the passage.
CHAPTER II.
THE NEW LAIRD OF LOMORE.
The three occupants of the housekeeper's room took the unexpected
visitors in very different and characteristic ways. The housekeeper
became what Vava called more 'feverish' than ever; Stella stared in
grave surprise at this liberty on the part of the butler; while Vava
grew red with anger, and, guessing at once what it meant, cried
indignantly, 'How dare they come walking over our house before we are
out of it? Stella, why don't you go and tell David he ought to be
ashamed of himself letting them in? What is he thinking of to take such
a liberty?'
Stella turned her eyes, which justified her name, and looked at her
excited younger sister. She had not understood the meaning of the
intrusion until her quicker-witted sister told her, and she was not too
pleased herself at old David's behaviour, which even she, quiet and
attached to the old servant as she was, felt was taking too much upon
himself.
But, before she could speak, the old housekeeper broke in, rather
nervously, 'Miss Stella, dearie, you must not be angry with David; it's
my fault as well as his; we only wanted to save you both worry and
annoyance; and so it would, for you would never have known aught about
it but for David bringing them in here. He must be daft, after my
telling him he was to be sure and keep them out of your sight.'
'But I don't understand. I suppose these are the people who want to take
the house, and, if so, of course they wish to see it? Still, I think
they should have written just to ask my leave; and, at any rate, David
should have done so before he showed them over our house,' Stella
answered with dignity.
'That's just it; you don't understand, my bairn; and I don't rightly
understand it myself. It's their house--something about a mortgage--now
the poor Laird's gone, and they only waited until he was under the
ground to come tearing up from London in their motor to look at their
property, and it was more than David could do to put them off, and so,
sooner than have you troubled by their impudence'----said the
housekeeper.
'It is not very considerate, perhaps, but they have a right to ask to
see their own house without being called impudent; and though you mean
it kindly, nursie, you and David, I think I should know what is going on
in this house,' interrupted Stella.
'We'd just better get out of it as soon as we can. Mrs. Stacey came to
ask us to go and stay with them; she told me to give you the invitation.
But I'd rather go to the manse; Mrs. Monro would be sure to take us!'
cried Vava.
However, before Vava had uttered the last word, another knock came at
the door, and in answer to Stella's 'Come in!' David M'Taggart entered,
looking rather shamefaced. In broad Scotch, which it will perhaps be
best to spare English readers, he said, 'I'm sorry to trouble you, Miss
Stella, but the leddy will not take no for an answer; she wants to see
you.'
Stella unconsciously put on her most dignified air, and said, 'I do not
understand why she should wish to see me. It is the house they have
bought, not us; and if she wishes to know when it will be at her
disposal, you may tell her we will be out of it'--she hesitated a
moment, and her voice trembled as she added, 'as soon as we can move the
furniture; in a week, if possible.'
Still David lingered. 'It's just that--the furniture, I mean--that
she'll be after, I'm thinking. I know it's hard on you, missie. But you
must just be brave and the Laird's daughter; and, if you could make up
your mind to it, just see the leddy and her husband; they're no' bad,
though they're no' the quality.'
David M'Taggart had nursed Stella in his arms as a baby, and had been
the old Laird's right hand. In fact, when Mr. Wharton was deep in his
literary labours, David had kept things about the place straighter than
they would otherwise have been; and if his education had been better,
and he had been allowed, he would probably have managed the money
matters of his late master, and prevented the Laird allowing them to get
into the disastrous state they were found to be in after his death, of
which state the late Laird was, happily for him, though unfortunately
for his daughters, quite ignorant.
Stella listened to David's advice, and replied, 'Very well, David, I
will see this lady. What is her name?'
'It's a fine name--Mrs. Montague Jones she calls herself; but it's with
him I'd do business, if I may be so bold as to say so, for he's a fair
man, and not so keen on a bargain as she.'
To this piece of advice the girl made no reply, but followed the old
butler out of the room and down the wide staircase to the drawing-room.
At the door she paused involuntarily, as David threw it open for her and
announced, 'This is Miss Wharton, mem.'
The short, thick-set business man, who was standing looking out of one
of the windows, turned sharply round at the words; and, as he told his
wife afterwards, was 'fairly taken aback to see that beautiful young
lady standing there like a princess in the doorway and looking down upon
us.'
And his wife--a handsome woman herself, who was sitting at a table
examining some old silver, of which the Laird had a fine
collection--though she answered him rather sharply to the effect that
the 'looking down' ought to be on their side rather than the Whartons',
was conscious somehow of a feeling of inferiority. However, she rose,
and, coming forward, said civilly and kindly enough, 'I must apologise,
Miss Wharton, for this intrusion, and it's only because I think we may
be able to be of use to you'----Here Mrs. Montague Jones stopped
abruptly, for Stella's pride had risen, and she stiffened visibly.
'My wife doesn't mean that, Miss Wharton. What we wished to ask was a
favour to us, for which we would willingly make a return. I'm a business
man, and you are a young lady who knows nothing about business,' Mr.
Montague Jones now put in.
But Stella did not look any better pleased as she answered civilly but
distantly, 'In that case would it not be better to address yourself to
our lawyer, who is a man of business?' Stella had been her father's
secretary for so long that she spoke in a slightly stilted English with
a Scotch accent.
'Quite right, and so we did, but he told us he could do nothing without
you'--Mr. Stacey had said that he could do nothing _with_ her on this
particular matter--'and we have taken the liberty of coming straight to
the fountain-head, so to speak. It's about this furniture now.'
But Stella interrupted hastily, 'I am afraid you have given yourself
unnecessary trouble'--and her looks said 'and me too'--'for I have no
intention of parting with it.'
A gleam came into the man's eye, whether of anger at her haughtiness or
admiration at the spirit which could refuse a possibly advantageous
business offer was not clear, with poverty staring her in the face; but
he laid a hand on his wife's arm to prevent her speaking, and continued
quietly, and in a kind and friendly tone, 'No one has asked you to do
that, Miss Wharton. I feel with you that however valuable furniture or
silver or that kind of thing may be, it is doubly valuable to the owner,
especially when, as in your case, it has been in the family for a long
time, and I should be the last to counsel you to part with it.'
Miss Wharton looked surprised, and so did Mrs. Jones, who stared at her
husband in amazement.
'In that case, I fail to see'----began the girl, and then hesitated.
'You fail to see what proposal I have to make about the furniture? If
you'll have a little patience I'll tell you. I've just seen your lawyer,
and a very nice man he is, and has your interests at heart, for which
you may be thankful, as they are not all so. I hear you are thinking of
going to London. Now, you can't take all this fine furniture with you;
it would get knocked to pieces on the way there, besides costing no end
of money, and you'd want a mansion to put it in when you got there,
which you won't have just yet, though you will have again one day, I
hope. Now what, may I ask, do you mean to do with it?'
'I don't know. I shall warehouse it here, I suppose,' said Stella, who
had no clear ideas on the subject.
'That's just what I was going to suggest. Why not leave it all here,
with the exception of any little things or specially valuable belongings
that you 'd like to put away, and let us pay a fair sum for the use of
them. They'll not spoil, for they are old and well-made, and there'll
only be the wife and me and Jamie, that's our son and heir--ahem! a
quiet, well-behaved young fellow--and none of us will knock it about;
besides, your man M'Taggart has agreed--condescended I might say--to
stay on with us for the present, and he'll be free to write and tell you
if it's being badly used; and we'll put a clause in the agreement that
if M'Taggart thinks it is in bad hands you have the right to order its
removal in twenty-four hours,' announced Mr. Jones.
'Really, Monty'----cried his wife; but her husband pressed her arm, and
patiently waited for Stella's reply.
The girl puckered her brows; it would be a way out of the difficulty.
But she did not feel equal to settling the matter herself, and answered
doubtfully, 'If Mr. Stacey approves, I should have no objection--that is
to say, I would agree; but I should like some of my mother's things put
away.'
'Oh of course, we quite understand that, Miss Wharton, and we will have
everything put down in black and white by your lawyer,' said Mr.
Montague Jones.
Stella, who had taken the seat offered her by her undesired visitor, now
rose to put an end to the interview; and then a sudden thought struck
her. These people had motored from the south, and perhaps had come far
that day--at any rate from the nearest town, a good many miles off--and
she had not even offered them a cup of tea, and her Scotch hospitality
forbade her to let them depart without doing so much. She accordingly
offered it, and Mrs. Jones accepted the offer so gladly that her young
hostess felt ashamed of herself; and, ringing the bell, she ordered in
tea.
The interval of waiting might have been rather awkward; but not long
after David had answered the summons the door opened, and in walked
Vava.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones had an idea that Scotch girls in general were plain
and hard-featured, hence their surprise at Stella's appearance; and
Vava, though she was at an awkward age, and had not Stella's beauty, was
a bright, fresh-looking girl, with merry, laughing eyes which no trouble
could dim for long, and she too fitted in with her surroundings.
'How do you do? David will bring the tea in a minute, and there are
still some scones left,' she announced, without waiting to be
introduced.
Mr. Jones shook her hand heartily. 'That's good hearing; we lunched
early, and I've been with lawyers ever since, and worried with business,
about which you luckily know nothing; and scones--which we poor ignorant
Londoners call "scoones"--sounds very inviting.'
'So they are, deliciously inviting; but as for your business, I just do
know something about it,' Vava observed.
'Vava!' cried Stella horrified.
Mr. Jones laughed, not in the least embarrassed, though he had not meant
to be taken up so. 'Ah well, business is business and pleasure is
pleasure, and I don't believe in mixing them, though some people do.
Business is over for this afternoon, and now I am having the pleasure of
making your acquaintance.'
'Do you go to school, Miss Wharton?' inquired his wife, putting the
first question ladies seem invariably to put to girls in their teens.
'No, but I am going to a day-school when we get to London. Do you know
any nice ones there, not too dear?' inquired Vava.
Stella coloured hotly, and looked despairingly at Vava, who was
evidently in a mood to say dreadful things, as Stella considered them.
But Mr. Jones stepped into the breach. 'If you take my advice you'll go
to my school; it's one of the best in London.'
'Do you keep a school? I didn't know rich people did that,' said Vava.
'I don't keep it exactly, but I am chairman of the governors, and on
speech-days I go there, dressed in my chain and brass breastplate and
things, and listen to how all the girls have been getting on, and I
frown at the idle ones, and praise the good ones, and if you were to
come there I should praise and clap you. It's a first-class school
though the fees are very low,' he wound up, as if this were an important
detail.
'Nothing is decided yet,' said Stella, rather shortly, and frowning at
the too candid Vava.
'No, and of course there is no hurry; and, if you will excuse my talking
of business, I should like just to say that if you wished to stay here a
month or more we should be delighted. As for that school, it is a famous
City foundation, and I will send you the prospectus when I return home,
if you will allow me,' said Mrs. Jones, whom tea and scones had made
quite friendly.
'A City school!' said Vava. 'Is that a charity school?'
'Oh dear no!' cried Mrs. Jones hastily. 'My niece used to go there.'
Stella gave a ghost of a smile, but said nothing; and soon her visitors
left, with profuse thanks and promises to see the lawyer and let him
arrange matters.
It was consequently with lightened hearts that the two orphans stood
looking after their visitors in the darkening day.
CHAPTER III.
FRIENDS IN NEED.
'They are not quite ladies and gentlemen--I mean, a lady and
gentleman--but they are rather kind, and I think they will take care of
our furniture, Stella; so I should let them have it till we are rich
again and can buy this place back from them,' said Vava, as she stood on
the steps watching the tail-light of the Montague Joneses'
well-appointed car disappear down the drive.
'How do you know anything about that?' inquired her sister in surprise;
for unless her sister had been listening at the door, a meanness of
which she knew her to be incapable, she could not imagine how she could
guess what the new owners of Lomore had been proposing.
'Ah, ha! a little bird told me. But I quite approve; it will save us the
trouble of moving it about, and you'll see we shall be back here again
before long; that's another thing a little bird told me,' cried Vava,
loosing her sister's arm to hop on one foot down the stone steps, and
then try to perform the same feat up them.
'Vava! do be sensible at your age, and tell me what you mean by your
nonsense about a little bird telling you a private conversation which no
one could honourably know anything about,' said her sister severely.
Vava was sobered for the minute; and, giving a last hop on to the top
step, she stood on her two feet before her sister and retorted, 'What do
you mean by your insinuations, pray? Do you imagine I have been
listening through the keyhole? because, if so, I decline to parley with
you further. And as for my age, why shouldn't I do gymnastics? When I go
to an English school I shall have to do far sillier things than that.
And, oh Stella! do you think I shall go to that City school? I don't
think I should like to be taught by Mr. Montague Jones, though he is a
kind old man.'
'Mr. Montague Jones does not teach there; he told you that, and I don't
know at all where you will go to school. Perhaps it will be a
boarding-school after all, for we cannot live in London unless I get
this post as secretary, or some other like it; and you would perhaps be
best away from me, for you do not obey me,' replied her elder sister.
'If you mean that you want to know how I knew about the Joneses and
their offering to take care of our furniture, David told me; and if you
want to know how he knew--which I can see you do, because you have
screwed your eyebrows into a question-mark--Mr. Jones told him himself,
when David said he knew we would never sell it--for it is half mine,
isn't it, although you are my guardian?--and it's to look after it and
the place for us till we get it back that David is staying with them,
though "they are not the quality," as he says.'
This explanation satisfied Miss Wharton, and she only said, in answer to
Vava's last remark, 'Yes, the furniture is half yours, of course, and I
should have told you about this offer, as I am legally responsible for
it and all your property. And talking of property, Vava, it is very hard
I know, but this place is no longer ours, nor can it ever be again, for
we have no rich relations to leave us enough money to buy it back; nor
shall we ever have enough ourselves even if the Joneses wanted to sell
it, which I don't fancy they will, for they have bought it for their son
and heir, as they called him to me.'
'How hateful! a Londoner Laird of Lomore! Oh but he sha'n't be that
long, for I am going to earn a fortune and turn him out!' cried Vava,
her eyes flashing.
Stella laughed at her younger sister's vehemence, and inquired, 'In what
way are you going to earn money, pray?'
'I'm going to invent something. I read the other day in that ladies'
magazine of a man who invented a very simple little thing to save
candles, and he made thousands and thousands of pounds by it; and I've
got an idea too--it's a thing to save matches,' announced Vava.
'Matches! Why should one save matches? They are cheap enough without
saving them,' exclaimed Stella.
'Not in every country. Don't you remember Mrs. M'Ewan saying that when
they were abroad last year they paid a penny a box, and for such bad
ones too? Well, my idea is to make them light at both ends; you always
throw away half the match, and now it will do for twice,' explained
Vava.
Stella did not laugh for fear of hurting Vava's feelings and arousing
her wrath, but only said, 'You do think of odd things, Vava; but I wish
you would not say all you think. I am often quite nervous of what you
may say or do next.'
'You needn't be nervous now, because I am going to be quite grown-up and
proper, and not give you any more trouble,' announced Vava, who meant
what she said, though she did not always act up to her excellent
resolutions, as will be seen.
In fact, only two days later she made her sister nervous, besides
annoying her; for, as the elder girl was walking towards the village to
Mr. Stacey's office, in answer to a message from him requesting her to
call, she saw her sister, whom she had missed for the last hour, sitting
beside Mr. Montague Jones in his motor, being whirled past her at a
terrible speed, or at least so it seemed to her. Whether Vava saw her or
not Stella could not be sure; but she took no notice of her, neither did
Mr. Jones, whom she supposed did not recognise her. Rather ruffled at
the occurrence, Miss Wharton continued her way to the lawyer's, her
pretty head held still more erect, and a slightly scornful smile on her
face at the way her sister's indignation against the London Laird had
evaporated.
'Well, Miss Wharton, my dear, I have good news for you--at least, I
suppose I must call it good news, though it means that we shall lose
you, for the people whose advertisement I answered have written offering
you the post of secretary to the junior partner of a very good firm in
the City of London--Baines, Jones & Co. Your hours will be ten till
four, short hours for London clerks--er, secretaries I mean; and your
work will be to translate French letters for him and write French
answers, which he will dictate in English. You see it is a position of
trust, because they don't know much French and have to trust to your
translating their letters faithfully, and that I was able to assure them
you would do. In fact, after what I said they were quite ready to take
you, and it is the best I can do for you--not what I should like for
your father's daughter, but it might be worse. You will have a nice
little room to yourself with your typewriter, and need have nothing to
do with any one, and I may tell you that if you give satisfaction your
salary will be raised.'
'Thank you very much, Mr. Stacey,' replied Stella briefly. She was
grateful, and the old man knew it; but the vision his words brought up
of her future life in a stuffy, dingy City office, sitting at a
typewriter writing dull business letters--a very different thing from
the literary work she had helped her father with--depressed her for a
moment. Then she roused herself, and went on to speak of the arrangement
which had been agreed upon between the lawyer and Mr. Montague Jones
about the furniture, and which only needed her signature to be settled.
'Ah, yes, they have been most generous,' began the lawyer; but he
hastened to correct himself when he saw Stella's face stiffen--'fair, I
should say, and anxious to meet your wishes. I think we are fortunate in
falling into their hands, and may safely trust them.' How fortunate, Mr.
Stacey did not dare to say.
'Yes, I think they will take care of our furniture, and they evidently
wish to be friendly, which is more than I do, though Vava seems to have
taken to them,' replied Stella.
'And they to her. Here is the prospectus of that school Mr. Montague
Jones is governor of. He is evidently a little afraid of you and your
stately airs'--here the lawyer's eyes twinkled--'not that he thinks the
less of you for them, quite the contrary. However, to resume, it seems
an excellent school; the teaching staff is first-rate, the building
palatial, and the fees most moderate--two guineas a term. Moreover, as
it is in the City, not far from your own office, you could go there and
back together, which would be a great thing,' explained the lawyer.
He was a busy man, for not only every one in the sleepy little town, but
all round, great and small, came to him for advice, and Stella, knowing
this, was grateful for his interest in her affairs; and on his advice
agreed, if it proved to come up to the prospectus, to send Vava to the
City school. This business being settled, she turned homeward with a
feeling that now she had no more to do with Lomore, and that the sooner
they left it and began their new life in London the better. In fact,
this was practically what Mr. Stacey said: Messrs Baines, Jones & Co.
would like her to begin at her earliest convenience, and the new term
began next Tuesday, and this was Wednesday.
Vava was on the gate when her sister arrived. 'Where have you been? I've
been such a lovely drive with the Montagues--well, never mind their
other name; it's horribly common anyway. I met them up the road, and
they asked if we would come for a run, and we came back to fetch you;
but you had gone to Mr. Stacey's, so I was sure you would not mind;
and--what do you think?--they are going to drive us up to London in
their car!' the girl cried, pouring out the words so fast that her
sister could hardly follow her.
'Drive us to London? Indeed, they are going to do no such thing! I do
not care to accept favours from strangers; and really, Vava, I don't
know what you mean by knowing my affairs before I know them myself. I
don't know when we are going to London yet. Perhaps not for a week or
two, and at any rate not with those people, who may be very kind, but
are not educated; he can't even speak the King's English. No, if we
can't make friends in our own class we will go without.'
Vava looked down at her sister, who stood with one hand on the gate,
looking so stiff and proud that her face, which was really a sweet one,
was almost forbidding. 'All right,' she said, swinging her feet to and
fro in a way that made Stella quite nervous--'all right, then; we'll go
in a stuffy railway-carriage, and have to sit up all night, and I shall
be sick, as I was when we went to Edinburgh; but you won't care as long
as you can stick your head up and look down on people who try to be
friendly and nice to you, just because he says "dy" instead of "day;"
and what does it matter? We pronounce some words quite wrong, according
to the English, and I dare say they'll laugh at us when we go south.
Mrs. M'Ewan said the waiter at the hotel couldn't understand her when
she asked for water.'
Mrs. M'Ewan was a neighbouring laird's wife, and spoke very broad
Scotch.
Stella made no answer to this tirade of her younger sister's, who swung
herself off the gate and walked back to the house with Stella in no
good-humour.
There they found a note from Mrs. Jones, which, to Stella's surprise,
was quite grammatically written, asking whether they would honour them
by occupying two seats in their car when they went back to town. 'My
husband is so taken by your sister, and hearing that the train made her
sick, he ventured to suggest your coming with us. He begs me to say that
he feels under such obligations to you for lending us your beautiful old
furniture and plate--which no money could repay or replace--that he
would be glad if you would accept this attention as a mark of our
gratitude.'
'That will fetch the proud hussy, if anything will. Poor girls, I am
very sorry for them, especially the elder, for she'll have a lot of
humble pie to eat before she's done,' Mr. Montague Jones had said to his
wife; but this remark, needless to say, she did not mention in the
letter. She only added that they were not particular which day they
returned to town, but would go any day that suited Miss Wharton.
Mr. Jones may not have been an educated man--in fact, he would have been
the first to acknowledge it; but he certainly was a tactful man, and
understood managing people, as indeed he well might, for he had managed
a large place of business for many years, and done so successfully, as
his wealth testified.
So, after reading the letter over slowly, Stella turned to her sister
with a half-ashamed smile and said, 'If you like we will go with the
Montague Joneses; but only on one condition, and that is that you
promise not to get too intimate, or to ask me to be friendly with them
in town. They may not want to know us, for we shall be very poor; but I
won't be patronised by any one, and I don't want them to call.'
Vava looked as if she were going to say something, but thought better of
it, and gave the desired promise.
CHAPTER IV.
UPS AND DOWNS.
There was nothing now to keep them at Lomore. Mr. Stacey's clerks had
made an inventory of the contents of the house; David M'Taggart and Mrs.
Morrison had packed their 'young leddies'' personal belongings, part in
boxes to be taken to London, and part locked away in a room in the old
home, of which David M'Taggart had the key, and into which, he solemnly
assured his late young mistresses, no one should enter but himself.
So all that remained for the two orphans to do was to say good-bye to
their friends, which they hurried over as much as possible, for partings
are painful in any case, and it was especially so in this one, and the
most painful was the parting from 'nursie,' as they called Mrs.
Morrison.
'And remember, my bairns, if you are ill or want me at any time, I'm
here and ready to come to you. I've a good bit laid by for a rainy day,
and I've no need to work any more, thank the Lord, and don't mean to
work for any but a Wharton, if he was as rich as Dives; so if ever you
should want a maid who needs no wages I'll be waiting for the call, and
will be with you as fast as the train will take me, for you're like my
own bairns,' said the loyal old servant, who had spent forty of her
fifty-five years of life in the service of the Laird of Lomore, as had
her father and grandfather before her, and was still as hale and hearty
as a woman of thirty.
The two girls clung to her, but could not say a word, and Mr. Montague
Jones, who had brought the car to the house to fetch them, turned his
head away and cleared his throat suspiciously, feeling, as he told his
wife afterwards, like a veritable robber who had stolen their home, and
turned these two helpless and innocent girls adrift in the wide world,
of which they knew nothing.
Mrs. Montague Jones did her best to be pleasant to her companion, who
was Stella, for Vava was sitting beside Mr. Jones and the chauffeur; but
though the girl was perfectly civil, and expressed her gratitude for
their kindness, Stella was so reserved and unresponsive that it is to be
feared that Mrs. Jones did not enjoy her return trip as much as she had
done the one northward to take possession of the coveted property, which
foolish speculations had caused the late Laird to mortgage up to its
full value.
Poor proud Stella, in her innocence it had not occurred to her that she
would be entertained at the best hotels on the way south; nor did she
know that the journey was being made very leisure
|
home-sick
and wanted to go back to it,--yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it
for the world,--not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any
loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to
be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved.
It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe
if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the
degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!--those who make fortunes there
leave it as soon as they can, shaking its dust off their feet and
striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed,
vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in
America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they
are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men
is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is
creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,--I
would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something
there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I
should ever find it again."
Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as
to render his sunken features almost youthful.
"I believe I am boring you, Vesey!" he said.
"Not the least in the world,--you never bore me," replied Sir Francis,
with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical
humour."
"You consider me illogical?"
"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided
wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside,
you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you
along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."
"I hope I am just to it,--I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but
I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten
cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money
honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But
then--I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"
"You were born in America," said Vesey.
"By accident," replied Helmsley, with a laugh, "and kindly fate favoured
me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in
the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and
mother were both English,--they both came from the same little sea-coast
village in Cornwall. They married very young,--theirs was a romantic
love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their
fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became
accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well,
though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term.
He had only two children,--myself and my sister, who died at sixteen. I
was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone
to face the world."
"You have faced it very successfully," said Vesey; "and if you would
only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really
very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky
one----"
"Do not speak of it!" interrupted Helmsley, hastily. "It is past and
done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had
never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed
affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as
a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or
regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look
back,--and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived
me,--they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms
are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if
I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the
old!"
His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right
hand clenched itself involuntarily.
"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories
of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become
almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away
the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,--watching the
fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to
my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody--'Angels
ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had
something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"
Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and
shook his head in the negative.
"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley,
"when I tell you that it was merely--love!"
Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in
astonishment.
"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you,
of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"
Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.
"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?" he asked.
"Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for
themselves--only for what they can give to their professing lovers."
His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir
Francis Vesey was silent.
"Had I remained poor,--poor as I was when I first started to make my
fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman,
or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not
bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition.
But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was
a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,--and married on the faith of that
emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I
was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently
proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was
deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real
love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,--the love of
my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet
it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does
last,--for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which
thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full
sense of certainty that it is still existent."
His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the
large, bright star shining steadily above him.
"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort
at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say--that
is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you
choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply
to this--that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my
will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of
my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my
own,--and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make
it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."
Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;--then he said:--
"Why not do as I suggested to you once before--adopt a child? Find some
promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting
parents,--educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to
understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"
"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I _have_ heard of parents willing
to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or
self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold
their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing
him. He turned out a famous man,--but though he was, in due course, told
his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh
and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,--I have had too much
experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a
child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself
would buy a child's duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have
no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely
unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly
advantage."
"It is rather late in the day, perhaps," said Vesey after a pause,
speaking hesitatingly, "but--but--you might marry?"
Helmsley laughed loudly and harshly.
"Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and
privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had
ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years
after my wife's death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till
now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight.
Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me--even
me--at my age,--knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I
would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere
question of sale and barter? Not I!--I could never consent to sink so
low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never
wronged any woman. I shall not begin now."
"I don't see why you should take that view of it," murmured Sir Francis
placidly. "Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered
upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don't give up so
soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a
learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who declares we ought all to
live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young
man."
Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.
"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only
echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern
repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"
Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than
Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently
less active.
"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we
are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and
important affair than when we began our conversation."
Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.
"When I come back to town, we will go into the question again," he said.
"You are off at the end of the week?"
"Yes."
"Going abroad?"
"I--I think so."
The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.
"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving
to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a
vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had
turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French
window, was just about to enter the room beyond.
"Yes. It is Lucy's birthday."
"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"
"Just twenty-one."
And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the
window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to
follow.
"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he
entered. "Now, why----"
"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley,
with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she
might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I
have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for
her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a
fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside
place on the Sussex coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and
have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets
and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are
suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her."
Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent
drawing-room in which he now stood,--a drawing-room more like a royal
reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern
house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to
himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his
somewhat severely featured countenance.
"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think--I
really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the
matrimonial market!"
Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen
and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.
"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and
equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but
bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to
try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl
and a pretty one,--but now that she has grown from a child into a woman
I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do
something for herself in finding a good husband."
Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like
inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in
a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:--
"Well--good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall
I see you again before you leave town?"
"Probably. If not, you will hear from me."
"You won't reconsider the advisability of----"
"No, I won't!" And Helmsley smiled. "I'm quite obstinate on that point.
If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,--if not, why then you
will in due course receive your instructions."
Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.
"You're a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But I can't help
liking you. I only wish you were not quite so--so romantic!"
"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each
other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic--but I'm not now."
"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened
into a smile. "A man of your age doesn't want to be loved for himself
alone unless he's very romantic indeed! And that's what you do
want!--and that's what I'm afraid you won't get, in your position--not
as this world goes! Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase,
and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show
Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not
immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and
sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many
letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one
window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze
through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy
work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he
had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an
eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.
"That's Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young
people,--the star of Love!"
CHAPTER II
On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in
Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed
from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of
the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and
the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few
hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir
Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady's bower, softly carpeted,
adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned
chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as
might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music
of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open
doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of
the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through
all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and
sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the
night,--a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too
dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the
constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women's silken garments, the
clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly
ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,--the silvery tripping and
slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor--all these sounds,
intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes
played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of
confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the
host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant
scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he
knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,--a touch
of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own
home.
"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance
for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"
He smiled,--yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of
the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with
overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had
purchased,--this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured
friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women
whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,--the thousand
precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey
through life,--must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years,
and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them
or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then--darkness. The
lights gone out,--the music silenced--the dancing done! And the love
that he had dreamed of when he was a boy--love, strong and great and
divine enough to outlive death--where was it? A sudden sigh escaped
him----
"_Dear_ Mr. Helmsley, you look so _very_ tired!" said a woman's purring
voice at his ear. "_Do_ go and rest in your own room for a few minutes
before supper! You have been so kind!--Lucy is quite touched and
overwhelmed by _all_ your goodness to her,--no _lover_ could do more for
a girl, I'm _sure_! But really you _must_ spare yourself! What _should_
we do without you!"
"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the
speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced
costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully
intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all
tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me--I'm
very well."
"_Are_ you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
"Ah! But you know we _old_ people _must_ be careful! Young folks can do
anything and everything--but _we_, at _our_ age, need to be
_over_-particular!"
"_You_ shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing
that she expected this from him, "you're quite a young woman."
Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.
"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn't
married at sixteen, you know!"
"No? You surprise me!"
Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly
dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in
which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An
aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what
are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was
necessary--or so Mrs. Sorrel thought--to deal with him delicately and
cautiously--neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted
seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to
be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection.
And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at
Helmsley's half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic
implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and
superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.
"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I
really thought myself quite an _old_ bride! I was a mother at
twenty-one."
Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement,
particularly as he had often heard it before.
"Who is Lucy dancing with?" he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.
"Oh, my _dear_ Mr. Helmsley, who is she _not_ dancing with!" and Mrs.
Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room
has rushed at her--positively rushed!--and her programme was full five
minutes after she arrived! Isn't she looking lovely to-night?--a perfect
sylph! _Do_ tell me you think she is a sylph!"
David's old eyes twinkled.
"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the
comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think
she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought
to find a good husband easily."
"She ought,--indeed she ought! But it is very difficult--very, very
difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love--ah!--how
different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was
everything then,--and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"
"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley,
with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you
had equally proved it in yours!"
Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said
unpleasant things--truthful, but eminently tactless,--and she felt that
he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she
gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music
just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and
marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the
ballroom and came towards her.
"Dearest child!" she exclaimed effusively, "are you not _quite_ tired
out?"
The "dearest child" shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.
"Nothing tires me, mother--you know that!" she answered--then with a
sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing
softness, she turned to Helmsley.
"_You_ must be tired!" she said. "Why have you been standing so long at
the ballroom door?"
"I have been watching you, Lucy," he replied gently. "It has been a
pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself,
otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege."
"I will dance with you, if you like," she said, smiling. "There is one
more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?"
He shook his head.
"Not even to please you, my child!" and taking her hand he patted it
kindly. "There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite
so foolish as that."
"I see nothing at all foolish in it," pouted Lucy. "You are my host, and
it's my coming-of-age party."
Helmsley laughed.
"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It
will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."
She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with
their perfumed petals.
"I like you better than any man here," she said suddenly.
A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that
Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the
thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder
impulse.
"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend
of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without
having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is
eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a
child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a
tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your
acquaintance?"
"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes
to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes
and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"
"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the
salt of the sea--and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round
the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the
prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the
same of you now."
A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure
curtsy.
"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are
just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"
"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the
drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."
She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of
the evening's guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the
ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One
tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain
exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose
house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel
sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a
patronising hand upon her shoulder.
"_Do_ tell me!" she softly breathed. "_Is_ it a case?"
Mrs. Sorrel began to flutter immediately.
"_Dearest_ Lady Larford! What _do_ you mean!"
"Surely you know!" And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider,
and the black eyes more steely. "Will Lucy get him, do you think?"
Mrs. Sorrel fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Other people were
listening.
"Really," she mumbled nervously--"really, _dear_ Lady Larford!--you put
things so _very_ plainly!--I--I cannot say!--you see--he is more like
her father----"
Lady Larford showed all her white teeth in an expansive grin.
"Oh, that's very safe!" she said. "The 'father' business works very well
when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of
perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls--absolutely
_perfect_! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!"
And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her
skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed
after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she
instinctively felt that her ladyship's pleasure would now be to tell
everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, "the new girl who was
presented at Court last night," was having a "try" for the Helmsley
millions; and that if the "try" was not successful, no one living would
launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the
Sorrels than this same titled "leader" of a section of the aristocratic
gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun
crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own
sex--except perhaps a starving hyæna tearing asunder its living prey.
Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the
drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony,
festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny
electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat,
and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy
Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual
to the movements of a well-dressed woman.
"I have not thanked you half enough," she began, "for all the delightful
things you have done for my birthday----"
"Pray spare me!" he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture--"I would
rather you said nothing."
"Oh, but I must say something!" she went on. "You are so generous and
good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked--I know
that--but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who,
but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect
that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn't you?"
She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness
and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.
"When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning," she
continued, "I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite
necklace!--such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me!
I'm not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf."
Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her
emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely
sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and
as the prime cause of that young heart's gratitude he delicately forbore
to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some
little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be
expected to know that.
"I'm glad you are pleased with my little gift," he said simply, "though
I'm afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls
always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most
suitable jewels for the young--for they are emblems of everything that
youth should be--white and pure and innocent."
Her breath came and went quickly.
"Do you think youth is always like that?" she asked.
"Not always,--but surely most often," he answered. "At any rate, I wish
to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things."
She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,--even critically. And
presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much
prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of
loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the
perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small
seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her
deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than
the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in
childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had
developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender
earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness
of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now--or so Helmsley
fancied--that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of
himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly
dismissing it, he said--
"How did your presentation go off last night? Was it a full Court?"
"I believe so," she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and
waving it idly to and fro--"I cannot say that I found it very
interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully."
He smiled.
"Bored you! Is it possible to be bored at twenty-one?"
"I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays," she
said. "Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions
are deadly dull. And where's the fun of being presented at Court? If a
woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and
tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to
their own special'set,' and not always the best-looking or
best-mannered set either."
Helmsley looked amused.
"Well, it's what is called an _entrée_ into the world,"--he replied.
"For my own part, I have never been 'presented,' and never intend to be.
I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance."
"Yes--all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money," she said
quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. _You_ are a real
'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you
like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure
you must be the happiest man in the world!"
She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to
wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched
her with a vague sense of annoyance.
"I am no more happy," he said suddenly, "than that rose you are picking
to pieces, though it has never done you any harm."
She started, and flushed,--then laughed.
"Oh, the poor little rose!" she exclaimed--"I'm sorry! I've had so many
roses to-day, that I don't think about them. I suppose it's wrong."
"It's not wrong," he answered quietly; "it's merely the fault of those
who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate."
She looked at him inquiringly, but could not fathom his expression.
"Still," he went on, "I would not have your life deprived of so much as
one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly
gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart,
Lucy,--I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I
die,--I mean the rose of love."
She lifted her head, and her eyes shone coldly.
"Dear Mr. Helmsley," she said, "I don't believe in love!"
A flash of am
|
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery,
In short, when I've a smattering of elementary strategy,
You'll say a better Major-Gener_al_ has never _sat_ a gee--
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century.
But still in learning vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral!
[Illustration]
THE BISHOP AND THE 'BUSMAN
It was a Bishop bold,
And London was his see,
He was short and stout and round about
And zealous as could be.
It also was a Jew,
Who drove a Putney 'bus--
For flesh of swine however fine
He did not care a cuss.
His name was HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON---
This 'bus-directing Jew.
The Bishop said, said he,
"I'll see what I can do
To Christianise and make you wise,
You poor benighted Jew."
So every blessed day
That 'bus he rode outside,
From Fulham town, both up and down,
And loudly thus he cried:
"His name is HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON--
This 'bus-directing Jew."
[Illustration]
At first the 'busman smiled,
And rather liked the fun--
He merely smiled, that Hebrew child,
And said, "Eccentric one!"
And gay young dogs would wait
To see the 'bus go by
(These gay young dogs, in striking togs),
To hear the Bishop cry:
"Observe his grisly beard,
His race it clearly shows,
He sticks no fork in ham or pork--
Observe, my friends, his nose.
"His name is HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON--
This 'bus-directing Jew."
But though at first amused,
Yet after seven years,
This Hebrew child got rather riled,
And melted into tears.
He really almost feared
To leave his poor abode,
His nose, and name, and beard became
A byword on that road.
At length he swore an oath,
The reason he would know--
"I'll call and see why ever he
Does persecute me so!"
The good old Bishop sat
On his ancestral chair,
The 'busman came, sent up his name,
And laid his grievance bare.
[Illustration]
"Benighted Jew," he said
(The good old Bishop did),
"Be Christian, you, instead of Jew--
Become a Christian kid!
"I'll ne'er annoy you more."
"Indeed?" replied the Jew;
"Shall I be freed?" "You will, indeed!"
Then "Done!" said he, "with you!"
The organ which, in man,
Between the eyebrows grows,
Fell from his face, and in its place
He found a Christian nose.
His tangled Hebrew beard,
Which to his waist came down.
Was now a pair of whiskers fair--
His name ADOLPHUS BROWN!
He wedded in a year
That prelate's daughter JANE,
He's grown quite fair--has auburn hair--
His wife is far from plain.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HEAVY DRAGOON
If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune!
The pluck of LORD NELSON on board of the _Victory_--
Genius of BISMARCK devising a plan;
The humour of FIELDING (which sounds contradictory)--
Coolness of PAGET about to trepan--
The grace of MOZART, that unparalleled musico--
Wit of MACAULAY, who wrote of QUEEN ANNE--
The pathos of PADDY, as rendered by BOUCICAULT--
Style of the BISHOP OF SODOR AND MAN--
The dash of a D'ORSAY, divested of quackery--
Narrative powers of DICKENS and THACKERAY--
VICTOR EMMANUEL--peak-haunting PEVERIL--
THOMAS AQUINAS, and DOCTOR SACHEVERELL--
TUPPER and TENNYSON--DANIEL DEFOE--
ANTHONY TROLLOPE and MISTER GUIZOT!
Take of these elements all that is fusible,
Melt 'em all down in a pipkin or crucible,
Set 'em to simmer and take off the scum,
And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!
If you want a receipt for this soldierlike paragon,
Get at the wealth of the CZAR (if you can)--
The family pride of a Spaniard from Arragon--
Force of MEPHISTO pronouncing a ban--
A smack of LORD WATERFORD, reckless and rollicky--
Swagger of RODERICK, heading his clan--
The keen penetration of PADDINGTON POLLAKY--
Grace of an Odalisque on a divan--
The genius strategic of CÆSAR or HANNIBAL--
Skill of LORD WOLSELEY in thrashing a cannibal--
Flavour of HAMLET--the STRANGER, a touch of him--
Little of MANFRED (but not very much of him)--
Beadle of Burlington--RICHARDSON'S show--
MR. MICAWBER and MADAME TUSSAUD!
Take of these elements all that is fusible--
Melt 'em all down in a pipkin or crucible--
Set 'em to simmer and take off the scum,
And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!
[Illustration]
THE TROUBADOUR
A Troubadour he played
Without a castle wall,
Within, a hapless maid
Responded to his call.
"Oh, willow, woe is me!
Alack and well-a-day!
If I were only free
I'd hie me far away!"
Unknown her face and name,
But this he knew right well,
The maiden's wailing came
From out a dungeon cell.
A hapless woman lay
Within that prison grim--
That fact, I've heard him say,
Was quite enough for him.
"I will not sit or lie,
Or eat or drink, I vow,
Till thou art free as I,
Or I as pent as thou!"
Her tears then ceased to flow,
Her wails no longer rang,
And tuneful in her woe
The prisoned maiden sang:
"Oh, stranger, as you play
I recognise your touch;
And all that I can say,
Is thank you very much!"
He seized his clarion straight,
And blew thereat, until
A warder oped the gate,
"Oh, what might be your will?"
"I've come, sir knave, to see
The master of these halls:
A maid unwillingly
Lies prisoned in their walls."
With barely stifled sigh
That porter drooped his head,
With teardrops in his eye,
"A many, sir," he said.
He stayed to hear no more,
But pushed that porter by,
And shortly stood before
SIR HUGH DE PECKHAM RYE.
SIR HUGH he darkly frowned,
"What would you, sir, with me?"
The troubadour he downed
Upon his bended knee.
[Illustration]
"I've come, DE PECKHAM RYE,
To do a Christian task,
You ask me what would I?
It is not much I ask.
"Release these maidens, sir,
Whom you dominion o'er--
Particularly her
Upon the second floor!
"And if you don't, my lord"--
He here stood bolt upright.
And tapped a tailor's sword--
"Come out at once and fight!"
SIR HUGH he called--and ran
The warden from the gate,
"Go, show this gentleman
The maid in forty-eight."
By many a cell they passed
And stopped at length before
A portal, bolted fast:
The man unlocked the door.
[Illustration]
He called inside the gate
With coarse and brutal shout,
"Come, step it, forty-eight!"
And forty-eight stepped out.
"They gets it pretty hot,
The maidens wot we cotch--
Two years this lady's got
For collaring a wotch."
"Oh, ah!--indeed--I see,"
The troubadour exclaimed--
"If I may make so free,
How is this castle named?"
The warden's eyelids fill,
And, sighing, he replied,
"Of gloomy Pentonville
This is the Female Side!"
The minstrel did not wait
The warden stout to thank,
But recollected straight
He'd business at the Bank.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PROPER PRIDE
The Sun, whose rays
Are all ablaze
With ever-living glory,
Will not deny
His majesty--
He scorns to tell a story:
He won't exclaim,
"I blush for shame,
So kindly be indulgent,"
But, fierce and bold,
In fiery gold,
He glories all effulgent!
I mean to rule the earth,
As he the sky--
We really know our worth,
The Sun and I!
Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The Moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her!
Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The Moon and I!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FERDINANDO AND ELVIRA
OR, THE GENTLE PIEMAN
PART I
At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper
One whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER,
MR. TUPPER and the poets, very lightly with them dealing,
For I've always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling.
Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto,
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to.
Then she whispered, "To the ball-room we had better, dear, be
walking;
If we stop down here much longer, really people will be talking."
There were noblemen in coronets, and military cousins,
There were captains by the hundred, there were baronets by dozens.
Yet she heeded not their offers, but dismissed them with a blessing;
Then she let down all her back hair which had taken long in
dressing.
Then she had convulsive sobbings in her agitated throttle,
Then she wiped her pretty eyes and smelt her pretty smelling-bottle.
So I whispered, "Dear ELVIRA, say--what can the matter be with you?
Does anything you've eaten, darling POPSY, disagree with you?"
But spite of all I said, her sobs grew more and more distressing,
And she tore her pretty back hair, which had taken long in dressing.
Then she gazed upon the carpet, at the ceiling then above me,
And she whispered, "FERDINANDO, do you really, _really_ love me?"
"Love you?" said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon her
sweetly--
For I think I do this sort of thing particularly neatly--
"Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure,
On a scientific goose-chase, with my COXWELL or my GLAISHER.
"Tell me whither I may hie me, tell me, dear one, that I _may_
know--
Is it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano?"
But she said, "It isn't polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes,
Only find out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes!"
PART II
"Tell me, HENRY WADSWORTH, ALFRED, POET CLOSE, or MISTER TUPPER,
Do you write the bonbon mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper?"
But HENRY WADSWORTH smiled, and said he had not had that honour;
And ALFRED, too, disclaimed the words that told so much upon her.
"MISTER MARTIN TUPPER, POET CLOSE, I beg of you inform us";
But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous.
MISTER CLOSE expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me.
And MISTER MARTIN TUPPER sent the following reply to me:--
"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit."
Which I think must have been clever, for I didn't understand it.
Seven weary years I wandered--Patagonia, China, Norway,
Till at last I sank exhausted at a pastrycook his doorway.
There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle,
So I entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle.
He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he was rosy,
And his little wife was pretty, and particularly cosy.
And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed with
laughter hearty--
He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party.
[Illustration]
And I said, "Oh, gentle pieman, why so very, very merry?
Is it purity of conscience, or your one-and-seven sherry?"
But he answered, "I'm so happy--no profession could be dearer--
If I am not humming 'Tra! la! la!' I'm singing, 'Tirer, lirer!'
"First I go and make the patties, and the puddings and the jellies,
Then I make a sugar birdcage, which upon a table swell is;
"Then I polish all the silver, which a supper-table lacquers;
Then I write the pretty mottoes which you find inside the
crackers"--
"Found at last!" I madly shouted. "Gentle pieman, you astound me!"
Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me.
And I shouted and I danced until he'd quite a crowd around him--
And I rushed away, exclaiming, "I have found him! I have found him!"
And I heard the gentle pieman in the road behind me trilling,
"'Tira! lira!' stop him, stop him! 'Tra! la! la!' the soup's a
shilling!"
But until I reached ELVIRA'S home, I never, never waited,
And ELVIRA to her FERDINAND'S irrevocably mated!
[Illustration]
THE POLICEMAN'S LOT
When a felon's not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man's.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty's to be done:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
A policeman's lot is not a happy one!
When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling,
When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime,
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling,
And listen to the merry village chime.
When the coster's finished jumping on his mother,
He loves to lie a-basking in the sun:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
The policeman's lot is not a happy one!
[Illustration]
LORENZO DE LARDY
DALILAH DE DARDY adored
The very correctest of cards,
LORENZO DE LARDY, a lord--
He was one of Her Majesty's Guards.
DALILAH DE DARDY was fat,
DALILAH DE DARDY was old--
(No doubt in the world about that)
But DALILAH DE DARDY had gold.
LORENZO DE LARDY was tall,
The flower of maidenly pets,
Young ladies would love at his call,
But LORENZO DE LARDY had debts.
His money-position was queer,
And one of his favourite freaks
Was to hide himself three times a year,
In Paris, for several weeks.
Many days didn't pass him before
He fanned himself into a flame,
For a beautiful "DAM DU COMPTWORE,"
And this was her singular name:
ALICE EULALIE CORALINE
EUPHROSINE COLOMBINA THÉRÈSE
JULIETTE STEPHANIE CELESTINE
CHARLOTTE RUSSE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE.
[Illustration]
She booked all the orders and tin,
Accoutred in showy fal-lal,
At a two-fifty Restaurant, in
The glittering Palais Royal.
He'd gaze in her orbit of blue,
Her hand he would tenderly squeeze,
But the words of her tongue that he knew
Were limited strictly to these:
"CORALINE CELESTINE EULALIE,
Houp là! Je vous aime, oui, mossoo,
Combien donnez moi aujourd'hui
Bonjour, Mademoiselle, parlez voo."
MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Was a witty and beautiful miss,
Extremely correct in her ways,
But her English consisted of this:
"Oh my! pretty man, if you please,
Blom boodin, biftek, currie lamb,
Bouldogue, two franc half, quite ze cheese,
Rosbif, me spik Angleesh, godam."
A waiter, for seasons before,
Had basked in her beautiful gaze,
And burnt to dismember MILOR,
_He loved_ DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE.
He said to her, "Méchante THÉRÈSE,
Avec désespoir tu m'accables.
Penses-tu, DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE,
Ses intentions sont honorables?
"Flirte toujours, ma belle, si tu oses--
Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère,
_Je lui dirai de quoi l'on compose
Vol au vent à la Financière_!"
LORD LARDY knew nothing of this--
The waiter's devotion ignored,
But he gazed on the beautiful miss,
And never seemed weary or bored.
The waiter would screw up his nerve,
His fingers he'd snap and he'd dance--
And LORD LARDY would smile and observe,
"How strange are the customs of France!"
[Illustration]
Well, after delaying a space,
His tradesmen no longer would wait:
Returning to England apace,
He yielded himself to his fate.
LORD LARDY espoused, with a groan,
MISS DARDY'S developing charms,
And agreed to tag on to his own
Her name and her newly-found arms.
The waiter he knelt at the toes
Of an ugly and thin coryphée,
Who danced in the hindermost rows
At the Théâtre des Variétés.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Didn't yield to a gnawing despair
But married a soldier, and plays
As a pretty and pert Vivandière.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE BAFFLED GRUMBLER
Whene'er I poke
Sarcastic joke
Replete with malice spiteful,
The people vile
Politely smile
And vote me quite delightful!
Now, when a wight
Sits up all night
Ill-natured jokes devising,
And all his wiles
Are met with smiles,
It's hard, there's no disguising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
When German bands
From music stands
Play Wagner imper_fect_ly--
I bid them go--
They don't say no,
But off they trot directly!
The organ boys
They stop their noise
With readiness surprising,
And grinning herds
Of hurdy-gurds
Retire apologising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
I've offered gold,
In sums untold,
To all who'd contradict me--
I've said I'd pay
A pound a day
To any one who kicked me--
I've bribed with toys
Great vulgar boys
To utter something spiteful,
But, bless you, no!
They _will_ be so
Confoundedly politeful!
In short, these aggravating lads,
They tickle my tastes, they feed my fads,
They give me this and they give me that,
And I've nothing whatever to grumble at!
[Illustration]
DISILLUSIONED
BY AN EX-ENTHUSIAST
Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me
When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!
The bard who could, all men above,
Inflame my soul with songs of love,
And, with his verse, inspire
The craven soul who feared to die
With all the glow of chivalry
And old heroic fire;
I found him in a beerhouse tap
Awaking from a gin-born nap,
With pipe and sloven dress;
Amusing chums, who fooled his bent,
With muddy, maudlin sentiment,
And tipsy foolishness!
The novelist, whose painting pen
To legions of fictitious men
A real existence lends,
Brain-people whom we rarely fail,
Whene'er we hear their names, to hail
As old and welcome friends;
I found in clumsy snuffy suit,
In seedy glove, and blucher boot,
Uncomfortably big.
Particularly commonplace,
With vulgar, coarse, stockbroking face,
And spectacles and wig.
My favourite actor who, at will,
With mimic woe my eyes could fill
With unaccustomed brine:
A being who appeared to me
(Before I knew him well) to be
A song incarnadine;
I found a coarse unpleasant man
With speckled chin--unhealthy, wan--
Of self-importance full:
Existing in an atmosphere
That reeked of gin and pipes and beer--
Conceited, fractious, dull.
The warrior whose ennobled name
Is woven with his country's fame,
Triumphant over all,
I found weak, palsied, bloated, blear;
His province seemed to be, to leer
At bonnets in Pall Mall.
Would that ye always shone, who write,
Bathed in your own innate limelight,
And ye who battles wage,
Or that in darkness I had died
Before my soul had ever sighed
To see you off the stage!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HOUSE OF PEERS
When Britain really ruled the waves--
(In good Queen Bess's time)
The House of Peers made no pretence
To intellectual eminence,
Or scholarship sublime;
Yet Britain won her proudest bays
In good Queen Bess's glorious days!
When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
As every child can tell,
The House of Peers, throughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well;
Yet Britain set the world ablaze
In good King George's glorious days!
And while the House of Peers withholds
Its legislative hand,
And noble statesmen do not itch
To interfere with matters which
They do not understand,
As bright will shine Great Britain's rays,
As in King George's glorious days!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BABETTE'S LOVE
BABETTE she was a fisher gal,
With jupon striped and cap in crimps.
She passed her days inside the Halle,
Or catching little nimble shrimps.
Yet she was sweet as flowers in May,
With no professional bouquet.
JACOT was, of the Customs bold,
An officer, at gay Boulogne,
He loved BABETTE--his love he told,
And sighed, "Oh, soyez vous my own!"
But "Non!" said she, "JACOT, my pet,
Vous êtes trop scraggy pour BABETTE.
"Of one alone I nightly dream,
An able mariner is he,
And gaily serves the Gen'ral Steam-
Boat Navigation Companee.
I'll marry him, if he but will--
His name, I rather think, is BILL.
"I see him when he's not aware,
Upon our hospitable coast,
Reclining with an easy air
Upon the _Port_ against a post,
A-thinking of, I'll dare to say,
His native Chelsea far away!"
"Oh, mon!" exclaimed the Customs bold,
"Mes yeux!" he said (which means "my eye").
"Oh, chère!" he also cried, I'm told,
"Par Jove," he added, with a sigh.
"Oh, mon! oh, chère! mes yeux! par Jove!
Je n'aime pas cet enticing cove!"
The _Panther's_ captain stood hard by,
He was a man of morals strict,
If e'er a sailor winked his eye,
Straightway he had that sailor licked,
Mast-headed all (such was his code)
Who dashed or jiggered, blessed or blowed.
He wept to think a tar of his
Should lean so gracefully on posts,
He sighed and sobbed to think of this,
On foreign, French, and friendly coasts.
"It's human natur', p'raps--if so,
Oh, isn't human natur' low!"
He called his BILL, who pulled his curl,
He said, "My BILL, I understand
You've captivated some young gurl
On this here French and foreign land.
Her tender heart your beauties jog--
They do, you know they do, you dog.
[Illustration]
"You have a graceful way, I learn,
Of leaning airily on posts,
By which you've been and caused to burn
A tender flame on these here coasts.
A fisher gurl, I much regret,--
Her age, sixteen--her name, BABETTE.
"You'll marry her, you gentle tar--
Your union I myself will bless,
And when you matrimonied are,
I will appoint her stewardess."
But WILLIAM hitched himself and sighed,
And cleared his throat, and thus replied:
"Not so: unless you're fond of strife,
You'd better mind your own affairs,
I have an able-bodied wife
Awaiting me at Wapping Stairs;
If all this here to her I tell,
She'll larrup you and me as well.
[Illustration]
"Skin-deep, and valued at a pin,
Is beauty such as VENUS owns--
_Her_ beauty is beneath her skin,
And lies in layers on her bones.
The other sailors of the crew
They always calls her 'Whopping Sue!'"
"Oho!" the Captain said, "I see!
And is she then so very strong?"
"She'd take your honour's scruff," said he,
"And pitch you over to Bolong!"
"I pardon you," the Captain said,
"The fair BABETTE you needn't wed."
Perhaps the Customs had his will,
And coaxed the scornful girl to wed,
Perhaps the Captain and his BILL,
And WILLIAM'S little wife are dead;
Or p'raps they're all alive and well:
I cannot, cannot, cannot tell.
[Illustration]
A MERRY MADRIGAL
Brightly dawns our wedding day;
Joyous hour, we give thee greeting!
Whither, whither art thou fleeting?
Fickle moment, prithee stay!
What though mortal joys be hollow?
Pleasures come, if sorrows follow.
Though the tocsin sound, ere long,
Ding dong! Ding dong!
Yet until the shadows fall
Over one and over all,
Sing a merry madrigal--
Fal la!
Let us dry the ready tear;
Though the hours are surely creeping,
Little need for woeful weeping
Till the sad sundown is near.
All must sip the cup of sorrow,
I to-day and thou to-morrow:
This the close of every song--
Ding dong! Ding dong!
What though solemn shadows fall,
Sooner, later, over all?
Sing a merry madrigal--
Fal la!
[Illustration]
TO MY BRIDE
(WHOEVER SHE MAY BE)
Oh! little maid!--(I do not know your name,
Or who you are, so, as a safe precaution
I'll add)--Oh, buxom widow! married dame!
(As one of these must be your present portion)
Listen, while I unveil prophetic lore for you,
And sing the fate that Fortune has in store for you.
You'll marry soon--within a year or twain--
A bachelor of _circa_ two-and-thirty,
Tall, gentlemanly, but extremely plain,
And, when you're intimate, you call him "BERTIE."
Neat--dresses well; his temper has been classified
As hasty; but he's very quickly pacified.
You'll find him working mildly at the Bar,
After a touch at two or three professions,
From easy affluence extremely far,
A brief or two on Circuit--"soup" at Sessions;
A pound or two from whist and backing horses,
And, say, three hundred from his own resources.
Quiet in harness; free from serious vice,
His faults are not particularly shady;
You'll never find him "_shy_"--for, once or twice
Already, he's been driven by a lady,
Who parts with him--perhaps a poor excuse for him--
Because she hasn't any further use for him.
Oh! bride of mine--tall, dumpy, dark, or fair!
Oh! widow--wife, maybe, or blushing maiden,
I've told _your_ fortune: solved the gravest care
With which _your_ mind has hitherto been laden.
I've prophesied correctly, never doubt it;
Now tell me mine--and please be quick about it!
You--only you--can tell me, an you will,
To whom I'm destined shortly to be mated,
Will she run up a heavy _modiste's_ bill?
If so, I want to hear her income stated.
(This is a point which interests me greatly),
To quote the bard, "Oh! have I seen her lately?"
Say, must I wait till husband number one
Is comfortably stowed away at Woking?
How is her hair most usually done?
And tell me, please, will she object to smoking?
The colour of her eyes, too, you may mention:
Come, Sibyl, prophesy--I'm all attention.
[Illustration]
THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESS
THE DUKE. Small titles and orders
For Mayors and Recorders
I get--and they're highly delighted.
M.P.s baronetted,
Sham Colonels gazetted,
And second-rate Aldermen knighted.
Foundation-stone laying
I find very paying,
It adds a large sum to my makings.
At charity dinners
The best of speech-spinners,
I get ten per cent on the takings!
THE DUCHESS. I present any lady
Whose conduct is shady
Or smacking of doubtful propriety;
When Virtue would quash her
I take and whitewash her
And launch her in first-rate society.
I recommend acres
Of clumsy dressmakers--
Their fit and their finishing touches;
A sum in addition
They pay for permission
To say that they make for the Duchess!
THE DUKE. Those pressing prevailers,
The ready-made tailors,
Quote me as their great double-barrel;
I allow them to do so,
Though ROBINSON CRUSOE
Would jib at their wearing apparel!
I sit, by selection,
Upon the direction
Of several Companies bubble;
As soon as they're floated
I'm freely bank-noted--
I'm pretty well paid for my trouble!
THE DUCHESS. At middle-class party
I play at _écarté_--
And I'm by no means a beginner;
To one of my station
The remuneration--
Five guineas a night and my dinner.
I write letters blatant
On medicines patent--
And use any other you mustn't;
And vow my complexion
Derives its perfection
From somebody's soap--which it doesn't.
THE DUKE. We're ready as witness
To any one's fitness
To fill any place or preferment;
We're often in waiting
At junket or _fêting_,
And sometimes attend an interment.
In short, if you'd kindle
The spark of a swindle,
Lure simpletons into your clutches,
Or hoodwink a debtor,
You cannot do better
Than trot out a Duke or a Duchess!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE FOLLY OF BROWN
BY A GENERAL AGENT
I knew a boor--a clownish card
(His only friends were pigs and cows and
The poultry of a small farmyard),
Who came into two hundred thousand.
Good fortune worked no change in BROWN,
Though she's a mighty social chymist;
He was a clown--and by a clown
I do not mean a pantomimist.
It left him quiet, calm, and cool,
Though hardly knowing what a crown was--
You can't imagine what a fool
Poor rich uneducated BROWN was!
He scouted all who wished to come
And give him monetary schooling;
And I propose to give you some
Idea of his insensate fooling.
I formed a company or two--
(Of course I don't know what the rest meant,
I formed them solely with a view
To help him to a sound investment).
Their objects were--their only cares--
To justify their Boards in showing
A handsome dividend on shares
And keep their good promoter going.
[Illustration]
But no--the lout sticks to his brass,
Though shares at par I freely proffer:
Yet--will it be believed?--the ass
Declines, with thanks, my well-meant offer!
He adds, with bumpkin's stolid grin
(A weakly intellect denoting),
He'd rather not invest it in
A company of my promoting!
"You have two hundred 'thou' or more,"
Said I.
|
by which the image is formed upon the retina; (3) various
optical defects of this mechanism; (4) the sensitiveness of the parts of
the retina to light and color; (5) the structure of the retina; (6) the
parts played by monocular and binocular vision; and (7) the various events
which follow the formation of the image upon the retina.
The mechanism of the eye makes it possible to see not only light but
objects. Elementary eyes of the lowest animals perceive light but cannot
see objects. These eyes are merely specialized nerves. In the human eye
the optic nerve spreads to form the retina and the latter is a specialized
nerve. Nature has accompanied this evolution by developing an instrument
the--eye--for intensifying and defining and the whole is the visual
sense-organ. The latter contains the most highly specialized nerve and the
most refined physiological mechanism, the result being the highest
sense-organ.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Principal parts of the eye.
A, Conjunctiva; B, Retina; C, Choroid; D, Sclera; E, Fovea; F, Blind Spot;
G, Optic Nerve; H, Ciliary Muscle; I, Iris; J, Cornea; K, Ligament.]
The eye is approximately a spherical shell transparent at the front
portion and opaque (or nearly so) over the remaining eighty per cent of
its surface. The optical path consists of a series of transparent liquids
and solids. The chief details of the structure of the eye are represented
in Fig. 1. Beginning with the exterior and proceeding toward the retina we
find in succession the cornea, the anterior chamber containing the aqueous
humor, the iris, the lens, the large chamber containing the vitreous
humor, and finally the retina. Certain muscles alter the position of the
eye and consequently the optical axis, and focusing (accommodation) is
accomplished by altering the thickness and shape, and consequently the
focal length, of the lens.
The iris is a shutter which automatically controls to some degree the
amount of light reaching the retina, thereby tending to protect the latter
from too much light. It also has some influence upon the definition of the
image; that is, upon what is termed "visual acuity" or the ability to
distinguish fine detail. It is interesting to compare the eye with the
camera. In the case of the camera and the photographic process, we have
(1) an inverted light-image, a facsimile of the object usually diminished
in size; (2) an invisible image in the photographic emulsion consisting of
molecular changes due to light; and (3) a visible image developed on the
plate. In the case of the eye and the visual process we have (1) an
inverted light-image, a facsimile of the object diminished in size; (2)
the invisible image in the retinal substances probably consisting of
molecular changes due to light; and (3) an _external_ visible image. It
will be noted that in the case of vision the final image is projected
outward--it is external. The more we think of this outward projection the
more interesting and marvelous vision becomes. For example, it appears
certain that if a photographic plate could see or feel, it would see or
feel the silver image upon itself but not out in space. However, this
point is discussed further in the next chapter.
In the camera and photographic process we trace mechanism, physics, and
chemistry throughout. In the eye and visual process we are able to trace
these factors only to a certain point, where we encounter the
super-physical and super-chemical. Here molecular change is replaced by
sensation, perception, thought, and emotion. Our exploration takes us from
the physical world into another, wholly different, where there reigns
another order of phenomena. We have passed from the material into the
mental world.
The eye as an optical mechanism is reducible to a single lens and
therefore the image focused upon the retina is inverted. However, there is
no way for the observer to be conscious of this and therefore the inverted
image causes no difficulty in seeing. The images of objects in the right
half of the field of view are focused upon the left half of the retina.
Similarly, the left half of the field of view corresponds to the right
half of the retina; the upper half of the former to the lower half of the
latter; and so on. When a ray of light from an object strikes the retina
the impression is referred back along the ray-line into the original place
in space. This is interestingly demonstrated in a simple manner. Punch a
pin-hole in a card and hold it about four inches from the eye and at the
same time hold a pin-head as close to the cornea as possible. The
background for the pin-hole should be the sky or other bright surface.
After a brief trial an inverted image of the pin-head is seen _in the
hole_. Punch several holes in the card and in each will be seen an
inverted image of the pin-head.
The explanation of the foregoing is not difficult. The pin-head is so
close to the eye that the image cannot be focused upon the retina;
however, it is in a very favorable position to cast a shadow upon the
retina, the light-source being the pin-hole with a bright background.
Light streaming through the pin-hole into the eye casts an erect shadow of
the pin-head upon the retina, and this erect image is projected into space
and inverted in the process by the effect of the lens. The latter is not
operative during the casting of the shadow because the pin-head is too
close to the lens, as already stated. It is further proved to be outward
projection of the retinal image (the shadow) because by multiplying the
number of pin-holes (the light-sources) there are also a corresponding
number of shadows.
The foregoing not only illustrates the inversion of the image but again
emphasizes the fact that we do not see retinal images. Even the "stars"
which we see on pressing the eye-lid or on receiving a blow on the eye are
projected into space. The "motes" which we see in the visual field while
gazing at the sky are defects in the eye-media, and these images are
projected into space. We do not see anything in the eye. The retinal image
impresses the retina in some definite manner and the impression is carried
to the brain by the optic nerve. The intellect then refers or projects
this impression outward into space as an external image. The latter would
be a facsimile of the physical object if there were no illusions but the
fact that there are illusions indicates that errors are introduced
somewhere along the path from and to the object.
It is interesting to speculate whether the first visual impression of a
new-born babe is "projected outward" or is perceived as in the eye. It is
equally futile to conjecture in this manner because there is no
indication that the time will come when the baby can answer us
immediately upon experiencing its first visual impression. The period of
infancy increases with progress up the scale of animal life and this
lengthening is doubtless responsible and perhaps necessary for the
development of highly specialized sense-organs. Incidentally, suppose a
blind person to be absolutely uneducated by transferred experience and
that he suddenly became a normal adult and able to see. What would he say
about his first visual impression? Apparently such a subject is
unobtainable. The nearest that such a case had been approached is the case
of a person born blind, whose sight has been restored. This person has
acquired much experience with the external world through other senses. It
has been recorded that such a person, after sight was restored, appeared
to think that external objects "touched" the eyes. Only through visual
experience is this error in judgment rectified.
Man studies his kind too much apart from other animals and perhaps either
underestimates or overestimates the amount of inherited, innate,
instinctive qualities. A new-born chick in a few minutes will walk
straight to an object and seize it. Apparently this implies perception of
distance and direction and a coördination of muscles for walking and
moving the eyes. It appears reasonable to conclude that a certain amount
of the wealth of capacities possessed by the individual is partly
inherited, and in man the acquired predominates. But all capacities are
acquired, for even the inherited was acquired in ancestral experience.
Even instinct (whatever that may be) must involve inherited experience.
These glimpses of the depths to which one must dig if he is to unearth the
complete explanations of visual perception--and consequently of
illusions--indicate the futility of treating the theories in the available
space without encroaching unduly upon the aims of this volume.
Certain defects of the optical system of the eye must contribute toward
causing illusions. Any perfect lens of homogeneous material has at least
two defects, known as spherical and chromatic aberration. The former
manifests itself by the bending of straight lines and is usually
demonstrated by forming an image of an object such as a wire mesh or
checkerboard; the outer lines of the image are found to be very much bent.
This defect in the eye-lens is somewhat counteracted by a variable optical
density, increasing from the outer to the central portion. This results in
an increase in refractive-index as the center of the lens is approached
and tends to diminish its spherical aberration. The eye commonly possesses
abnormalities such as astigmatism and eccentricity of the optical
elements. All these contribute toward the creation of illusions.
White light consists of rays of light of various colors and these are
separated by means of a prism because the refractive-index of the prism
differs for lights of different color or wave-length. This causes the blue
rays, for example, to be bent more than the red rays when traversing a
prism. It is in this manner that the spectrum of light may be obtained. A
lens may be considered to be a prism of revolution and it thus becomes
evident that the blue rays will be brought to a focus at a lesser
distance than the red rays; that is, the former are bent more from their
original path than the latter. This defect of lenses is known as chromatic
aberration and is quite obvious in the eye. It may be demonstrated by any
simple lens, for the image of the sun, for example, will appear to have a
colored fringe. A purple filter which transmits only the violet and red
rays is useful for this demonstration. By looking at a lamp-filament or
candle-flame some distance away the object will appear to have a violet
halo, but the color of the fringe will vary with accommodation. On looking
through a pin-hole at the edge of an object silhouetted against the bright
sky the edge will appear red if the light from the pin-hole enters the
pupil near its periphery. This optical defect of the eye makes objects
appear more sharply defined when viewed in monochromatic light. In fact,
this is quite obvious when using yellow glasses. The defect is also
demonstrated by viewing a line-spectrum focused on a ground glass. The
blue and red lines cannot be seen distinctly at the same distance. The
blue lines can be focused at a much less distance than the red lines.
Chromatic aberration can account for such an illusion as the familiar
"advancing" and "retiring" colors and doubtless it plays a part in many
illusions.
The structure of the retina plays a very important part in vision and
accounts for various illusions and many interesting visual phenomena. The
optic nerve spreads out to form the retina which constitutes the inner
portion of the spherical shell of the eye with the exception of the front
part. Referring again to Fig. 1, the outer coating of the shell is called
the sclerotic. This consists of dense fibrous tissue known as the "white
of the eye." Inside this coating is a layer of black pigment cells termed
the choroid. Next is the bacillary layer which lines about five-sixths of
the interior surface of the eye. This is formed by closely packed "rods"
and "cones," which play a dominant role in the visual process. A
light-sensitive liquid (visual purple) and cellular and fibrous layers
complete the retinal structure.
The place where the optic nerve enters the eye-ball and begins to spread
out is blind. Objects whose images fall on this spot are invisible. This
blind-spot is not particularly of interest here, but it may be of interest
to note its effect. This is easily done by closing one eye and looking
directly at one of two small black circles about two inches apart on white
paper at a distance of about a foot from the eye. By moving the objects
about until the image of the circle not directly looked at falls upon the
blind-spot, this circle will disappear. A three-foot circle at a distance
of 36 feet will completely disappear if its image falls directly upon the
blind-spot. At a distance of 42 inches the invisible area is about 12
inches from the point of sight and about 3 to 4 inches in diameter. At 300
feet the area is about 8 feet in diameter. The actual size of the retinal
blind-spot is about 0.05 inch in diameter or nearly 5 degrees. Binocular
vision overcomes any annoyance due to the blind-spots because they do not
overlap in the visual field. A one-eyed person is really totally blind for
this portion of the retina or of the visual field.
The bacillary layer consists of so-called rods and cones. Only the rods
function under very low intensities of illumination of the order of
moonlight. The cones are sensitive to color and function only at
intensities greater than what may be termed twilight intensities. These
elements are very small but the fact that they appear to be connecting
links between the retinal image and visual perception, acuity or
discrimination of fine detail is limited inasmuch as the elements are of
finite dimensions. The smallest image which will produce a visual
impression is the size of the end of a cone. The smallest distance between
two points which is visible at five inches is about 0.001 inch. Two cones
must be stimulated in such a case. Fine lines may appear crooked because
of the irregular disposition of these elemental light-sensitive points.
This apparent crookedness of lines is an illusion which is directly due to
the limitations of retinal elements of finite size.
The distribution of rods and cones over the retina is very important. In
the fovea centralis--the point of the retina on the optical axis of the
eye--is a slight depression much thinner than the remainder of the retina
and this is inhabited chiefly by cones. It is this spot which provides
visual acuteness. It is easily demonstrated that fine detail cannot be
seen well defined outside this central portion of the visual field. When
we desire to see an object distinctly we habitually turn the head so that
the image of the object falls upon the fovea of each eye. Helmholtz has
compared the foveal and lateral images with a finished drawing and a rough
sketch respectively.
The fovea also contains a yellow pigmentation which makes this area of the
retina selective as to color-vision. On viewing certain colors a
difference in color of this central portion of the field is often very
evident. In the outlying regions of the retina, rods predominate and in
the intermediate zone both rods and cones are found. Inasmuch as rods are
not sensitive to color and cones do not function at low intensities of
illumination it is obvious that visual impressions should vary, depending
upon the area of the retina stimulated. In fact, many interesting
illusions are accounted for in this manner, some of which are discussed
later.
It is well known that a faint star is seen best by averted vision. It may
be quite invisible when the eye is directed toward it, that is, when its
image falls upon the rod-free fovea. However, by averting the line of
sight slightly, the image is caused to fall on a retinal area containing
rods (sensitive to feeble light) and the star may be readily recognized.
The fovea is the point of distinct focus. It is necessary for fixed
thoughtful attention. It exists in the retina of man and of higher monkeys
but it quickly disappears as we pass down the scale of animal life. It may
be necessary for the safety of the lower animals that they see equally
well over a large field; however, it appears advantageous that man give
fixed and undivided attention to the object looked at. Man does not need
to trust solely to his senses to protect himself from dangers. He uses his
intellect to invent and to construct artificial defenses. Without the
highly specialized fovea we might see equally well over the whole retina
but could not look attentively at anything, and therefore could not
observe thoughtfully.
When an image of a bright object exists upon the retina for a time there
results a partial exhaustion or fatigue of the retinal processes with a
result that an after-image is seen. This after-image may be bright for a
time owing to the fact that it takes time for the retinal process to die
out. Then there comes a reaction which is apparent when the eye is
directed toward illuminated surfaces. The part of the retina which has
been fatigued does not respond as fully as the fresher areas, with the
result that the fatigued area contributes a darker area in the visual
field. This is known as an after-image and there are many interesting
variations.
The after-image usually undergoes a series of changes in color as well as
in brightness as the retinal process readjusts itself. An after-image of a
colored object may often appear of a color complementary to the color of
the object. This is generally accounted for by fatigue of the retinal
process. There are many conflicting theories of color-vision but they are
not as conflicting in respect to the aspect of fatigue as in some other
aspects. If the eye is directed toward a green surface for a time and then
turned toward a white surface, the fatigue to green light diminishes the
extent of response to the green rays in the light reflected by the white
surface. The result is the perception of a certain area of the white
surface (corresponding to the portion of the field fatigued by green
light) as of a color equal to white minus some green--the result of which
is pink or purple. This is easily understood by referring to the
principles of color-mixture. Red, green, and blue (or violet) mixed in
proper proportions will produce any color or tint and even white. Thus
these may be considered to be the components of white light. Hence if the
retina through fatigue is unable to respond fully to the green component,
the result may be expressed mathematically as red plus blue plus reduced
green, or synthetically a purplish white or pink. When fatigued to red
light the after-image on a white surface is blue-green. When fatigued to
blue light it is yellowish.
Further mixtures may be obtained by directing the after-image upon colored
surfaces. In this manner many of the interesting visual phenomena and
illusions associated with the viewing of colors are accounted for. The
influence of a colored environment upon a colored object is really very
great. This is known as simultaneous contrast. The influence of the
immediately previous history of the retina upon the perception of colored
surfaces is also very striking. This is called successive contrast. It is
interesting to note that an after-image produced by looking at a bright
light-source, for example, is projected into space even with the eyes
closed. It is instructive to study after-images and this may be done at
any moment. On gazing at the sun for an instant and then looking away, an
after-image is seen which passes in color from green, blue, purple, etc.,
and finally fades. For a time it is brighter than the background which may
conveniently be the sky. On closing the eyes and placing the hands over
them the background now is dark and the appearance of the after-image
changes markedly. There are many kinds, effects, and variations of
after-images, some of which are discussed in other chapters.
As the intensity of illumination of a landscape, for example, decreases
toward twilight, the retina diminishes in sensibility to the rays of
longer wave-lengths such as yellow, orange, and red. Therefore, it becomes
relatively more sensitive to the rays of shorter wave-length such as
green, blue, and violet. The effects of this Purkinje phenomenon (named
after the discoverer) may be added to the class of illusions treated in
this book. It is interesting to note in this connection that moonlight is
represented on some paintings and especially on the stage as greenish blue
in color, notwithstanding that physical measurements show it to be
approximately the color of sunlight. In fact, it is sunlight reflected by
dead, frigid, and practically colorless matter.
Some illusions may be directly traced to the structure of the eye under
unusual lighting conditions. For example, in a dark room hold a lamp
obliquely outward but near one eye (the other being closed and shielded)
and forward sufficiently for the retina to be strongly illuminated. Move
the lamp gently while gazing at a plain dark surface such as the wall.
Finally the visual field appears dark, due to the intense illumination of
the retina and there will appear, apparently projected upon the wall, an
image resembling a branching leafless tree. These are really shadows of
the blood vessels in the retina. The experiment is more successful if an
image of a bright light-source is focused on the sclerotic near the
cornea. If this image of the light-source is moved, the tree-like image
seen in the visual field will also move.
The rate of growth and decay of various color-sensations varies
considerably. By taking advantage of this fact many illusions can be
produced. In fact, the careful observer will encounter many illusions
which may be readily accounted for in this manner.
It may be said that in general the eyes are never at rest. Involuntary
eye-movements are taking place all the time, at least during
consciousness. Some have given this restlessness a major part in the
process of vision but aside from the correctness of theories involving
eye-movements, it is a fact that they are responsible for certain
illusions. On a star-lit night if one lies down and looks up at a star the
latter will be seen to appear to be swimming about more or less jerkily.
On viewing a rapidly revolving wheel of an automobile as it proceeds down
the street, occasionally it will be seen to cease revolving momentarily.
These apparently are accounted for by involuntary eye-movements which take
place regardless of the effort made to fixate vision.
If the eyelids are almost closed, streamers appear to radiate in various
directions from a light-source. Movements of the eyelids when nearly
closed sometimes cause objects to appear to move. These may be accounted
for perhaps by the distortion of the moist film which covers the cornea.
The foregoing are only a few of the many visual phenomena due largely to
the structure of the eye. The effects of these and many others enter into
visual illusions, as will be seen here and there throughout the chapters
which follow.
III
VISION
A description of the eye by no means suffices to clarify the visual
process. Even the descriptions of various phenomena in the preceding
chapter accomplish little more than to acquaint the reader with the
operation of a mechanism, although they suggest the trend of the
explanations of many illusions. At best only monocular vision has been
treated, and it does not exist normally for human beings. A person capable
only of monocular vision would be like Cyclops Polyphemus. We might have
two eyes, or even, like Argus, possess a hundred eyes and still not
experience the wonderful advantages of binocular vision, for each eye
might see independently. The phenomena of binocular vision are far less
physical than those of monocular vision. They are much more obscure,
illusory, and perplexing because they are more complexly interwoven with
or allied to psychological phenomena.
The sense of sight differs considerably from the other senses. The sense
of touch requires solid contact (usually); taste involves liquid contact;
smell, gaseous contact; and hearing depends upon a relay of vibrations
from an object through another medium (usually air), resulting finally in
contact. However, we perceive things at a distance through vibration
(electromagnetic waves called light) conveyed by a subtle, intangible,
universal medium which is unrecognizable excepting as a hypothetically
necessary bearer of light-waves or, more generally, radiant energy.
It also is interesting to compare the subjectiveness and objectiveness of
sensations. The sensation of taste is subjective; it is in us, not in the
body tasted. In smell we perceive the sensation in the nose and by
experience refer it to an object at a distance. The sensation of hearing
is objective; that is, we refer the cause to an object so completely that
there is practically no consciousness of sensation in the ear. In sight
the impression is so completely projected outward into space and there is
so little consciousness of any occurrence in the eye that it is extremely
difficult to convince ourselves that it is essentially a subjective
sensation. The foregoing order represents the sense-organs in increasing
specialization and refinement. In the two higher senses--sight and
hearing--there is no direct contact with the object and an intricate
mechanism is placed in front of the specialized nerve to define and to
intensify the impression. In the case of vision this highly developed
instrument makes it possible to see not only _light_ but _objects_.
As we go up the scale of vertebrate animals we find that there is a
gradual change of the position of the eyes from the sides to the front of
the head and a change of the inclination of the optical axes of the two
eyes from 180 degrees to parallel. There is also evident a gradual
increase in the fineness of the bacillary layer of the retina from the
margins toward the center, and, therefore, an increasing accuracy in the
perception of form. This finally results in a highly organized central
spot or fovea which is possessed only by man and the higher monkeys.
Proceeding up the scale we also find an increasing ability to converge the
optic axes on a near point so that the images of the point may coincide
with the central spots of both retinas. These changes and others are
closely associated with each other and especially with the development of
the higher faculties of the mind.
Binocular vision in man and in the higher animals is the last result of
the gradual improvement of the most refined sense-organ, adapting it to
meet the requirements of highly complex organisms. It cannot exist in some
animals, such as birds and fishes, because they cannot converge their two
optical axes upon a near point. When a chicken wishes to look intently at
an object it turns its head and looks with one eye. Such an animal sees
with two eyes independently and possibly moves them independently. The
normal position of the axes of human eyes is convergent or parallel but it
is possible to diverge the axes. In fact, with practice it is possible to
diverge the axes sufficiently to look at a point near the back of the
head, although, of course, we do not see the point.
The movement of the eyes is rather complex. When they move together to one
side or the other or up and down in a vertical plane there is no rotation
of the optical axes; that is, no torsion. When the visual plane is
elevated and the eyes move to the right they rotate to the right; when
they move to the left they rotate to the left. When the visual plane is
depressed and the eyes move to the right they rotate to the left; when
they move to the left they rotate to the right. Through experience we
unconsciously evaluate the muscular stresses, efforts, and movements
accompanying the motion of the eyes and thereby interpret much through
visual perception in regard to such aspects of the external world as size,
shape, and distance of objects. Even this brief glimpse of the principal
movements of the eyes indicates a complexity which suggests the intricacy
of the explanations of certain visual phenomena.
At this point it appears advantageous to set down the principal modes by
which we perceive the third dimension of space and of objects and other
aspects of the external world. They are as follows: (1) extent; (2)
clearness of brightness and color as affected by distance; (3)
interference of near objects with those more distant; (4) elevation of
objects; (5) variation of light and shade on objects; (6) cast shadows;
(7) perspective; (8) variation of the visor angle in proportion to
distance; (9) muscular effort attending accommodation of the eye; (10)
stereoscopic vision; (11) muscular effort attending convergence of the
axes of the eyes. It will be recognized that only the last two are
necessarily concerned with binocular vision. These varieties of
experiences may be combined in almost an infinite variety of proportions.
Wundt in his attempt to explain visual perception considered chiefly three
factors: (1) the retinal image of the eye at rest; (2) the influence of
the movements of one eye; and, (3) the additional data furnished by the
two eyes functioning together. There are three fields of vision
corresponding to the foregoing. These are the retinal field of vision, the
monocular field, and the binocular field. The retinal field of vision is
that of an eye at rest as compared with the monocular field, which is all
that can be seen with one eye in its entire range of movement and
therefore of experience. The retinal field has no clearly defined
boundaries because it finally fades at its indefinite periphery into a
region where sensation ceases.
It might be tiresome to follow detailed analyses of the many modes by
which visual perception is attained, so only a few generalizations will be
presented. For every voluntary act of sight there are two adjustments of
the eyes, namely, focal and axial. In the former case the ciliary muscle
adjusts the lens in order to produce a defined image upon the retina. In
axial adjustments the two eyes are turned by certain muscles so that their
axes meet on the object looked at and the images of the object fall on the
central-spots of the retina. These take place together without distinct
volition for each but by the single voluntary act of _looking_. Through
experience the intellect has acquired a wonderful capacity to interpret
such factors as size, form, and distance in terms of the muscular
movements in general without the observer being conscious of such
interpretations.
Binocular vision is easily recognized by holding a finger before the eyes
and looking at a point beyond it. The result is two apparently
transparent fingers. An object is seen single when the two retinal images
fall on corresponding points. Direction is a primary datum of sense. The
property of corresponding points of the two retinas (binocular vision) and
consequently of identical spatial points in the two visual fields is not
so simple. It is still a question whether corresponding points (that is,
the existence of a corresponding point in one retina for each point in the
other retina) are innate, instinctive, and are antecedent of experience or
are "paired" as the result of experience. The one view results in the
_nativistic_, the other in the _empiristic_ theory. Inasmuch as some
scientists are arrayed on one side and some on the other, it appears
futile to dwell further upon this aspect. It must suffice to state that
binocular vision, which consists of two retinas and consequently two
fields of view absolutely coördinated in some manner in the brain, yields
extensive information concerning space and its contents.
After noting after-images, motes floating in the field of view (caused by
defects in the eye-media) and various other things, it is evident that
what we call the field of view is the external projection into space of
retinal states. All the variations of the latter, such as images and
shadows which are produced in the external field of one eye, are
faithfully reproduced in the external field of the other eye. This sense
of an external visual field is ineradicable. Even when the eyes are closed
the external field is still there; the imagination or intellect projects
it outward. Objects at different distances cannot be seen distinctly at
the same time but by interpreting the eye-movements as the point of sight
is run backward and forward (varying convergence of the axes) the
intellect practically automatically appraises the size, form, and distance
of each object. Obviously, experience is a prominent factor. The
perception of the third dimension, depth or relative distance, whether in
a single object or a group of objects, is the result of the successive
combination of the different parts of two dissimilar images of the object
or group.
As already stated, the perception of distance, size, and form is based
partly upon monocular and partly upon binocular vision, and the simple
elements upon which judgments of these are based are light, shade, color,
intensity, and direction. Although the interpretation of muscular
adjustments plays a prominent part in the formation of judgments, the
influences of mathematical perspective, light, shade, color, and intensity
are more direct. Judgments based upon focal adjustment (monocular) are
fairly accurate at distances from five inches to several yards. Those
founded upon axial adjustment (convergence of the two axes in binocular
vision) are less in error than the preceding ones. They are reliable to a
distance of about 1000 feet. Judgments involving mathematical perspective
are of relatively great accuracy without limits. Those arrived at by
interpreting aerial perspective (haziness of atmosphere, reduction in
color due to atmospheric absorption, etc.) are merely estimates liable to
large errors, the accuracy depending largely upon experience with local
conditions.
The measuring power of the eye is more liable to error when the distances
or the objects compared lie in different directions. A special case is the
comparison of a vertical distance with a horizontal one. It is not
uncommon to estimate a vertical distance as much as 25 per cent greater
than an actually equal horizontal distance. In general, estimates of
direction and distance are comparatively inaccurate when only one eye is
used although a one-eyed person acquires unusual ability through a keener
experience whetted by necessity. A vertical line drawn perpendicular to a
horizontal one is likely to appear bent when viewed with one eye. Its
apparent inclination is variable but has been found to vary from one to
three degrees. Monocular vision is likely to cause straight lines to
appear crooked, although the "crookedness" may seem to be more or less
unstable.
The error in the estimate of size is in reality an error in the estimation
of distance except in those cases where the estimate is based directly
upon a comparison with an object of supposedly known size. An amusing
incident is told of an old negro who was hunting for squirrels. He shot
several times at what he supposed to be a squirrel upon a tree-trunk and
his failure to make a kill was beginning to weaken his rather ample
opinion of his skill as a marksman. A complete shattering of his faith in
his skill was only escaped by the discovery that the "squirrel" was a
louse upon his eyebrow. Similarly, a gnat in the air might appear to be an
airplane under certain favorable circumstances. It is interesting to note
that the estimated size of the disk of the sun or moon varies from the
size of a saucer to that of the end of a barrel, although a pine tree at
the horizon-line may be estimated as 25 feet across despite the fact that
it may be entirely included in the disk of the sun setting behind it.
Double images play an important part in the comparison of distances of
objects. The "doubling" of objects is only equal to the interocular
distance. Suppose two horizontal wires or clotheslines about fifty feet
away and one a few feet beyond the other. On looking at these no double
images are visible and it is difficult or even impossible to see which is
the nearer when the points of attachment of the ends are screened from
view. However, if the head is turned to one side and downward (90 degrees)
so that the interocular line is now at right angles (vertical) to the
horizontal lines, the relative distances of the latter are brought out
distinctly. Double images become visible in the latter case.
According to Brücke's theory the eyes are continuously in motion and the
observer by alternately increasing or decreasing the convergence of the
axes of the eyes, combines successively the different parts of the two
scenes as seen by the two eyes and by running the point of sight back and
forth by trial obtains a distinct perception of binocular perspective or
relief or depth of space. It may be assumed that experience has made the
observer proficient in this appraisal which he arrives at almost
unconsciously, although it may be just as easy to accept Wheatstone's
explanation. In fact, some experiences with the stereoscope appear to
support the latter theory.
Wheatstone discovered that the dissimilar pictures of an object or scene,
when united by means of optical systems, produce a visual effect similar
to that produced by the actual solid object or scene provided the
dissimilarity is the same as that between two retinal images of the solid
object or scene. This
|
ped the lad’s hand warmly.
’God bless you, Harry, you are a brave fellow. I am proud of you. Come
to me to-morrow, and I will show you a new book a friend has sent me;
or, better, walk back with me to the Vicarage.’
’I would willingly, sir,’ said Harry quietly, ’but father bade me go to
the meadow and see if White Star should be driven in under shelter
to-night. Our man Fiske has met with an accident, so I promised to see
after White Star before sundown. She was a little sick this morning.’
’To-morrow will do well enough,’ said Mr. Aylett, glad to see that Harry
was beginning already to turn his mind steadily to home matters, ’and if
you have time we will go to St. Catherine’s Church on Canvey. There is
a young clergyman come there to see if he will accept the cure, and I
know you will row me over.’ Harry promised gladly, and then Mr. Aylett
with another shake of the hand turned his face homeward. When he was
gone Harry flung himself on the ground to think over the promise he had
just given. He would--yes, he would keep his word.
CHAPTER II.
CAPTURED.
How long he lay there, Harry never could recollect afterwards, but
feeling a chilliness creeping over him he suddenly remembered his duty.
He must make haste, for the sun was setting, and if White Star did not
seem to be better she must be led home from the damp marsh meadows that
bordered the water. Though Harry was feeling intensely sad, he had a
secret feeling of satisfaction at having conquered in a very hard
struggle, and this perhaps made him look more at the things he was
passing than, as he was wont to do, at the distant sea. This evening
everything was calm and quiet, both on the darkening waters and on the
green meadows. Harry noted a gate that needed repairing, and made up his
mind to tell his father that it must be seen to, or the cattle would be
straying; then he glanced at the little cart-horse foal that promised to
be a rival of its mother. The Pitsea Farm cart-horses were deservedly
famous, and Harry’s father, George Fenn, was as good a breeder of horses
as he was a staunch Churchman and opposed to the Puritan element only
now quieting down.
At last Harry reached the meadow where White Star was grazing and where
some thirty sheep were sharing the pasture. He went up to examine the
gentle creature, and she knew well enough the young master’s voice and
touch, so that she hardly stopped chewing the cud to give him a kindly
stare.
’White Star seems not so bad,’ thought Harry. ’I’ll tell father to give
her another day in the meadow, she is not too ill to enjoy this sweet
grass.’
Harry had been so much engaged in attending to White Star that he did
not hear the soft splash of some oars at the bottom of the meadow he was
in, nor did he see that four strong, rough-looking men in seafaring
attire had quietly moored their long-boat to an old willow stump, and
that two of them were hastily scanning the sheep and cattle that were
only a few yards away.
’Zounds!’ muttered the first who stepped up the bank, ’what have we
here? a lad in this very field. I’faith, I saw no one from the creek.’
’A mere sapling,’ laughed the other, ’take no heed of him, and he will
soon take to his heels at the sight of us. Now, quick’s the word, the
captain is impatient to be off with the tide.’
In another instant the men had begun their work. They had come for the
purpose of carrying off some sheep and cattle, and having waited till
this late hour they had not expected to find a witness to their robbery.
Quietly and stealthily as they had landed, however, their intentions
could not be carried out without some disturbance, and Harry was first
made aware of their presence by the sudden helter-skelter of the sheep
and the immediate curiosity expressed by poor White Star, whose evening
meal was to be so violently disturbed.
In a moment more Harry had seized the situation, which indeed it was not
difficult to do, as he now beheld one of his father’s sheep suddenly
captured by the clever expedient of an extemporised lasso, and when the
poor animal had been dragged towards its captor the robber made short
work of tying his victim’s legs together, and leaving it to bleat beside
him whilst he proceeded to capture another in the same manner, before
dragging them to the long-boat.
All the fierce courage of the hardy yeoman’s son rose to its height as
he beheld this daring robbery carried on under his very eyes. Nay, when
the strongest and foremost man began unconcernedly to make his way
towards White Star herself, the boy’s indignation knew no bounds.
’How now?’ he cried indignantly. ’What do you mean, you rascals, by
coming here? this is our field and our cattle; away at once, and unloose
the sheep, or, by’r laykin! it will be worse for you. I will call for
help, and you will soon be treated in such a manner as you deserve.’
This fierce speech had not, however, the desired effect. The man
laughed ironically as if Harry were a mere baby, and approaching White
Star he swiftly threw the lasso over the animal’s sleek head.
’Out of the way, young blusterer, or it will be the worse for thee. Our
master, the captain, requires these cattle to victual our ship before
sailing; come, off with thee! and don’t halloo all the breath out of thy
body.’
But Harry’s blood was up. Enraged at the man’s daring and effrontery,
he seized a stout stick from the hedge-row and sprang upon the intruder
with the fury of a young lion. He never considered the inequality of
the struggle or the folly of his engaging single-handed with a ruffian
of this description; he only thought of saving his father’s property and
avenging the insult. Nor were his well-directed blows mere
make-believe, and as the man before him was suddenly aware of a sharp
stinging pain across his forehead, he let go the lasso and sprang on to
the boy with a fierce oath.
[Illustration: "_HARRY’S BLOOD WAS UP_"]
’What, you young viper, you dare to strike me? Well, take that. Here,
Jim, this way, bring the rope here; I’ll teach this churl to bethump
me.’
As he spoke he wrenched away poor Harry’s stick, and with a
well-directed blow he laid the boy on the ground. Harry felt a terrible
pain in his head, his brain seemed to reel; bright, blood-red flashes
blotted out the familiar fields, and then with a groan of pain he
stretched out his right arm to grasp at some support, after which he
remembered no more.
The man appealed to as Jim had now run up, and laughed as he saw Harry
fall insensible on the dewy grass.
’Bravo! the lad fell in fair fight, Joseph; but i’fecks! who would have
thought of seeing you engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with such a
stripling? Hast done for him, comrade?’ he added with curiosity, in
which was mingled neither pity nor fear. And yet the sight of Harry
Fenn might have softened even a hard heart, one would have thought, as
he lay there in the twilight on the dewy grass, whilst a slow trickling
line of red blood fell from his forehead over his fair curling hair.
’Here, make haste,’ said the first man, whom his friend addressed as
Coxon, ’the captain’s orders were that we must lose no time; there’ll be
several more trips this evening, and he means to run down the Channel
before morning.’
’Then we’d best not leave the lad here. What say you, Coxon, shall I
despatch him for fear of his waking up and telling tales before we
return?’
Coxon looked down on the brave lad, and decided, he knew not why, to act
more mercifully.
’Let him be, or wait--tie his legs and throw him in the long-boat; on
our ship he’ll tell no tales, and when we cast anchor we can drop him
somewhere, or give him a seaman’s burial if he’s dead, for, to tell the
truth, it was a good whack that I dealt him. Now, Jim, quick, for fear
some of those land dolts come down upon us, and deafen us with their
complaints.’
After this quick certainly was the word. Harry was tied, much after the
fashion of his own sheep, and cast with little ceremony into the
long-boat; further booty was secured, till no more could be carried
during this trip, and then, as silently as it had come, the boat was
rowed swiftly down the creek till they reached their destination,
namely, the good ship ’Scorpion,’ a privateer bound for the West Indies,
after having lately made a very successful bargain with the cargo it had
safely brought home.
How long Harry remained unconscious he never knew: when he came to
himself it was some time before he could collect any sequence in his
thoughts. He felt, however, that he was in a cramped and confined
place, and so put out his hands to make more room, as it were, for his
limbs; but he could give no explanation to himself of his whereabouts,
though he half realised that the night air was blowing in his face, and
that something like sea spray now and then seemed to be dashed on his
head. His hands were free, but what of his legs? He experienced a
sharp cutting pain above his ankles, and with some difficulty he reached
down to the seat of pain with one of his hands. Yes, there was a rope
tied round his legs; who had done this, and where was he? He remembered
standing on Hæsten’s mound looking longingly at the sea, and he also
recalled Mr. Aylett’s words and his own fierce struggle against his
strong inclinations, and then--what had followed?
Here for a long time his mind remained a blank, till a decided lurch
forced the conviction upon him that he was certainly in a ship, not on
the green marsh meadow at home.
Home! He must make haste and get home; his father would wonder what
kept him so long, it was quite dark; how anxious his fond mother would
be. He must at once get rid of that horrid thing that prevented his
rising, and he must run as fast as he could back to Pitsea Farm. But
what of White Star? White Star, the meadow, the--the----
All at once the scene of his conflict flashed into his mind, and the
awful truth burst upon him. He was a prisoner in some enemy’s ship--or
could it be in one of those dreadful privateers, whose ravages were
often spoken of, and whom Mr. Aylett had said ought to be put down by
Government with a firm hand? Ay, and those ruffians who had treated him
with such brutality, they must be no other than some of those dreaded
buccaneers, whose atrocities in the West Indies made the blood of
peaceable people run cold, and wonder why God’s judgments did not
descend on all who abetted such crimes. Harry, as we know, was very
brave, and yet he shuddered as the truth forced itself on his mind; it
was not so much from a feeling of fear, but because, to the boy’s weak,
fevered brain, the terrible calamity that had overtaken him seemed to
be, as it were, a punishment for his old and secret longings, and his
discontent at the dull home life.
Then followed a period of great mental pain for the boy, and after
having vainly tried to free himself, he lay back utterly spent with the
exertion, and with the feeling that perhaps he was reserved for worse
tortures. Harry had heard many and many a terrible story of the doings
of these buccaneers, who plundered, without distinction, the ships of
all nations, and amassed treasures in the West Indies and the Spanish
Main, and whose inhuman conduct to their prisoners was not much better
than that experienced by the unfortunate Christian prisoners from the
pirates of Algiers. Harry’s courage was nearly giving way at these
thoughts, and as no one was by to see him a few bitter tears rolled down
his cheeks; but as he put up his hand to brush them away he suddenly
felt ashamed of his weakness.
’God helping me,’ thought he, ’whatever these rascals call themselves
they shall not see me in tears, be the pretence never so great; it were
a pretty story to take back to my father and good Mr. Aylett, that I was
found weeping like a girl; but all the same I wish they would give me
something to eat. In truth I could devour very willingly a sirloin of
beef if it were offered me.’
Hunger is but a melancholy companion, and as the time still passed on
and no one came near him, though Harry could hear the tramp of feet
above him distinctly enough, the boy began to fear he should be left to
die of slow starvation; and though this idea was very fearful to a
growing lad, yet he determined that even this suffering should not make
him cry out, and, clenching his teeth together, he lay down again and
tried to say a few mental prayers. Evidently he must have dozed off,
for the next thing he remembered was the sound of a rough voice telling
him to get up; at the same time the rope that tied his feet was hastily
cut and he felt himself led along a dark passage and pushed up a
hatchway, feeling too dazed and weak to notice anything till he was
thrust through the door of a small cabin.
By this time Harry’s spirit had returned; he forgot his pain and his
hunger, and, straightening himself, tried to wrench his arm away from
the iron grasp of the sailor that led him.
’What right have you fellows to keep me prisoner here?’ cried Harry.
’But as we are upon the high seas it’s not likely I can escape, so you
need not pinion me down in this fashion.’
At this moment a tall, powerful, and very handsome man entered the
cabin, and, hearing Harry’s words, burst into a loud and cheerful laugh.
’What, Mings! is this the boy you spoke of? By my faith, you have caged
a little eaglet! But we can soon cut his claws and stop his pretty
prating. How now, boy: answer truly, and tell me thy name; for we are no
lovers of ill-manners and insolence.’
Harry Fenn had been struck dumb by the appearance of the new comer, so
that he had ceased struggling with Mings, and now gazed at the
courtly-looking man, whose whole bearing spoke of a certain rough
refinement and assured courage, such as Harry had believed attainable
only by a gentleman of birth and breeding. Evidently the man before him
was the captain of the crew, but he was no mere rough sailor such as
Harry had often seen at home; on the contrary, his dress was both rich
and elegant; he wore his hair in flowing locks just below his neck; a
cravat of muslin edged with rich lace was round his throat, and the ends
of the bow hung over his thick doublet, which was embroidered in a
running pattern. His scarf, thrown over one shoulder and tied at his
waist, was heavy with gold embroidery and fringe, and the sword that
dangled at his side was evidently of Spanish make, and richly chased. As
to his countenance, the more Harry gazed the less he could believe this
man had anything to do with the buccaneers of the West Indies he had
heard so much about, for the Captain’s expression was open, and even
pleasant. His eyes were of a pale blue, shaded by soft and reddish
eyebrows; his nose straight and well formed; and though his mouth was
somewhat full and coarse, yet there was nothing bad-tempered about it;
and the curling moustache and small tuft of hair on his chin reminded
one of a jolly cavalier more than of a dreaded sea-captain. Yes, Harry
fancied he might be mistaken, and that this gentleman was in truth a
loyal captain of His Majesty’s Navy, and that his own capture was all
some terrible mistake. This idea gave him courage, and, shaking himself
free from his jailor, he advanced boldly towards the handsome-looking
man, who surely must be the soul of honour, and no enemy to the public.
’Oh, sir, I fancied I had fallen into the hands of evil men; but surely
I am mistaken, and you will see justice done me. I am a yeoman’s son.
My name is Harry Fenn, and my father owns a farm at South Benfleet. I
had but gone down to see after one of our cows who had been sick, when
suddenly your men waylaid me when I defended our cattle, and used me in
a brutish manner. Had they wanted to buy cattle, my father could have
directed them to those willing to sell. I did but my duty in defending
my father’s property, and I doubt not that they gave you quite a wrong
tale of my behaviour; but indeed, sir, it was not true, and though I
have been treated very roughly I beg you to see justice done to me, and
to have me landed on our English coast; for my parents will be sadly put
about on account of my disappearance, and very solicitous about my
safety.’
Harry paused, expecting the handsome captain to express his regret at
what had happened. Instead of this, his words were received with a loud
laugh by Mings; and apparently they also much tickled the fancy of the
Captain, for he joined in the merriment, though he looked with kindly
eyes on the handsome youth, who, in spite of his being a good deal
bespattered with mud and blood stains, was yet a very pleasant picture
of a bold, fearless English boy.
’Thou art over-bold, young fellow,’ said Mings when he had laughed
heartily. ’Doubtless our captain will teach thee how to mind thy
speech. Shall I stow the lad away, sir, in the hold? I take it he will
come forth in a humbler frame of mind, and with less zeal for defending
cattle.’
’Nay, Mings, leave him to me; such a home bird is an uncommon sight, and
having fallen on deck for want of a stronger wing, he must needs stay
aboard. Go and attend to the guns, and tell the watch to keep a sharp
look-out for any strange sail, and I’ll see to the boy.’
Mings appeared a little sulky at this order, and took the opportunity of
roughly grasping Harry’s shoulder as he went by, with the remark:
’Keep a civil tongue in thy head, young scarecrow, or Captain Henry
Morgan will soon teach thee to wag it less glibly. It would want but a
small gun to blow thee back to the English shore if thou art so anxious
to get back--eh, Captain?’
The Captain frowned instead of answering, and Mings made off as quickly
as possible; but by this time Harry had recovered from his surprise.
’Then it’s true,’ he said quickly; ’you are in truth the infamous Henry
Morgan the buccaneer, whose name is a terror to all honest folk. I only
hope one of His Majesty’s men-of-war will give chase, and I will do all
in my power to give information. It is a dastardly act that you have
done, for you have stolen our property and allowed your men shamefully
to ill-use me.’
Harry never stayed to think how unwise his words were: he was so angry
at having made a mistake and having fancied this courtly man was an
honest gentleman, that he cared nothing at the moment about the
consequences of his violent language; indeed, he was all the more
furious when he noticed that Captain Morgan seemed only amused by his
burst of indignation.
’Thou art a brave lad, and I like to see thy spirit. Tell me thy name.
I wager it is an honest one.’
’Ay, truly. Harry Fenn is my name--an honest English yeoman’s son, and
one that will receive no favours from a buccaneer,’ answered Harry,
crossing his arms.
’Then thou art my namesake, lad, i’ fecks! See, I’ll forgive thy hasty
words, and take thee for my godson. As for thy parents, well, they must
take the chances of war as others do, for there can be no putting back
to land now. We had to be very crafty to avoid a large three-decker of
sixty-four guns that, I fancy, had scent of my poor frigate; but we ran
up the French flag, and so got off; and now we are making a very fair
journey towards Jamaica. Art hungry, lad? There’s no use lying about
thy stomach, for it’s a hard taskmaster, and, now I come to think of it,
no one has heeded thee or thy wants since the cutter put thee aboard.’
Hunger was indeed a very hard taskmaster for at this moment Harry Fenn
felt a dizziness which he could hardly control, and he half fell on a
bench which was beside him, and against which he had been leaning.
Captain Morgan continued:
’Come, Harry Fenn, you’re a brave lad, and we’ll strike a bargain. I’ve
taken a fancy to you, my boy, and I’ll try and protect you from the
sailors. We are rough people at times, but not so bad as we’re painted;
so if you’ll work like the rest, I’ll warrant you good provender and as
merry a life as we sea-folk know how to lead.’
’I will not work for such as you,’ said Harry boldly; ’my father brought
me up in honest ways. I would rather die than join hands with such men
as your crew.’
’By my troth, boy, you are ignorant of our good deeds, I well see,’ said
Captain Morgan. ’Many of those in power are glad enough of our inroads
on the Spanish Settlements, for those rogues get only their deserts if
we make them discharge a little of their gold. Hast never heard of our
worthy predecessors? The authorities were less squeamish in those days,
and called the deeds of bold men by fine names, whereas now, in truth,
it is convenient to dub us buccaneers. There was Sir Thomas Seymour,
and before him there were fine doings by Clarke’s squadron. By St.
George, he was a lucky man! and after six weeks’ cruise he brought back
a prize of 50,000*l.* taken from the Spaniards. And how about Drake,
Hawkins, and Cavendish? There were no ugly names hurled at them, and
yet methinks they and we go much on the same lines. In truth we have
done good service also against those rascally Dutch, and for that alone
we deserve better treatment than we get.’
Captain Morgan now noticed that Harry had become deadly pale, and,
hastily rising, the buccaneer opened a locker and took from it a black
bottle, the contents of which he poured into a glass.
’Here, lad, thou art faint; this will revive thy courage. But first
swear that thou wilt be one of us.’
Harry had eagerly stretched forth his hand to take the glass, but at
these words he drew back.
’Nay, but I will not swear; if God wills, I can die, but I will not
sully my father’s name.’
Captain Morgan frowned angrily, and, striding up to Harry, took hold of
his arm with his left hand, and with his right seized the hilt of his
sword as he exclaimed--
’Swear, boy, or it will be worse for thee.’ Harry Fenn made one last
great effort and staggered to his feet; then with his right hand he
struck the glass with as much strength as he possessed, and saw the red
wine spurt out upon the floor and upon the Captain’s doublet.
’God helping me, I will not swear,’ he cried; but the words were barely
audible, as he fell fainting on the floor.
’As brave a lad as I ever cast eyes on!’ said the Captain, losing his
stern expression, and, stooping down, he poured a few drops of the wine
into Harry’s mouth; then, calling for the cook, he bade him tend the boy
till he should have regained his strength.
’Harry Fenn shall be under my protection,’ said the Captain to himself,
’but in time he must be one of us.’
CHAPTER III.
A BEAUTIFUL ISLAND.
It is the beginning of December 1670 in the beautiful little Island of
St. Catherine, one of the West Indian Islands, which were at this time
the rich treasure-house of most of the European nations, where
Spaniards, French, English, and Dutch all hoped to make their fortunes
in some way or other, and where, alas! the idle and good-for-nothing men
of the Old World attempted by unlawful means to win fame and fortune,
which, when achieved, as often as not brought them neither happiness nor
profit.
Though it is December, in St. Catherine there is nothing cold or
disagreeable in the weather, and all around the beauty of the scene
delights the eye. The mountains, though of no great height, are wooded
with the loveliest tropical vegetation; the well-watered valleys are
little Gardens of Eden; whilst in some portions, not yet cleared by
either natives, Spaniards, or Englishmen, the original forests rise up
like giants of nature whom no hand of man has laid low. In these
forests are endless varieties of birds--parrots, pigeons, and
hummingbirds of every colour. Here, too, can be found land-crabs which
much resemble sea-crabs in shape and manner of walking; but instead of
finding a home under rocks and boulders, these crabs burrow in the
forests, and once a year form themselves into a regiment and march down
to the sea-coast for the purpose of depositing their young in the
waters. This regiment has only one line of march; it never diverges
from it, but whatever comes in its way is climbed over--straight over it
go the crabs; and such a noise they make that you can hear the
clattering of their claws for a considerable distance.
We must not now stop to describe this West Indian island, which is full
of beauty and curious plants and trees; but if you come to the wood that
leads to the great Spanish fortress of Santa Teresa, you will find a
steep path through the luxurious forest, leading over a drawbridge to
the castle. What a view can be seen from thence over the port! But it
was not the view that the Governor’s children were thinking of as they
walked together in the garden which sloped down towards the sea, and
which was especially reserved for the Governor and his family.
Felipa del Campo was a tall dark girl of about fourteen years of age,
but she looked older, and there was a sad expression on her face as she
gazed up to her brother, a noble-looking fellow a year older, with the
long, grave-looking countenance of the Spanish nobility. He was
dressed, after the fashion of that time, in embroidered doublet, short
velvet tunic, and trunk hose; whilst his well-shaped limbs were
displayed to perfection in silk stockings. His shoes had buckles set
with diamonds, and his tall Spanish hat was plumed.
Felipa, on her side, had a long silver-embroidered skirt, beneath which
her dainty feet hardly appeared; a small stomacher sewn with seed pearls
set off her lithe figure, whilst her pretty, dark hair strayed from
beneath a rich black lace kerchief.
’Where is my father, Carlo?’ asked Felipa. ’Old Catalina says he has
been down to-day to give orders about the repair of the bridge between
the two islands. Do you think he is expecting any danger? Surely the
forts are well protected; but what can make him so busy?’
’I don’t know what to think,’ said Carlo sadly, ’our father is so
strange of late. I have been trying to speak to you about it, Felipa,
for several days, but sometimes I fancy he seems to watch me as if he
suspected me; though of what I cannot imagine. And then--have you
noticed?--he cannot make up his mind to anything; he orders something
one day, and the next he has altered his mind. He promised me the
command of the little fort of Santa Cruz when I should be fifteen; but
this morning when I reminded him of this he spoke quite roughly, and
told me I was fit for nothing but playing with girls.’
Carlo’s colour heightened at the very idea of this rebuke; for if there
was one virtue the boy admired more than any other it was courage. These
two children had been early left motherless; but old Catalina, a
faithful servant, had done all she could to make their lives happy since
she had brought them here from Spain, after the Marquis Don Estevan del
Campo had been made Governor of St. Catherine.
’Catalina says that our father is not the same man he was when our
mother first married him,’ said Felipa thoughtfully. ’The many worries
he has have made the change. But never mind, Carlo, this mood will pass
by, and we shall be happy again. When our brave uncle, Don Alvarez,
comes with dear Aunt Elena, then they will advise our father, and he
always takes Uncle Alvarez’s opinion. He always does, because uncle
speaks so decidedly.’
The two children spoke in Spanish, but, strangely enough, they often put
in English words and whole English phrases; and the reason of this was
soon apparent, for at this moment a pretty, fair girl was seen running
towards them with nimble feet down the slope, and, picking her way among
the gorgeous flower-beds, she cried out in pure English, though with a
slightly foreign accent:
’Dear Felipa, what do you think! There is a trading-vessel in the port,
and the merchant has just come to offer us some beautiful cloth, and
silver buckles! Catalina dares not send him away till you have seen
him.’
Carlo smiled as he looked at the English girl’s beautiful fair hair,
rosy cheeks, and active limbs. To him she appeared like some angel, for
he was accustomed to seeing only dark people, and the Spanish women in
the island were anything but beautiful. Felipa shook her head as she
answered:
’Tell Catalina to say I want nothing.’ The Governor’s daughter spoke
with just that tone of command which showed she was accustomed to be
first, even though her gentle manner and sad face plainly indicated that
her real nature was rather yielding than imperious.
’I can see Etta admired the silver buckles,’ said Carlo kindly. ’Come,
Mistress Englishwoman, I will buy you a pair; for, with the dislike to
long petticoats that comes from your English blood, the pretty buckles
are more necessary for you than for Felipa.’
’Oh, dear Carlo, will you really!’ said Etta, her face beaming with
pleasure. ’How good you are to me!’ All at once, however, the smile
died away, and, sitting down on a seat near Felipa, the English girl
added, with tears in her blue eyes:
’But no, Carlo, I will not accept your buckles: a prisoner has no right
to wear pretty things.’
’A prisoner! Oh, Etta!’ said Felipa, throwing her arms round Etta’s
neck, ’why do you say that? Do we not love you dearly? Am I not a
sister to you? and Carlo a dear brother? Do I not share all my things
with you? And when Catalina is cross to you I make her sorry.’
’And my father has almost forgotten you are not one of his own,’ added
Carlo, standing behind Etta and taking one of the fair curls in his
hand; for he dearly loved this English sister, as he called Etta
Allison.
’Yes, yes, it is all true, and Santa Teresa is a lovely home; but I
cannot forget I am English, and that I am really a prisoner. I once
asked Don Estevan to send me back to England by one of the big ships,
and he refused; and yet my mother’s last words were that I was not to
forget my own land.’
At the thought of her mother Etta’s tears came fast; but at this moment
the Governor of St. Catherine himself appeared in the garden, and Etta,
being afraid to be seen crying, dried her tears and stooped down to play
with Felipa’s little dog, so as not to show her red eyes. When she
looked up again the sunshine had returned to her bonnie-looking face.
The Marquis Don Estevan del Campo was a small thin-looking man, who had
long suffered from a liver complaint, and in consequence his whole
nature seemed to be changed. From a determined, clever administrator he
had become peevish, undecided, and ill-tempered; and the men under him
hardly knew how to obey his orders, which were often very contradictory.
To-day he walked towards Carlo, with a troubled expression on his face,
and on the way he took occasion to find fault with a slave who was
watering the flower-beds. The slave trembled, as he was bidden in a
very imperious fashion to be quicker about his work.
Carlo came to meet his father, doffing his hat in the courtly fashion of
a young Spanish noble.
’What are you doing here, children?’ the Marquis said. ’Is not this
your hour of study?’
’You have forgotten, my father, that it is a holiday to-day; and I was
coming to ask if Felipa and Etta might not come down to the bay with me
and have a row in my canoe.’
The Marquis looked up quickly.
’No, no: there must be no rowing to-day; I have set workmen to repair
the bridge, and you had best keep at home.’
’Then we will go to the Orange Grove,’ said Felipa, coming up and
putting her hand on her father’s arm, ’and Etta and I will pick some of
the sweetest fruit for your dessert this evening.’
’As you like, Felipa; but do not go far, and take Catalina and some of
the slaves with you, for I hear several of the wild dogs have been seen
in this neighbourhood. Anyhow, you will not have very long before
sunset.’
’I will let the girls go alone, then,’ said Carlo, ’and come with you,
father.’ And so saying the Marquis and his son walked away, whilst the
girls with an escort of slaves entered the forest and went down the
mountain side. This forest was not, however, such a one as could be
found in England. Here the pleasant breeze played among the leaves of a
huge fan palm with leaf-stalks ten feet long and fans twelve feet broad;
next to it might be found a groo-groo or coco palm, and bananas and
plantains; and below these giant trees of the tropics were lovely
shrubs, covered with flowers of every hue and shape, round which flitted
great orange butterflies larger than any we can see in our colder
climate; and Etta with her English blood and active nature was never
tired of chasing them, though now and then a little afraid of meeting
with snakes.
A great deal of this forest had not been cleared; but close by the path
the Governor had had much of the undergrowth cut away, and lower down he
had planted a grove of orange-trees, whose green fruit Etta and Felipa
loved to pick; and round about was a lovely wild garden where grew
sensitive plants and scarlet-flowered balisiers and climbing
|
CHIEF, _John Fiske_ 418
WE ARE GRATEFUL, LAFAYETTE! 420
SOME OF WASHINGTON’S HAIR, _T. R. Ybarra_ 421
WELCOME! FRIEND OF AMERICA! 422
SEPTEMBER 24
JOHN MARSHALL, THE EXPOUNDER OF
THE CONSTITUTION
HE HAD A DEEP SENSE OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION,
_Justice Joseph Story_ 426
THE BOY OF THE FRONTIER, _Albert J. Beveridge_ 427
In a Log Cabin
Off to the Blue Ridge
Making an American
Give Me Liberty!
THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT, _Horace Binney_ 433
SERVING THE CAUSE, _Henry Flanders_ 434
AT VALLEY FORGE, _William Henry Rawle_ 435
SILVER HEELS, _J. B. Thayer_ 436
WITHOUT BREAD, _John Marshall’s Sister_ 437
HIS MOTHER, _Sallie E. Marshall Hardy_ 438
HIS FATHER, _Justice Joseph Story_ 438
THREE STORIES, _James B. Thayer_ 439
What Was in the Saddlebags
Eating Cherries
Learned in the Law of Nations
THE CONSTITUTION 442
EXPOUNDING THE CONSTITUTION, _Chief Justice Waite_ 444
THE GREAT CHIEF JUSTICE, _Horace Binney_ 446
Respected by All
The True Man
WHAT OF THE CONSTITUTION? _Washington_, _Bolivar_,
_Webster_, _Lincoln_ 448
ENVOY 450
APPENDIX
I. Programme of Stories from the History of the United States 453
II. Story Programme of South America’s Struggle for Independence 460
SUBJECT INDEX 465
ILLUSTRATIONS
BREAKFAST WITH THE CHILDREN AT MOUNT VERNON _Frontispiece_
COLUMBUS EXAMINES THE PEARLS 18
ROOSEVELT BREAKING “DEVIL” 50
JOHN BILLINGTON BROUGHT ON THE SHOULDERS OF AN INDIAN 136
FRANKLIN AND THE KITE EXPERIMENT 170
“HE’S BEAUTIFUL” 182
“‘TREASON! TREASON!’ CRIED SOME OF THE EXCITED MEMBERS” 318
PAUL JONES HOISTING THE STARS AND STRIPES 362
_Drawn by Frank T. Merrill_
OCTOBER 12
COLUMBUS AND DISCOVERER’S DAY
_The Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristobal Colon, High Admiral of the
Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the Islands and Tierra Firma._
COLUMBUS
_“My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout Mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why you shall say at break of day,
Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!”_
_Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
A light! A light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit Flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a World, he gave that World
Its grandest lesson--
“On! Sail on!”_
_From_ JOAQUIN MILLER’S _Columbus_
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was born in Italy, about 1451
First landed on an island of America, October 12, 1492
Sighted South America, 1498
Was sent in chains to Spain, 1500
Returned from his Fourth Voyage, 1504
He died, May 20, 1506
His name in Spanish is Cristobal Colon.
THE SEA OF DARKNESS
Before America was ever heard of, over four hundred years ago, a boy
lived in Genoa the Proud City.
He was just one of hundreds of boys in that beautiful Italian town,
whose palaces, marble villas, and churches climbed her picturesque
hillsides. The boy’s name was Christopher Columbus.
Whenever he could leave his father’s workshop, where he was learning to
comb wool, for his father was a weaver, how eagerly the boy must have
run down to the wharfs and sat there watching the ships come and go.
They came from all those parts of the world which people knew about
then, from Iceland and England, from European and Asiatic ports, and
from North Africa. Caravels, galleys, and galleons, and sailing craft of
all kinds, came laden with the wealth that made Genoa one of the richest
cities of her time.
The sailors, who lounged on the wharfs, spun wonderful yarns. They told
how beyond the Pillars of Hercules which guarded the straits of
Gibraltar, there rolled a vast, unknown sea, called the Atlantic Ocean
or the Sea of Darkness.
No one, they said, had ever crossed it. No one knew what lay beyond it.
All was mystery. And any mariners, the sailors said, who had ventured
far out on its black waters had never returned.
Fearful things had happened to such mariners, the sailors added, for the
Sea of Darkness swarmed with spectres, devils, and imps. And when night
fell, slimy monsters crawled and swam in its boiling waves. Among these
monsters, was an enormous nautilus large enough to crush a whole ship in
its squirming arms, and a serpent fifty leagues long with flaming eyes
and horse’s mane. Sea-elephants, sea-lions, and sea-tigers, fed in beds
of weeds. Harpies and winged terrors flew over the surface of the water.
And horrible, they said, was the fate which overtook the ship of any
foolhardy mariners who ventured too far out on that gloomy ocean. A
gigantic hand was thrust up through the waves, and grasped the ship. A
polypus, spouting two water-spouts as high as the sky, made such a
whirlpool that the vessel, spinning round and round like a top, was
sucked down into the roaring abyss.
These frightful sea-yarns and many like them, the sailors told about the
Atlantic Ocean, and people believed them. But the eyes of the boy
Columbus, as he sat listening, must have sparkled as he longed to
explore those mysterious waters of the Sea of Darkness, and follow them
to the very edge of the world.
For all that lay to the west of the Azores, was a great and fascinating
mystery, when Columbus was a boy, before America was discovered.
THE FORTUNATE ISLES
Listen now to some of the stories that the Irish sailors who visited
Genoa, told when Columbus was a boy. And people in those days, believed
them to be true.
They told how far, far in the West, where the sun set in crimson
splendour, lay the Terrestrial Paradise from which Adam and Eve were
driven. And other wonder tales the sailors told.
One was the enchanting tale of Maeldune, the Celtic Knight, who seeking
his father’s murderer, sailed over the wide Atlantic in a coracle of
skins lapped threefold, one over the other.
Many were the wonder-islands that Maeldune and his comrades visited--the
Island of the Silvern Column; the Island of the Flaming Rampart; the
Islands of the Monstrous Ants, and the Giant Birds; the Islands of the
Fierce Beasts, the Fiery Swine, and the Little Cat; the Islands of the
Black Mourners, the Glass Bridge, and the Spouting Water; the Islands of
the Red Berries, and the Magic Apples; and the islands of many other
wonders.
Many were the strange adventures that Maeldune had in enchanted castles
with beautiful Queens and lovely damsels, with monstrous birds,
sleep-giving potions, and magic food.
And the Irish sailors told, also, of good St. Brandan who set sail in a
coracle, and discovered the Fortunate Isles. There he dwelt in blessed
happiness, they said:--
“_And his voice was low as from other worlds, and his eyes were sweet;_
_And his white hair sank to his heels, and his white beard
fell to his feet._”
And still another tale the Irish sailors told, a tale of Fairy Land,
called the Land of Youth. Thither once went Usheen the Irish Bard.
It happened on a sweet, misty morning that Usheen saw a slender
snow-white steed come pacing along the shore of Erin. Silver were his
shoes, and a nodding crest of gold was on his head. Upon his back was
seated a Fairy Maiden crowned with gold, and wrapped in a trailing
mantle adorned with stars of red gold.
Weirdly but sweetly she smiled, and sang an Elfin song; while over sea
and shore there fell a dreamy silence. Through the fine mist she urged
on her steed, singing sweeter and ever sweeter as she came nearer and
nearer to Usheen.
She drew rein before him. His friends saw him spring upon the steed, and
fold the Fairy Maiden in his arms. She shook the bridle which rang forth
like a chime of bells, and swiftly they sped over the water and across
the sea, the snow-white steed running lightly over the waves.
They plunged into a golden haze that shrouded them from mortal eyes.
Ghostly towers, castles, and palace-gates loomed dimly before Usheen,
then melted away. A hornless doe bounded near him, chased by a white
hound. They vanished into the haze.
Then a Fairy Damsel rode swiftly past Usheen, holding up a golden apple
to him. Fast behind her, galloped a horseman, his purple cloak streaming
in the still air, a sharp sword glittering in his hand. They, too,
melted mysteriously away.
And soon Usheen himself vanished into the Land of Youth, into Fairy
Land.
These are some of the wonder tales that folk used to tell about the
mysterious Atlantic Ocean, when Columbus was a boy.
THE ABSURD TRUTH
When Columbus was a boy, there was a story told that the Earth was
round. Nearly every one who heard it thought it foolish--absurd.
“The Earth round!” they said; “do we not know that the Earth is flat?
And does not the sun set each night at the edge of the World?”
But young Columbus had a powerful, practical imagination. He believed
there were good reasons to think that the Earth was not flat. He
attended the University of Pavia. He studied astronomy and other
sciences. He learned map-making. He read how the ancient philosophers
thought the Earth to be a sphere and how they had tried to prove their
theory by observing the sun, moon, and stars.
Then, too, there were scholars in Europe, when Columbus was young, who
agreed with the philosophers.
But no scholar or philosopher had ever risked his life in a frail ship
and ventured across the terrible Sea of Darkness to battle with its
horrors, and prove his theory to be fact. The surging billows of the
Atlantic with angry leaping crests of foam, still guarded their mystery.
Young Columbus became a sailor, cruising with his uncle on the
Mediterranean, sometimes chasing pirate ships. When older, he made long
voyages. He learned to navigate a vessel. He visited, so some historians
say, England and Thule. They say, too, that Thule was Iceland. Then if
he visited Iceland, Columbus must have heard the strange tale of how
Leif, son of Erik the Red, the bold Northman, sailed in a single ship
over the Sea of Darkness, and discovered Vinland the Good on the other
side of the Atlantic.
Columbus talked with sailors about their voyages. He heard how the waves
of the Sea of Darkness sometimes cast upon the Islands of the Azores,
gigantic bamboos, queer trees, strange nuts, seeds, carved logs, and
bodies of hideous men with flat faces, the flotsam and jetsam from
unknown lands far to the west.
Columbus’s imagination and spirit of adventure were fired. He became
more eager than ever to explore that vast expanse of water, and learn
what really lay in the mysterious region, where the sun set each night
and from which the sun returned each morning.
“The Earth is not flat,” thought he, “much goes to prove it. India, from
which gold and spices come, is assuredly on the other side. If I can but
cross the Sea of Darkness, I shall reach Tartary and Cathay the Golden
Country of Kublai Khan. I shall have found a Western Passage to Asia. I
will bring back treasure; but more than all else I shall be able to
carry the Gospel of Christ to the heathen.”
For Columbus, you must know, was one of the most devout Christian men of
his time.
And he signed his name to letters, “Christ Bearing.” _Christopher_ in
the Greek language, means Christ-Bearer. Perhaps, he was thinking of
the beautiful legend of St. Christopher, who on his mighty shoulders
bore the Christ Child across the swelling river, even as he, Christopher
Columbus, humbly wished to bear Christ’s Gospel across the raging waters
of the Sea of Darkness.
CATHAY THE GOLDEN
Where was Cathay the Golden?
Who was Kublai Khan?
One of Columbus’s favourite books was written by Marco Polo, the great
Venetian traveller, who served Kublai, Grand Khan of Tartary in Asia.
Cathay was the name which Marco Polo gave to China.
In his book, Marco Polo told of many marvels. In the chief city of
Cathay the Golden, ruled over by Kublai Khan, stood the Grand Khan’s
palace. Its walls were covered with gold and silver, and adorned with
figures of dragons, beasts, and birds. Its lofty roof was coloured
outside with vermilion, yellow, green, blue, and every other hue, all
shining like crystal.
To this city of Cathay, were brought the most costly articles in the
world, gold, silver, precious jewels, spices, and rare silks. The Grand
Khan had so many plates, cups, and ewers of gold and silver, that no one
would believe it without seeing them. He had five thousand elephants in
magnificent trappings, bearing chests on their backs filled with
priceless treasure. He had also, a vast number of camels with rich
housings.
At the New Year Feast, the people made presents to Kublai Khan of gold,
silver, pearls, precious stones, and rich stuffs. They presented him,
also, with many beautiful snow-white horses handsomely caparisoned.
These and other wonderful things, did Marco Polo write about in his
book, and Columbus read them all.
* * * * *
At last the time came, when Columbus was fully determined to discover a
Western Passage, and thus open a path through the Ocean from Europe to
Asia.
The Spanish courtiers laughed at Columbus; they called him a fool and
madman to believe that the Sea of Darkness might be crossed. But as the
years of waiting went by, Columbus grew stronger in his determination.
The story of his many years of patient but determined waiting in Spain,
of his pleadings with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, for money, men,
and ships with which to cross the Ocean Sea, is told in “Good Stories
for Great Holidays.”
And in “Good Stories for Great Holidays,” it is told how at last
Columbus was befriended by the Friar Juan Perez. There also may be
found the stories of Columbus and the Egg, of his little son Diego at La
Rabida, of Queen Isabella pledging her jewels, of Columbus’s sailing
across the Sea of Darkness, of the mutiny, of his faith, perseverance,
and wisdom, and how at last he sighted a cluster of beautiful green
islands, lying like emeralds in the blue waters of the Atlantic--all
these stories may be read in “Good Stories for Great Holidays.”
THE EMERALD ISLANDS
_Columbus’s Day, October 12, 1492_
It was with songs of praise, that Columbus first landed on one of those
emerald islands of the New World.
And what delightful islands they were, sparkling with streams, and
filled with trees of great height. There were fruits, flowers, and honey
in abundance. Among the large leaves and bright blossoms, flocks of
birds sang and called. There were cultivated fields of Indian corn.
And there were savages, naked dark-skinned folk, who peeped from behind
trees, or ran frightened away. Later they grew bolder, and traded with
Columbus and his men. Some of the savages smoked rolls of dried leaves.
This was the first tobacco that white men had ever seen. Thus Columbus
and his men discovered Indian corn, and tobacco.
As Columbus sailed along the shores of the islands, he watched anxiously
for the crystal-shining domes of Kublai Khan’s Palace to rise among the
trees. But no Cathay the Golden gleamed among the green, no elephants in
trappings of cloth-of-gold, paced the sands.
Instead, all was wild though so beautiful. The only people were the
dark-skinned ones, whom Columbus named _Indians_; for he was sure that
he had come across the Sea of Darkness by the Western Passage to India.
THE MAGNIFICENT RETURN
It was a day of great rejoicing when Columbus returned to Spain. The
whole country rose up to do him honour. Bells were rung, mass was said,
and vast crowds cheered him as he passed along streets and highways.
No one called him a fool and madman then. Had he not crossed the Sea of
Darkness and returned alive? Neither nautilus, gigantic hand, nor
polypus had dared to harm him. The Sea of Darkness was a mysterious
gloomy sea no longer, instead it was the wide Atlantic Ocean, a safe
pathway for brave mariners and good ships, a pathway leading to new
lands of gold and spices far toward the setting sun. And so all Spain
did honour to Columbus.
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella eagerly awaited him at Barcelona. He
entered that city with pomp and in procession. Balconies, windows, roofs
were thronged. Crowds surged through the streets to gaze in wonder on
that strange procession, so spectacular, so magnificent.
First came the dark-skinned savage men, in paint and gold ornaments;
after them walked men bearing live parrots of every colour; then others
came carrying rich glittering coronets and bracelets, together with
beautiful fruits and strange vegetables and plants, such as the people
of Europe had never dreamed could exist.
Then passed the great discoverer himself, Christopher Columbus,
a-horseback, and surrounded by a cavalcade of the most brilliant
courtiers of Spain.
He dismounted, and entered the saloon where the King and Queen sat
beneath a canopy of brocade. He modestly greeted them on bended knee.
They raised him most graciously, and bade him be seated in their
presence.
After they had heard his tale with wonder, and had examined the
treasures that he had brought with him from beyond the Sea of Darkness,
the King and Queen together with their whole Court knelt in thanksgiving
to God.
To reward Columbus, his Sovereigns bestowed upon him the titles of Don
Christopher Columbus, Our Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and Viceroy and
Governor of the Islands discovered in the Indies. They also promised to
make him ruler over any other islands and mainland he might discover.
Columbus immediately began to prepare for another voyage. With a fleet
of seventeen ships, bearing supplies and colonists, he sailed across the
Sea of Darkness once more to the islands of the New World. He planted a
colony there. He discovered other islands. And he still kept on
searching diligently for Cathay the Golden.
Turbulent adventurers, rapacious gold-hunters, and vicious men, were
among the colonists. And Columbus, in the name of his Sovereigns, with
great difficulty ruled over them all.
THE FATAL PEARLS
_Tierra Firme_
It was in May, 1498. The fleet of Admiral Don Christopher Columbus, in
the name of the Holy Trinity, set sail from Spain for a third voyage
across the Atlantic.
It was no longer a Sea of Darkness to Columbus, but a sure pathway to
golden lands. There he still hoped to find the Earthly Paradise from
which Adam and Eve had been driven. And there too, he still expected to
discover Cathay the Golden in Tartary, and Cipango, the great island of
the western sea, which we call Japan.
His ships sailed on, now plunging through the lifting billows, now lying
becalmed on glassy waters under the fierce rays of the tropic sun, and
now moving through a region of balmy airs and light refreshing breezes.
July arrived, yet he had not sighted land. The fierce heat of the sun
had sprung the seams of the ships. The provisions were rancid. There was
scarcely any sweet water left in the casks. The anxious, watchful
Admiral scanned the horizon.
On the last day of the month, came a shout from the masthead:--“Land!”
And Columbus beheld the peaks of three mountains rising from the sea,
outlined sharply against the sky. Then he and his men, lifting up their
voices, sang anthems of praise and repeated prayers of thanksgiving.
As the ships drew nearer to the three peaks, Columbus perceived that
they rose from an island and were united at their base.
“Three in one,” he said, and named the island after the Holy Trinity in
whose name he had set sail. For he had vowed before leaving Spain, to
name the first new land he saw after the Trinity. That is why that
island, to-day, is called Trinidad.
They filled their casks there. Then onward they sailed, skirting the
coast of Trinidad, hoping to find a harbour to put into while repairing
the ships. Soon, they saw a misty headland opposite the island.
“It is another island,” said Columbus.
It was no island. Wonderful to relate, Columbus had just discovered a
new Country.
It was the coastline of a vast southern continent. It was _Tierra
Firme_. It was South America!
_The Pearls_
Young Indian braves, graceful and handsome, their black hair straight
and long, their heads wrapped in brilliant scarfs, other bright scarfs
wound round their middles, came in a canoe to visit Columbus’s ships.
Soon after this visit, Columbus set sail again, not knowing that he had
just sighted one of the richest and greatest continents on earth.
Sailing past the mouths of the mighty Orinoco River, pouring out their
torrents with angry roar into the Caribbean Sea, Columbus skirted what
is now called Venezuela.
Other friendly Indians came to his ships. It was then that Columbus saw
for the first time the pearls which were to help ruin him, and which
were to work wretchedness and death for so many poor Indian folk.
Among the friendly Indians were some who wore bracelets of lustrous
pearls. The gold and spices got by Columbus on his former voyages were
of slight beauty compared with those strings of magnificent pearls.
Columbus examined them eagerly. He longed for some to send back to Queen
Isabella, in order to prove to her what a rich land he had just
discovered.
He questioned the Indians. Where had they got the pearls? They came from
their own land, and from a country to the north and west, they answered.
Columbus was eager to go thither. But first he sent men ashore to barter
for some of the bracelets. With bright bits of earthenware, with
buttons, scissors, and needles, they bought quantities of the pearls
from the delighted Indians, to whom such articles were worth more than
gold and jewels of which they had plenty.
Then Columbus, hoisting sail, ran farther along the coast purchasing
pearls until he had half a bushel or so of the lustrous sea-jewels, some
of them of very large size.
He named a great gulf, the Gulf of Pearls. He discovered other islands,
among them the island of Margarita, which means a pearl.
After which he turned his ships toward Santo Domingo, not knowing how
tragic a thing was to befall him there, partly on account of the
pearls.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS EXAMINES THE PEARLS]
_The Curse of the Pearls_
Those fatal sea-jewels had already begun their evil work.
While Columbus was tarrying to collect them, a rebellion fomented by bad
men who had taken advantage of his absence, had broken out in the Island
of Santo Domingo. When Columbus reached there, he suppressed it. But his
enemies hastened to send lying reports about him to the Spanish Court.
And the courtiers, who were jealous of his high position, wealth, and
power, urged King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to have him deposed.
One of their accusations against him was, that he had held back from his
Sovereigns their rightful portion of the rich find of pearls.
So at last, the royal edict went forth that the very magnificent Don
Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of
the Indies, should be tried and, if found guilty, deposed and returned
to Spain.
The man sent to do all this, and govern in Columbus’s stead, was named
Bobadilla.
Bobadilla arrived at Santo Domingo with royal commands for Columbus to
surrender all power to him, and to obey him in everything. He caused him
to be arrested and thrown into prison. He tried and condemned him. He
ordered him put into chains. But no one could be found to rivet the
chains until one of Columbus’s own servants, “a shameless and graceless
cook,” did so with glee.
Then Bobadilla reigned in Columbus’s place over the Indies.
Meanwhile, the grand old Admiral broken in spirit, carped at by his
foes, was placed in manacles aboard a caravel.
Bobadilla had given orders that the chains should not be removed, but
the humane master of the ship offered to break them.
“Nay,” said Columbus with dignity, “my Sovereigns have commanded me to
submit, and Bobadilla has chained me. I will wear these irons until by
royal order they are removed. And I shall keep them as relics and
memorials of the reward of my services.”
But when Queen Isabella learned how he had been brought back to Spain in
shackles, she was greatly angered. Both Sovereigns commanded that he
should be immediately released. And when the venerable Columbus grown
old in her service, entered her presence, Queen Isabella wept bitterly.
Columbus fell at her feet, unable to utter a word, so great was his
sorrow.
Both Sovereigns promised to restore all his titles and the wealth which
had been taken from him by force. But though Bobadilla was finally
deposed from power because of his treatment of Columbus and because of
his evil rule, yet the royal promise was not fulfilled. His titles and
property were never restored to Columbus.
Instead, he was again sent overseas, on a fourth voyage of discovery.
With four miserable caravels manned by only a hundred and fifty men, the
gray-headed, weary Columbus set forth once more still hoping to discover
the country of Kublai Khan, and find the Earthly Paradise. And this time
Columbus took with him his younger son, Ferdinand, who was thirteen
years old.
QUEEN ISABELLA’S PAGE
Off to find Kublai Khan, to drink from his golden cups, to eat from his
silvern plates, to ride his elephants, to visit in his great palace,
and, perhaps, to discover the Earthly Paradise--what more thrilling
adventure could a boy want?
So Ferdinand Columbus, Queen Isabella’s page, eager for adventure, set
sail with his father Columbus, to cross the Sea of Darkness and explore
beyond the emerald islands.
For, while his father, on his former voyage, had been gathering pearls
among the Pearl Islands of the New World, the boy Ferdinand, amid the
splendour of the Spanish Court, had been waiting upon Queen Isabella.
But now, what a change! Ferdinand was off across the heaving, foaming
Sea of Darkness in a small caravel tossed about like a cockleshell on
the billows. A tempest with rain, thunder, and lightning arose. It
struck Columbus’s wretched caravels. They were buffeted by the wind,
their sails were torn, their rigging, cables, and boats were lost. Food
was washed overboard. The sailors were terrified, they ran about making
religious vows and confessing their sins to each other. Even the boldest
was pale with fear.
“But the distress of my son who was with me, grieved me to the soul...”
wrote Columbus afterward, “for he was but thirteen years old, and he
enduring so much toil for so long a time. Our Lord, however, gave him
strength to enable him to encourage the rest. He worked as if he had
been eighty years at sea.”
But there was more to trouble plucky Ferdinand than the storm at sea.
Columbus, his father, fell sick near to death. There was no one who
could direct the ships’ course, but Columbus himself. So he had a little
cabin rigged up on deck. Lying there, he gave his orders. Presently, to
Ferdinand’s joy, he grew better.
Meanwhile, what was happening to the wicked Bobadilla? That same tempest
was doing great things. It was buffeting, lashing, and wrecking a
caravel which was taking Bobadilla to Spain. The ship, plunging under
the howling, raging, black waters, sank to the bottom of the ocean,
taking Bobadilla with it, and the treasure he had stolen from Columbus.
But Columbus’s own caravels won safely through the storm and across the
Caribbean Sea. They drew near to an unknown shore--the coast of Central
America.
There is not space here in which to tell of the many adventures of
Columbus and his men, nor of all the things that Ferdinand saw. There
were other storms. At one time, the seas ran high and terrific, foaming
like a caldron. The sky burned like a furnace, the lightning played with
such fury that the waves were red like blood.
The coast of Central America was thickly peopled with savages. Some of
them were richly clothed, and wore ornaments of gold and coral, and
carried golden mirrors fastened round their necks. Ferdinand saw other
savages in trees living like wild birds, their huts built on sticks
placed across from bough to bough. He saw strange beasts, beautiful
birds, delicious fruits, brilliant flowers, great apes, and alligators
basking in the rivers.
There were fights with natives, a massacre of some of his father’s men,
there was starvation and misery. Then Columbus, after having sailed down
the coast and back again, turned the ships homeward.
Then came the most terrible adventure of all. The ships were riddled by
worms, their sides were rotten, and the water was pouring through them
like a sieve. Columbus reached the lonely island of Jamaica, just in
time to drive his two remaining ships on the beach, and save them from
sinking.
There for many months Ferdinand was marooned with his father and the
men. There was more starvation, a mutiny, and adventures with savages.
Then came the exciting rescue by two caravels.
Such were the adventures of Queen Isabella’s page. But he went back to
Spain without seeing Cathay the Golden and Kublai Khan’s palace.
THE TWIN CITIES
While Columbus was exploring the coast of Central America, he fell sick
of a fever. He had a dream. He tells us of this dream in his own
letters.
He dreamed that a compassionate Voice spoke to him, bidding him believe
in God, and serve Him who had had him from infancy in His constant and
watchful care, and who had chosen him to unlock the barriers of the
Ocean Sea.
This Voice said many things to Columbus, adding these words, “Even now
He partially shows thee the reward of so many toils and dangers
incurred by thee in the service of others. Fear not but trust.”
And even then, Columbus, though he did not know it, was actually seeing
the land where his hopes were to come true. For to-day, we Americans
know that while Columbus was exploring inlets and river-mouths on the
coast of Central America searching for the Western Passage to Asia, he
entered Limon Bay of Panama. He even sailed part way up the Chagres
River.
And if his melancholy eager eyes might have been opened, what a vision
he would have had of the future! He would have beheld the Caribbean Sea
beating on civilized shores. He would have seen Twin Cities rising,
their pleasant white, palm-shaded houses smiling in the sun, the Twin
Cities of Cristobal and Colon--Christopher and Columbus--proud to bear
his famous name. He would have seen those Twin Cities guarding _a
Western Passage to Asia_.
He would have perceived in his vision ships, greater than any Spanish
caravels, sliding through a Canal the wonder of the world, on their way
to and from Asia the Golden.
* * * * *
But as it was, in a miserable little caravel, tempest-racked, with masts
sprung and sides worm-eaten, the weary disappointed Columbus with the
boy Ferdinand, returned at last to Spain.
And about two years later, in the City of Valladolid, “the Grand Old
Admiral,” who had given a New World to the Old, died almost in poverty.
As he passed away, he murmured, “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my
spirit.”
THE PEARLS AGAIN
The curse of the pearls still held strong after Columbus’s death. News
of the discovery of the Pearl Islands in the New World, spread rapidly
through Europe. Many cruel and greedy pearl-hunters hastened to set out
for the islands.
They pillaged the native villages. They hunted the Indians like wild
beasts. They forced them to work in the mines. But, worst of all, they
made them dive into the deep sea for pearls, under the most horrible
conditions.
Then it was that the compassionate friend of the Indians, the humane
priest Bartolome de Las Casas, took up their cause and pleaded for them
with the Spanish Crown. But Spain was too far away for the Crown to
control Spanish officials in America, and do much to lessen the
sufferings of the natives.
Thus sorrow and desolation followed the finding of the sea-jewels. In
time, they became a rich part of the cargoes of the Treasure Galleons.
And they forged one of the first links in the chain of oppression which
bound all Spanish America for over three hundred years.
For how this chain was broken by the great Liberators, read:--
_Miranda, the Flaming Son of Liberty_, page 325; _San Martin, the
Protector_, page 235; _O’Higgins, First Soldier, First Citizen_,
page 393; _Bolivar, the Liberator_, page 371.
OCTOBER 14
WILLIAM PENN THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA
_As Justice is a preserver, so it is a better procurer of Peace,
than War._
WILLIAM PENN
_Within the Land of Penn,
The sectary yielded to the citizen,
And peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men._
_Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung
The air to madness, and no steeple flung
Alarums down from bells at midnight rung._
_The Land slept well. The Indian from his face
Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place
Of battle-marches, sped the peaceful chase._
* * * * *
_The desert blossomed round him; wheatfields rolled
Beneath the warm wind, waves of green and gold,
The planted ear returned its hundredfold._
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
WILLIAM PENN was born in London, October 14, 1644
Received the Charter, granting him Pennsylvania, 1681
Composed the Plan for the Peace of Europe, 1693
He
|
the new building
when we get it. We hope to get a Carnegie building, you know," Algernon
went on calmly while Catherine caught her breath. "He always insists
that the townspeople do their share."
"The young people will use the library if we have good novels,"
Catherine put in helpfully, when Algernon's imagination showed signs of
exhaustion. "And then we can get them to reading more serious books by
and by."
Then Catherine too, subsided, and the clock behind its painted glass
door ticked obtrusively. Presently Miss Ainsworth opened her thin lips.
"I'm perfectly willin' 't you should have the books," she said grimly.
"They ain't no manner o' use to me, and never was. I don't care to have
my name wrote inside 'em, though. And I ain't perticular about havin' it
buried under any corner stones. But I'll be much obliged if you'll take
'em away soon, for I've just subscribed to a set of me-mores of
missionaries an agent was sellin' yesterday, and I'd like that top shelf
to put 'em on."
The enthusiasts, feeling a trifle quenched, but yet pleased at having
accomplished their purpose, rose and withdrew with what grace they could
summon, mingling thanks with promises to remove the undesired literature
as soon as possible.
"Now for Judge Arthur and the building," sighed Catherine, as they
reached the street again. "He can't be any more gloomy about it than she
was, and maybe he'll do what we want."
The judge was not in his office, so they sat down to wait in the stuffy
room where dusty books and papers sprawled and spilled over desk, table
and the top of a big black safe. Algernon attached himself to a grimy
magazine, having first jotted down Miss Ainsworth's gift in his
ever-present note-book. Catherine, looking about her, soon found herself
unable to restrain her housewifely fingers. She was busily sweeping the
dust off the big table with a dilapidated feather duster, and putting
the papers into trim piles when the door opened and Judge Arthur, little
and weazened and gray, slipped softly in.
"There!" said Catherine half aloud. "That is infinitely better. I wish I
dared throw half of these papers away. I know they're perfectly
worthless." She took a step toward the big wire basket, as though to
bring it conveniently near.
"Not to-day, Miss Catherine," and the judge took her hand and bowed over
it. "Is this what they teach you at college?"
Catherine laughed. She had never been afraid of Judge Arthur.
"They teach us all the womanly graces, Your Honor," she answered, "and
not least among them is tidiness. I should have had you looking
beautifully neat in another five minutes."
Judge Arthur shivered. "And you would doubtless have made a bonfire of
this," picking up one dog's-eared document, "old Mr. Witherton's will;
and this, a deed to an estate; and this, a bit of important evidence in
a criminal case."
"Well," Catherine argued, "they shouldn't be left about so carelessly,
under paper-weights and ash-trays. I do want to do some housecleaning
for you, Judge Arthur. That's why I'm here this afternoon. Not just an
office, either, but a whole building."
The judge placed a chair for her, dusting it elaborately with Mr.
Witherton's will as he did so.
"Tell me all about it," he invited.
Catherine took the chair, her fresh white gown contrasting as sharply
with its shabby leather as her warm youth did with the judge's withered
look. He watched her with keen, appreciating eyes. Algernon in his
corner read on, and Catherine thought best not to disturb him. Men found
it harder to meet Algernon on fair ground than women did.
The judge asked a pertinent question or two as Catherine unfolded the
great scheme; then he drew a check-book from under a broken-backed
dictionary.
"There is another twenty-five for your project," he said, as he signed
his name with a flourish surprisingly big for so cramped a little man;
"and the room is at your disposal for six months, rent free. I would
have it cleaned, but you seem to delight in doing such work yourself. I
can assure you that the Three R's will back you up. The next meeting is
called for a week from to-day."
Catherine's face wore its blithest smile. "You are a dear to do so
much," she declared. "I was sure you'd be interested. If you ever want
any cleaning done, _anywhere_, please let me do it!"
Algernon had to be aroused almost forcibly, and Catherine carried him
away, still so lost in the article on the jury system he had been
reading that he could not quite take in the wonderful success of the
call. He followed Catherine's eager steps to the little square frame
building a few blocks up Main Street, and turned the key she gave him.
It was a dingy little room, all dirt and cobwebs. A few old straw hats
and wire frames piled among some big green boxes indicated the last
occupant's business, and a scurrying of tiny feet, only too clearly, the
present occupants' nature. Catherine lifted her nose in dainty scorn,
and her skirts in private apprehension.
"We shall have to get a lot of girls and come down here to-morrow and
clean up; but let's get out for now," she said, and Algernon consented.
They strolled along the street till they came to the little park, and
there, sitting on its one green bench, talked over their list of assets.
"I keep having ideas all the time," cried Catherine. "Listen! We must go
over to Hampton and visit the library there, and find out how they do
things. When can you?"
"Any time. I was just thinking I must ask Mr. Morse to give us a good
write-up."
"Of course. He'll be interested. Let's go over now. Or perhaps you'd
better go alone. I don't know him, and I never was in a newspaper
office."
"Afraid of the devil?" jested Algernon, getting up and leaving her.
Catherine watched him disappear into the office across the street.
"He walks better already," she thought with pride. "And he never made
such a frivolous remark as that before. I do think this library will be
the making of Algernon."
Back he came in a minute or two, with a promise of plenty of space in
the _Courier_, and a free atlas.
"One they had in the office, of course; but we ought to have one, and
every little helps. He was awfully interested and said it would be a
fine thing for the town, and he'd boost every way he could."
"Aren't people lovely?" sighed Catherine rapturously. "I believe even
Miss Ainsworth was more enthusiastic than she appeared to be. And we
haven't even mentioned it to the Boat Club yet."
"Or the Three R's. They are chiefly Boat Club fathers and mothers."
"We must see the school superintendent."
"The ministers will announce it in the churches."
"Yes, we must see them to-morrow. O dear, I am so tired! What time is it
anyway?"
Algernon drew a big watch from his pocket.
"Six-fifteen."
Catherine started up in horror.
"O! And I forgot all about helping with supper. What will mother think?"
Algernon watched her hasten away up the hill, and turned toward his own
home with some anxiety. He had to coax his mother to take an interest in
the new undertaking, and wished the operation over, but he squared his
shoulders and determined to do his best and do it that very evening.
Catherine, for her part, spent the evening discussing the plan with her
already sympathetic mother.
"It almost takes my breath away, Mother dear," she confided as they sat
on the porch in the dusk, watching the fireflies, "the way people fall
in with suggestions. It didn't occur to me before that _I_ could
start things going. But at college I had only to see that something
should be done, and then to say so; and it almost always was done. And I
was more surprised than anybody!"
Dr. Helen smiled, and put out her hand to stroke Catherine's head, which
rested on her knee.
"They were pretty good ideas, I judge."
"They were perfectly simple ones. Just little things like having the
mail-boxes assigned alphabetically, instead of by the numbers of the
rooms. It saved the mail girls a lot of work, and Miss Watkins was glad
of the suggestion. I helped Alice sort mail, you know,--she does it to
help pay her way. And then the little notices on the bulletin board were
always getting lost under the big ones, and I was on a Students'
committee and often had notices to post, and I got them to make a rule
that all notices should be written on a certain size sheet, and the
board looks much neater now. And then there weren't any door-blocks.
Aunt Clara told me that they had them at Vassar, little pads hanging
outside your door, with a pencil attached, and if you are out, your
callers leave their messages, you know. It seemed as though we needed
something like that, for some of us don't like walking into people's
rooms, and hunting around for paper. So I started that, and they all
took it up in no time. They were only little things, but it was
remembering a lot of little things like that that made me dare try to
get the library. It's what we need, and I do believe it's going to come
easily."
"Mr. Kittredge asked me to-day if I thought you would take the infant
class in the Sunday-school for the summer. Mrs. Henley is to be away. I
told him I'd ask you." Dr. Helen waited.
Catherine was silent a moment.
"Do you know, Mother, it seems as though you just get started doing one
thing and you see another one ahead of you. If I am going around asking
every one to help the library, I don't see how I can refuse to help when
I'm asked! But I never did teach anybody. Who is in the class?"
"I asked him that. He says some of the children are rather old for it,
but the school is too small, or rather the teachers are too few, to make
another class. So the ages run from the Osgood twins--"
"O, Peter and Perdita! I do love them. They are such a droll little
pair. I beg your pardon, dear. I didn't mean to interrupt. From Peter
and Perdita to--to Elsmere, possibly?"
Dr. Helen laughed. "Exactly! Could you undertake Elsmere?"
Catherine sat up straight. "Yes, I could. Elsmere is unlucky, just as
Algernon is. Everybody expects to be bored by Algernon and bothered or
shocked by Elsmere. I know he is a little 'limb o' Satan,' but if I'm
going to take one brother on my shoulders, I might as well take them
both. When does Mr. Kittredge want me to begin?"
"Not this week. You can go and see Mrs. Henley and talk it over with
her. You're showing a fine public spirit, Daughter mine, but let me
suggest that you really can't do much work for the town this summer,
especially if you expect to entertain guests! I don't approve of
vacations that are busier than the school year!"
"O, the library won't take long to start, if it starts at all. And
Algernon will run it and his being busy will give me several extra hours
weekly! And the children will only be Sundays. I promised Alice I'd do
some Bible study this summer, anyway, and it might as well be done for
that. She thought I was something of a heathen because I knew
Shakespeare better than the Bible."
"That only means you know Shakespeare very well, however. By the way,
would you like that little old set in the guest-room for your library? I
put it there, because there wasn't a shelf free anywhere else, and we
are rather overstocked with the gentleman's writings in the rest of the
house. Clara Lyndesay laughed at finding them there. She says she is
going to write an essay some day on guest-room literature, and its
implications."
Catherine laughed, too. "It would be delicious if she did. I wish she
would write things, Mother, and not just paint pictures. Do you suppose
there's any hope of her coming back to this country this summer?"
"I shouldn't be greatly surprised. She plans to spend some weeks on the
Isle of Wight, and that is so near this side that perhaps we can lure
her over. An aunt left her a place in New England, you know, which she
means to fit up for a studio sometime. Father should be coming home now.
Let's go down to the corner and see if we can see him. O, my daughter!"
as Catherine sprang up and took her mother's arm, "how you have grown
beyond me!"
"It's just my head that's above you," said Catherine, tucking her
mother's arm into her own. "It's the fashion nowadays for girls to be
taller than their mothers, but they don't begin to come up to them in
mind and manners. Miss Eliot told us so in History!"
"How about their hearts?" asked Dr. Helen.
"I don't know about the other girls', but my heart is just as high as my
mother's!" And Catherine bent her head the least little bit, and kissed
her mother's cheek, as Dr. Harlow, turning the corner, met them.
CHAPTER THREE
ORGANIZATION
The "stub" train on the Central was due to leave Winsted at 7:30.
Catherine, having reluctantly left the washing of the breakfast dishes
to the reckless Inga, to whom their quaint blue pattern was as naught,
hurried down the hill and reached the dingy little station as the train
shambled in. Algernon, full of good cheer, because his mother had taken
it into her head to approve his undertaking, gallantly helped her
aboard, and began at once to show a list of questions he had ready to
ask the Hampton librarian.
The train stood still a little longer while a few milk cans were put on,
then whistled, puffed and pulled slowly out. Hampton was only a short
distance from Winsted, and Catherine and Algernon soon got off the
train, and made their way to the library where they were welcomed by the
kindly librarian and her young assistant, who proved to be a Dexter
graduate.
The "stub" train meanwhile jogged and jolted on its way, carrying with
it, fast asleep, the little "limb o' Satan" known as Elsmere Swinburne.
Elsmere could sleep anywhere on the slightest provocation. Deeming it
unwise to make his presence known to his brother until the train was
started beyond recall, he had curled up on a seat behind a large family,
and while waiting his opportunity had fallen asleep. The conductor,
taking him to be one of the overflow from the family in front, paid no
attention to him until after they had left. Then he tried to rouse the
child.
"Wake up, kid! Here, you've gone past your station. Wake up, I say! Gee!
We're running a sleeper on this train to-day, all right," as Elsmere,
lifted by the collar, only sank heavily back on the seat when released.
The conductor, goaded by the jests of the passengers, yelled in the
boy's ear, to no avail. Just as he was abandoning the task in wrath, the
child suddenly popped up, wide awake and interested.
"I want zwieback," he announced.
Mrs. Swinburne, having read in a child-study book that dry food was
bone-building, had brought her youngest up on long crumbly strips of
zwieback, and he was seldom seen without one.
"What you givin' us?" asked the conductor.
"I want zwieback," answered Elsmere cheerfully, in the persistent tone
he had learned to value for its efficacy.
"Where was your ma goin'?" asked the conductor.
"I want zwieback," replied Elsmere.
"Let me try," suggested a soft-voiced little lady. "I talked with his
mother quite a bit while she was on. Want to find your mamma, little
boy, and go to Grandma's and play with all the pigs and chickies?"
"I want zwieback."
"You talked with the woman, did you?" said the conductor. "Did you find
out what her name was?"
"Let me see. Yes. It's Peters. She was talking about going to his
folks', two miles out of Edgewater. She'll be worried to death about
this one."
"I should think she might be," remarked the conductor grimly, "for fear
he'd come back. Here, you young Sweebock, you get off here."
Elsmere obligingly followed to the platform and suffered himself to be
given into the custody of the station agent, to whom he presented his
petition for food.
"A little weak in the upper story," explained the conductor. "His ma had
about as many as she could manage and gettin' off at Edgewater she
forgot this one. Name's Peters, stayin' with old Mis' Peters, two miles
from Edgewater. You wire 'em to meet the express, and then you pass him
back. Tell McWhire not to let him get to sleepin'. He ain't an easy
proposition, when he's gone to Bylow, now I tell you," and the conductor
of No. 5 swung himself aboard.
Elsmere had the time of his life in the two hours before the arrival of
the noon express. The station agent was a sociable soul. He had a
guinea-pig in a box, so delightful to observe that Elsmere forgot his
desire for zwieback and became conversational. He told the agent
the history of the polly-wogs he had raised "till they was all
froggies, only one was deaded." He showed the place where he had
cut his finger in the mower-lawn. He explained how fond he was of
back-horse-saddle-riding, and declared his intention of some day having
"frickers," caressing the agent's own sandy growth with great
admiration. He tried to perform on the telegraph instrument and cried
"Boo" with all his strength at a lady, peering in at the ticket window.
Altogether, Elsmere found traveling very much to his taste. The noon
express stopped for a minute, he was thrust aboard the last car, and a
few minutes later, according to instructions, the newsboy put him off at
Edgewater, with a cheery:
"Here y'are, Bub, and there's Ma and Gramma."
Elsmere had taken a fancy to the newsboy and did not at all wish to stop
at Edgewater. He ran down the track after the retreating train, howling
miserably.
As for "Ma and Gramma," they had been overtaken by the dispatch just as
they were starting to drive out to the farm, and had come in great
perplexity to the station. The wailing baby running down the track
suggested nothing to them, and the agent could give them no
satisfaction. He was locking up his office. There was not another train
to stop till No. 5 should return toward evening. So, still bewildered,
Mrs. Peters and her mother-in-law gave up their fruitless errand and
drove away, taking with them a problem for a lifetime's pondering.
Elsmere, as the train vanished around a curve, sat down on the track for
a while and listened to his own howls. Tiring of that amusement
presently, he strolled back to the station. Outwardly it looked much
like that hospitable one where he had enjoyed life earlier in the day.
This one, however, offered no entertainment beyond wandering about the
platform and the unoccupied waiting-room. Across the street was a little
restaurant. There were pies in the window.
Elsmere obeyed the summons.
"Pie," he said, presenting his nose to the edge of the lunch counter.
"Don't you monkey with anything," snapped a girl from behind the
counter.
"I'm aren't a monkey. I'm are a boy. Want pie," Elsmere answered
sweetly.
"You can't get pie without money," said the girl.
Elsmere felt in his pocket and produced a quarter. Whatever his
failings, Elsmere had a redeeming trait of forehandedness, and had
always on hand a hoard of articles which might be useful in an hour of
need. The quarter bought respect at once and plenty of pie, also a
sandwich, a tall glass of milk and a big "rubber doughnut."
When he had satisfied his hunger, the traveller returned to the depot,
and, lying comfortably in the shade of a baggage truck, indulged in a
siesta, a sleep so light this time, however, that the rolling back of
the baggage-room door shattered it.
Sitting up, Elsmere watched the baggage-man get a tin trunk and a canvas
telescope ready for shipping. Presently the stub train arrived, stopped,
and while the conductor and the agent were exchanging gossip, Elsmere
got inconspicuously aboard, and stowed himself away in a corner, so
successfully that it was not till the brakeman called "Hampton" that the
conductor discovered him.
Swearing softly and scratching his head in mystification, the conductor
stood in the aisle staring at the ubiquitous babe, when a double cry
arose:
"Elsmere, where in thunder?"
"Hullo, Algy!"
The young assistant, who had accompanied Catherine to the station
for the sake of talking over mutual friends at Dexter, looked up in
surprise as the dignified youth who had impressed her greatly by his
intelligence and earnestness suddenly stooped and lifted a dirty,
tear-and-pie-stained little boy in his arms. Catherine laughed. Elsmere
could not greatly surprise her.
"Miss Adams," she said, "you have shown your interest in the new Winsted
library. Let me introduce you to its mascot."
* * * * *
The morning after the Hampton expedition, Catherine struggled awake from
dreams of book-lined trains, with Miss Adams and Elsmere as engineer and
fireman, to open her eyes gratefully upon the substantial reality of her
own great room in its fresh bareness. At the foot of her big carved bed,
the broad window open to its utmost seemed to bring all out-of-doors
within the room. A squirrel whisked his tail across the sill as he
scurried in and out of the branches of the window-oak where a grosbeak
and a wren chatted sociably. The sunshine through the leafy boughs
lighted the bare floor and rested on the great writing table in the
center of the room and on the high dark dresser. Catherine's gaze,
following the light, rested at last upon the low bookcases filling the
chimney corners.
"I can spare one _Child's Garden of Verses_," she mused, "and that
second _Little Women_. I wish they could have the Walter Crane and
Kate Greenaway picture-books, but I couldn't possibly let them go. I
loved those little urchins in the children's room,--especially that
curly-headed little boy reading a bound _Wide-Awake_--O!" She sat
up in bed and tossed her thick braids back. "I wonder if I ought? Or
even if I could?" Out of bed she slipped, and crossed the room to the
bookcases. Opening one, she ran her finger-tips tenderly along the stout
backs of a row of dark red volumes. "My very own _Wide-Awakes_!
What a storehouse they would be for the little folk! They needn't be
allowed to circulate, so they'd not wear out badly. They could just come
in and read them there. I was going to give them my little
rocking-chair, anyhow. O, dear! I'm afraid I'm really going to let them
have you, you dear, dear books. It would be selfish to keep you up here
all the time, when I almost never open you. Nobody shall have this one,
though, with Hannah's letter in it."
She turned the pages of one of the latest volumes and paused at a neat
little paragraph:
"_Dear Wide-Awake:_
"I have been taking you ever since I was a child. I will be
fourteen my next birthday. I like you very much. I would like to
correspond with any one who is about my age. I have no brothers
and sisters, and get very lonely. I have read all Miss Alcott,
but I wish she had let Jo marry Laurie. I like the
_Wide-Awake_ stories. Please have a good long one about
boarding-school in the next number. I like Dickens, but I can't
bear Scott. I know John Gilpin and Baby Bell by heart, and I am
in the eighth grade. I like skating and rowing. There is a fine
pond near us.
"Your loving reader,
"Violet Ethelyn Eldred.
"P. S. Nobody knows that I am writing this letter, so please
print it soon to surprise them."
Catherine kissed the page and closed the book. "Isn't it too
unbelievable that that queer little letter with that ridiculous fancy
name at the end should have done so much? Violet Ethelyn Eldred! It
hasn't nearly so pleasant a sound to me now as Hannah. And the child
thought no one would write to her if she signed her own name,--it was so
'homely'! Ah me! I suppose I should be getting dressed instead of
sitting about in the sunshine, mooning. I wonder if Inga will remember
the muffins for breakfast."
* * * * *
"Polly Osgood wants to see you, Catherine."
Catherine, busily sorting linen in the up-stairs linen room a little
later in the morning, leaned over the railing in answer to her mother's
announcement from the hall below.
"O, Polly, do come on up. I've a little more to do and we might just as
well talk while I'm at it. Have you called the Boat Club meeting?"
Polly Osgood came running up the stairs. She was a slender little girl
with big blue eyes and yellow hair.
"Yes," she answered brightly. "I've called it at ten. It's almost that
now. Tom can't come, of course; he's always so busy daytimes, but I
think all the others will be there."
"Hasn't Bert something to keep him?"
"Not just now," Polly laughed. "He substituted in the post-office last
week, and the week before that in a hardware store, but just now he says
nobody seems to need him, and he's reading law in private."
"He's such a goose," and Catherine put two mated pillow-cases together
with a little pat. "Inga never knows enough to put things in pairs, and
Mother wouldn't dare begin to look them over. If she should do anything
so domestic, half Winsted would break out with mumps or chickenpox.
Where did you say we'd have the meeting?"
"At the boat house. We might as well use it, now we have it. But I
didn't know you broke out with mumps."
"That's only figurative. Polly, why have you gone back to braids and
bows? You look very infantile for a real Wellesley sophomore."
"I got tired of the bird-cages and puffs, and decided I'd go back to
nature. Besides, playing around with Peter and Perdita you need
something stationary. They work dreadful havoc with a stylish coiffure."
"I wonder if I'd have to put my hair down just to teach them on Sundays?
Mrs. Henley is going away, you know, and I've been asked to take her
class."
"O, I do hope you will," cried Polly. "You would have a civilising
influence on Perdita, and she needs it. Peter keeps her in order so well
she never _does_ anything very bad, but she is potentially a little
terror."
"She always seems very mild when I see her," commented Catherine,
patting her piles into straight lines. "But you can't always tell about
people by looking at them. I, for instance, have all my life been
expected to be lady-like, just because when I was little I hadn't
strength enough to be naughty. And many and many a time I have felt like
doing something wild and shocking!"
"Why, Catherine Smith!" exclaimed Polly in amazement. "You always seemed
to me a sort of beautiful princess up here on the hill, and, good as any
of the rest of us might try to be, we never could hope to be as good as
you. Have you honestly ever wanted to be bad?"
Catherine laughed, a funny little gurgling laugh. "I honestly have--not
wicked you know, but--well, reckless! And I never had the courage to do
anything very startling till last year at college."
She stopped and laughed again.
"Tell me," Polly insisted. "I'll never tell. What did you do? Was it
fun? Tell me!"
Catherine's eyes twinkled. "I made up my mind that it was my one chance,
for no one there belonged to me, and my tiresome reputation for
propriety hadn't had time to get started. So one day I got up late, and
was late to breakfast, and cut a class, and--" She laughed so hard that
Polly wanted to shake her. "O, Polly it was such a ridiculous thing to
do! I talked slang and chewed gum!"
Polly gasped. "Did you like it? What made you stop?"
"People. They were so astonished. And, besides, I hated the gum. Inez
Dolliver used to chew it with such gusto that I thought it must be
rather good. And the slang sounded so easy and,--O! lighthearted, you
know, and friendly. When you and Hannah Eldred use it, it never seems
offensive, just pleasant and gay. But everyone looked so worried and
puzzled all day at me, that I decided to stop. And next day they seemed
so relieved. I told Dy-the Allen later about it (she's the dearest
thing!) and she was very philosophical. She told me it wasn't becoming
to my general character, just as pink wasn't becoming to my hair. I told
her I had always loved pink, and wanted to wear it, and she suggested
that I wear it at night. It wouldn't show in the dark and it was an
innocent desire; and perhaps if I did that, I'd not want to use slang or
chew gum. I didn't, after I had tried once, anyhow! Polly Osgood, here
we are sitting around and I'm telling you foolish stories about myself,
when we ought to be discussing library matters."
"The other was more interesting," sighed Polly. "I'm going to give up
slang myself soon. I never did chew gum! But I've been terribly bored
lately by some rather flip young creatures I've had to see more or less,
and I decided to cut it out and talk plain English. What are you smiling
at?"
Then, as her own earnest sentences came back to her, she reddened a
little, and joined Catherine in smiling. "Isn't that a fright? I mean,
isn't that startling? I didn't know I used it so much. Do you suppose I
can cure myself and still have time and attention to give to starting
the library? It's time we were down there now."
"All right. I'm ready, as soon as I get my hat. Do you ever wear them at
college?"
"Never. Now while we go along, tell me just what your idea is. What did
the Hampton ladies say?"
Catherine thrust her hatpins in, as she hurried down the steps.
"They advised having some club take it up, for a time at least, and they
thought it would be nice to have it be the Boat Club instead of a
literary one, because the literary ones often have a spirit of
competition, and if one of them started the library the others might not
feel inclined to use it."
"I see, and the Boat Club, besides being unsectarian and
interdenominational and non-partisan, has a lot of waste enthusiasm and
energy that might just as well be put to work. Father says he is sure
that when the thing is really running, the council will vote a tax and
take it off our hands. You are sure Algernon can run it? I thought it
took years of special training."
"It does," Catherine answered gravely, "but we could not afford a
trained librarian, and Algernon is intelligent and will study. Miss
Adams gave him hints as to books to get, and she will help him. He can
go over there when he gets into difficulties. She seemed to like him.
They talked about all sorts of technical things,--Algernon had a lot of
information stowed away in his head, of course,--and she didn't seem
bored at all."
"I've often thought I shouldn't be, if I knew anything about the
subjects he talks about," confessed Polly. "There are Bertha and Agnes."
She trilled to the two girls ahead, who turned and waited.
On the flat roof of the boat house half a dozen members of the club were
assembled. Polly hastened to take her seat and call the meeting to
order.
"Max Penfield will act as secretary, and we shall expect the minutes
done in the most approved University style. Archie Bradly, will you
please state the object of the meeting?"
"Fo' de lan's sake, no!" ejaculated Archie, sitting up and shutting his
knife. "That's the very thing I came to find out!"
"Very well," said Polly, twinkling. "Then, of course, you will pay close
attention. It will do you more good than carving Andover on the benches.
There's not much space left on them, now, and it's still early in the
season. Catherine, will you tell us the object of the meeting? Ouch!"
for Archie had reached lazily behind her and given one of her yellow
braids a gentle yank.
"You all know, already," began Catherine, "except perhaps Archie! We've
talked it over with the older people, and they think it's perfectly
practical, only some one or some organization has to take it in charge."
"What's 'it'?" asked Archie innocently.
"Why, the library. The Boat Club is going to see that Winsted has a
public library."
"Turn into Carnegies?" inquired Max, doing a sketch of Geraldine
Winthrop on the margin of the secretary's book.
"Not exactly. We haven't got our own dock built yet, and I don't think
we are in a position to endow libraries. But I mean we can work and
talk--"
"Talking's work," complained Archie. "That's redundancy."
"It is, when you keep interrupting," cried Bertha Davis. "Go on,
Catherine. Don't mind him. Just how can we work?"
"Well, the room will have to be cleaned thoroughly, and we girls can do
most of that if the boys will help a little. And there will have to be
some plain shelves put up for the books."
"Me for the carpenter job!" cried a long-legged youth who had lain thus
far in the shade of his own hat, in entire silence and apparent
unconsciousness. "It's just what I want to cure my brain fever."
"Overstudy? Or overwork reading postals last week?" asked Agnes, smiling
into Bert's half-shut eyes.
"It's more likely fatty degeneration of the brain, if it's Bert Wyman
that has it," said an emphatic voice, and a spruce energetic maiden
joined the group. "I just got in on the 10:10, and Mother said you were
all over here. What's before the house?"
"Nothing. We're all on the house," explained Archie dryly, but Polly
answered the question with careful courtesy. Dorcas listened.
"Very well," she said, when Polly finished. "If it is in order, I move
you, Madam President, that we proceed to clean the library at once."
"O, Dorcas, not to-day!" groaned two or three, while Max remarked in an
aside to no one that if it was in order it shouldn't need cleaning.
"Why not to-day?" asked Dorcas briskly. "How you-all can loaf around the
way you do is more than I can comprehend. Dot, your hair is coming
|
has hitherto continually been improving;
and that the progress of knowledge and the diffusion of Christianity will
bring about at last, when men become Christians in reality as well as in
name, something like that Utopian state of which philosophers have loved
to dream--like that millennium in which saints as well as enthusiasts
have trusted.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Do you hold that this consummation must of necessity
come to pass; or that it depends in any degree upon the course of
events--that is to say, upon human actions? The former of these
propositions you would be as unwilling to admit as your friend Wesley, or
the old Welshman Pelagius himself. The latter leaves you little other
foundation for your opinion than a desire, which, from its very
benevolence, is the more likely to be delusive. You are in a dilemma.
_Montesinos_.--Not so, Sir Thomas. Impossible as it may be for us to
reconcile the free will of man with the foreknowledge of God, I
nevertheless believe in both with the most full conviction. When the
human mind plunges into time and space in its speculations, it adventures
beyond its sphere; no wonder, therefore, that its powers fail, and it is
lost. But that my will is free, I know feelingly: it is proved to me by
my conscience. And that God provideth all things I know by His own Word,
and by that instinct which He hath implanted in me to assure me of His
being. My answer to your question, then, is this: I believe that the
happy consummation which I desire is appointed, and must come to pass;
but that when it is to come depends upon the obedience of man to the will
of God, that is, upon human actions.
_Sir Thomas More_.--You hold then that the human race will one day attain
the utmost degree of general virtue, and thereby general happiness, of
which humanity is capable. Upon what do you found this belief?
_Montesinos_.--The opinion is stated more broadly than I should choose to
advance it. But this is ever the manner of argumentative discourse: the
opponent endeavours to draw from you conclusions which you are not
prepared to defend, and which perhaps you have never before acknowledged
even to yourself. I will put the proposition in a less disputable form.
A happier condition of society is possible than that in which any nation
is existing at this time, or has at any time existed. The sum both of
moral and physical evil may be greatly diminished both by good laws, good
institutions, and good governments. Moral evil cannot indeed be removed,
unless the nature of man were changed; and that renovation is only to be
effected in individuals, and in them only by the special grace of God.
Physical evil must always, to a certain degree, be inseparable from
mortality. But both are so much within the reach of human institutions
that a state of society is conceivable almost as superior to that of
England in these days, as that itself is superior to the condition of the
tattooed Britons, or of the northern pirates from whom we are descended.
Surely this belief rests upon a reasonable foundation, and is supported
by that general improvement (always going on if it be regarded upon the
great scale) to which all history bears witness.
_Sir Thomas More_.--I dispute not this: but to render it a reasonable
ground of immediate hope, the predominance of good principles must be
supposed. Do you believe that good or evil principles predominate at
this time?
_Montesinos_.--If I were to judge by that expression of popular opinion
which the press pretends to convey, I should reply without hesitation
that never in any other known age of the world have such pernicious
principles been so prevalent
"_Qua terra patet_, _fera regnat Erinnys_;
_In facinus jurasse putes_."
_Sir Thomas More_.--Is there not a danger that these principles may bear
down everything before them? and is not that danger obvious, palpable,
imminent? Is there a considerate man who can look at the signs of the
times without apprehension, or a scoundrel connected with what is called
the public press, who does not speculate upon them, and join with the
anarchists as the strongest party? Deceive not yourself by the
fallacious notion that truth is mightier than falsehood, and that good
must prevail over evil! Good principles enable men to suffer, rather
than to act. Think how the dog, fond and faithful creature as he is,
from being the most docile and obedient of all animals, is made the most
dangerous, if he becomes mad; so men acquire a frightful and not less
monstrous power when they are in a state of moral insanity, and break
loose from their social and religious obligations. Remember too how
rapidly the plague of diseased opinions is communicated, and that if it
once gain head, it is as difficult to be stopped as a conflagration or a
flood. The prevailing opinions of this age go to the destruction of
everything which has hitherto been held sacred. They tend to arm the
poor against the rich; the many against the few: worse than this, for it
will also be a war of hope and enterprise against timidity, of youth
against age.
_Montesinos_.--Sir Ghost, you are almost as dreadful an alarmist as our
Cumberland cow, who is believed to have lately uttered this prophecy,
delivering it with oracular propriety in verse:
"Two winters, a wet spring,
A bloody summer, and no king."
_Sir Thomas More_.--That prophecy speaks the wishes of the man, whoever
he may have been, by whom it was invented: and you who talk of the
progress of knowledge, and the improvement of society, and upon that
improvement build your hope of its progressive melioration, you know that
even so gross and palpable an imposture as this is swallowed by many of
the vulgar, and contributes in its sphere to the mischief which it was
designed to promote. I admit that such an improved condition of society
as you contemplate is possible, and hath ought always to be kept in view:
but the error of supposing it too near, of fancying that there is a short
road to it, is, of all the errors of these times, the most pernicious,
because it seduces the young and generous, and betrays them imperceptibly
into an alliance with whatever is flagitious and detestable. The fact is
undeniable that the worst principles in religion, in morals, and in
politics, are at this time more prevalent than they ever were known to be
in any former age. You need not be told in what manner revolutions in
opinion bring about the fate of empires; and upon this ground you ought
to regard the state of the world, both at home and abroad, with fear,
rather than with hope.
_Montesinos_.--When I have followed such speculations as may allowably be
indulged, respecting what is hidden in the darkness of time and of
eternity, I have sometimes thought that the moral and physical order of
the world may be so appointed as to coincide; and that the revolutions of
this planet may correspond with the condition of its inhabitants; so that
the convulsions and changes whereto it is destined should occur, when the
existing race of men had either become so corrupt as to be unworthy of
the place which they hold in the universe, or were so truly regenerate by
the will and word of God, as to be qualified for a higher station in it.
Our globe may have gone through many such revolutions. We know the
history of the last; the measure of its wickedness was then filled up.
For the future we are taught to expect a happier consummation.
_Sir Thomas More_.--It is important that you should distinctly understand
the nature and extent of your expectations on that head. Is it upon the
Apocalypse that you rest them?
_Montesinos_.--If you had not forbidden me to expect from this
intercourse any communication which might come with the authority of
revealed knowledge, I should ask in reply, whether that dark book is
indeed to be received for authentic Scripture? My hopes are derived from
the prophets and the evangelists. Believing in them with a calm and
settled faith, with that consent of the will and heart and understanding
which constitutes religious belief, and in them the clear annunciation of
that kingdom of God upon earth, for the coming of which Christ himself
has taught and commanded us to pray.
_Sir Thomas More_.--Remember that the Evangelists, in predicting that
kingdom, announce a dreadful advent! And that, according to the received
opinion of the Church, wars, persecutions, and calamities of every kind,
the triumph of evil, and the coming of Antichrist are to be looked for,
before the promises made by the prophets shall be fulfilled. Consider
this also, that the speedy fulfilment of those promises has been the
ruling fancy of the most dangerous of all madmen, from John of Leyden and
his frantic followers, down to the saints of Cromwell's army, Venner and
his Fifth-Monarchy men, the fanatics of the Cevennes, and the blockheads
of your own days, who beheld with complacency the crimes of the French
Revolutionists, and the progress of Bonaparte towards the subjugation of
Europe, as events tending to bring about the prophecies; and, under the
same besotted persuasion, are ready at this time to co-operate with the
miscreants who trade in blasphemy and treason! But you who neither seek
to deceive others nor yourself, you who are neither insane nor insincere,
you surely do not expect that the millennium is to be brought about by
the triumph of what are called liberal opinions; nor by enabling the
whole of the lower classes to read the incentives to vice, impiety, and
rebellion which are prepared for them by an unlicensed press; nor by
Sunday schools, and religious tract societies; nor by the portentous
bibliolatry of the age! And if you adhere to the letter of the
Scriptures, methinks the thought of that consummation for which you look,
might serve rather for consolation under the prospect of impending evils,
than for a hope upon which the mind can rest in security with a calm and
contented delight.
_Montesinos_.--To this I must reply, that the fulfilment of those
calamitous events predicted in the Gospels may safely be referred, as it
usually is, and by the best Biblical scholars, to the destruction of
Jerusalem. Concerning the visions of the Apocalypse, sublime as they
are, I speak with less hesitation, and dismiss them from my thoughts, as
more congenial to the fanatics of whom you have spoken than to me. And
for the coming of Antichrist, it is no longer a received opinion in these
days, whatever it may have been in yours. Your reasoning applies to the
enthusiastic millenarians who discover the number of the beast, and
calculate the year when a vial is to be poured out, with as much
precision as the day and hour of an eclipse. But it leaves my hope
unshaken and untouched. I know that the world has improved; I see that
it is improving; and I believe that it will continue to improve in
natural and certain progress. Good and evil principles are widely at
work: a crisis is evidently approaching; it may be dreadful, but I can
have no doubts concerning the result. Black and ominous as the aspects
may appear, I regard them without dismay. The common exclamation of the
poor and helpless, when they feel themselves oppressed, conveys to my
mind the sum of the surest and safest philosophy. I say with them, "God
is above," and trust Him for the event.
_Sir Thomas More_.--God is above--but the devil is below. Evil
principles are, in their nature, more active than good. The harvest is
precarious, and must be prepared with labour, and cost, and care; weeds
spring up of themselves, and flourish and seed whatever may be the
season. Disease, vice, folly, and madness are contagious; while health
and understanding are incommunicable, and wisdom and virtue hardly to be
communicated! We have come, however, to some conclusion in our
discourse. Your notion of the improvement of the world has appeared to
be a mere speculation, altogether inapplicable in practice; and as
dangerous to weak heads and heated imaginations as it is congenial to
benevolent hearts. Perhaps that improvement is neither so general nor so
certain as you suppose. Perhaps, even in this country there may be more
knowledge than there was in former times and less wisdom, more wealth and
less happiness, more display and less virtue. This must be the subject
of future conversation. I will only remind you now, that the French had
persuaded themselves this was the most enlightened age of the world, and
they the most enlightened people in it--the politest, the most amiable,
and the most humane of nations--and that a new era of philosophy,
philanthropy, and peace, was about to commence under their auspices, when
they were upon the eve of a revolution which, for its complicated
monstrosities, absurdities, and horrors, is more disgraceful to human
nature than any other series of events in history. Chew the cud upon
this, and farewell
COLLOQUY III.--THE DRUIDICAL STONES.--VISITATIONS OF PESTILENCE.
Inclination would lead me to hibernate during half the year in this
uncomfortable climate of Great Britain, where few men who have tasted the
enjoyments of a better would willingly take up their abode, if it were
not for the habits, and still more for the ties and duties which root us
to our native soil. I envy the Turks for their sedentary constitutions,
which seem no more to require exercise than an oyster does or a toad in a
stone. In this respect, I am by disposition as true a Turk as the Grand
Seignior himself; and approach much nearer to one in the habit of
inaction than any person of my acquaintance. Willing however, as I
should be to believe, that anything which is habitually necessary for a
sound body, would be unerringly indicated by an habitual disposition for
it, and that if exercise were as needful as food for the preservation of
the animal economy, the desire of motion would recur not less regularly
than hunger and thirst, it is a theory which will not bear the test; and
this I know by experience.
On a grey sober day, therefore, and in a tone of mind quite accordant
with the season, I went out unwillingly to take the air, though if taking
physic would have answered the same purpose, the dose would have been
preferred as the shortest, and for that reason the least unpleasant
remedy. Even on such occasions as this, it is desirable to propose to
oneself some object for the satisfaction of accomplishing it, and to set
out with the intention of reaching some fixed point, though it should be
nothing better than a mile-stone, or a directing post. So I walked to
the Circle of Stones on the Penrith road, because there is a long hill
upon the way which would give the muscles some work to perform; and
because the sight of this rude monument which has stood during so many
centuries, and is likely, if left to itself, to outlast any edifice that
man could have erected, gives me always a feeling, which, however often
it may be repeated, loses nothing of its force.
The circle is of the rudest kind, consisting of single stones, unhewn and
chosen without any regard to shape or magnitude, being of all sizes, from
seven or eight feet in height, to three or four. The circle, however, is
complete, and is thirty-three paces in diameter. Concerning this, like
all similar monuments in Great Britain, the popular superstition
prevails, that no two persons can number the stones alike, and that no
person will ever find a second counting confirm the first. My children
have often disappointed their natural inclination to believe this wonder,
by putting it to the test and disproving it. The number of the stones
which compose the circle, is thirty-eight, and besides these there are
ten which form three sides of a little square within, on the eastern
side, three stones of the circle itself forming the fourth; this being
evidently the place where the Druids who presided had their station; or
where the more sacred and important part of the rites and ceremonies
(whatever they may have been) were performed. All this is as perfect at
this day as when the Cambrian bards, according to the custom of their
ancient order, described by my old acquaintances, the living members of
the Chair of Glamorgan, met there for the last time,
"On the green turf and under the blue sky,
Their heads in reverence bare, and bare of foot."
The site also precisely accords with the description which Edward
Williams and William Owen give of the situation required for such meeting
places:
"--a high hill top,
Nor bowered with trees, nor broken by the plough:
Remote from human dwellings and the stir
Of human life, and open to the breath
And to the eye of Heaven."
The high hill is now enclosed and cultivated; and a clump of larches has
been planted within the circle, for the purpose of protecting an oak in
the centre, the owner of the field having wished to rear one there with a
commendable feeling, because that tree was held sacred by the Druids, and
therefore, he supposed, might be appropriately placed there. The whole
plantation, however, has been so miserably storm-stricken that the poor
stunted trees are not even worth the trouble of cutting them down for
fuel, and so they continue to disfigure the spot. In all other respects
this impressive monument of former times is carefully preserved; the soil
within the enclosure is not broken, a path from the road is left, and in
latter times a stepping-stile has been placed to accommodate Lakers with
an easier access than by striding over the gate beside it.
The spot itself is the most commanding which could be chosen in this part
of the country, without climbing a mountain. Derwentwater and the Vale
of Keswick are not seen from it, only the mountains which enclose them on
the south and west. Lattrigg and the huge side of Skiddaw are on the
north; to the east is the open country towards Penrith expanding from the
Vale of St. John's, and extending for many miles, with Mellfell in the
distance, where it rises alone like a huge tumulus on the right, and
Blencathra on the left, rent into deep ravines. On the south-east is the
range of Helvellyn, from its termination at Wanthwaite Crags to its
loftiest summits, and to Dunmailraise. The lower range of Nathdalefells
lies nearer, in a parallel line with Helvellyn; and the dale itself, with
its little streamlet, immediately below. The heights above Leatheswater,
with the Borrowdale mountains, complete the panorama.
While I was musing upon the days of the Bards and Druids, and thinking
that Llywarc Hen himself had probably stood within this very circle at a
time when its history was known, and the rites for which it was erected
still in use, I saw a person approaching, and started a little at
perceiving that it was my new acquaintance from the world of spirits. "I
am come," said he, "to join company with you in your walk: you may as
well converse with a ghost as stand dreaming of the dead. I dare say you
have been wishing that these stones could speak and tell their tale, or
that some record were sculptured upon them, though it were as
unintelligible as the hieroglyphics, or as an Ogham inscription."
"My ghostly friend," I replied, "they tell me something to the purport of
our last discourse. Here upon ground where the Druids have certainly
held their assemblies, and where not improbably, human sacrifices have
been offered up, you will find it difficult to maintain that the
improvement of the world has not been unequivocal, and very great."
_Sir Thomas More_.--Make the most of your vantage ground! My position
is, that this improvement is not general; that while some parts of the
earth are progressive in civilisation, others have been retrograde; and
that even where improvement appears the greatest, it is partial. For
example; with all the meliorations which have taken place in England
since these stones were set up (and you will not suppose that I who laid
down my life for a religious principle, would undervalue the most
important of all advantages), do you believe that they have extended to
all classes? Look at the question well. Consider your
fellow-countrymen, both in their physical and intellectual relations, and
tell me whether a large portion of the community are in a happier or more
hopeful condition at this time, than their forefathers were when Caesar
set foot upon the island?
_Montesinos_.--If it be your aim to prove that the savage state is
preferable to the social, I am perhaps the very last person upon whom any
arguments to that end could produce the slightest effect. That notion
never for a moment deluded me: not even in the ignorance and
presumptuousness of youth, when first I perused Rousseau, and was
unwilling to feel that a writer whose passionate eloquence I felt and
admired so truly could be erroneous in any of his opinions. But now, in
the evening of life, when I know upon what foundation my principles rest,
and when the direction of one peculiar course of study has made it
necessary for me to learn everything which books could teach concerning
savage life, the proposition appears to me one of the most untenable that
ever was advanced by a perverse or a paradoxical intellect.
_Sir Thomas More_.--I advanced no such paradox, and you have answered me
too hastily. The Britons were not savages when the Romans invaded and
improved them. They were already far advanced in the barbarous stage of
society, having the use of metals, domestic cattle, wheeled carriages,
and money, a settled government, and a regular priesthood, who were
connected with their fellow-Druids on the Continent, and who were not
ignorant of letters. Understand me! I admit that improvements of the
utmost value have been made, in the most important concerns: but I deny
that the melioration has been general; and insist, on the contrary, that
a considerable portion of the people are in a state, which, as relates to
their physical condition, is greatly worsened, and, as touching their
intellectual nature, is assuredly not improved. Look, for example, at
the great mass of your populace in town and country--a tremendous
proportion of the whole community! Are their bodily wants better, or
more easily supplied? Are they subject to fewer calamities? Are they
happier in childhood, youth, and manhood, and more comfortably or
carefully provided for in old age, than when the land was unenclosed, and
half covered with woods? With regard to their moral and intellectual
capacity, you well know how little of the light of knowledge and of
revelation has reached them. They are still in darkness, and in the
shadow of death!
_Montesinos_.--I perceive your drift: and perceive also that when we
understand each other there is likely to be little difference between us.
And I beseech you, do not suppose that I am disputing for the sake of
disputation; with that pernicious habit I was never infected, and I have
seen too many mournful proofs of its perilous consequences. Towards any
person it is injudicious and offensive; towards you it would be
irreverent. Your position is undeniable. Were society to be stationary
at its present point, the bulk of the people would, on the whole, have
lost rather than gained by the alterations which have taken place during
the last thousand years. Yet this must be remembered, that in common
with all ranks they are exempted from those dreadful visitations of war,
pestilence, and famine by which these kingdoms were so frequently
afflicted of old.
The countenance of my companion changed upon this, to an expression of
judicial severity which struck me with awe. "Exempted from these
visitations!" he exclaimed; "mortal man! creature of a day, what art
thou, that thou shouldst presume upon any such exemption! Is it from a
trust in your own deserts, or a reliance upon the forbearance and long-
suffering of the Almighty, that this vain confidence arises?"
I was silent.
"My friend," he resumed, in a milder tone, but with a melancholy manner,
"your own individual health and happiness are scarcely more precarious
than this fancied security. By the mercy of God, twice during the short
space of your life, England has been spared from the horrors of invasion,
which might with ease have been effected during the American war, when
the enemy's fleet swept the Channel, and insulted your very ports, and
which was more than once seriously intended during the late long contest.
The invaders would indeed have found their graves in that soil which they
came to subdue: but before they could have been overcome, the atrocious
threat of Buonaparte's general might have been in great part realised,
that though he could not answer for effecting the conquest of England, he
would engage to destroy its prosperity for a century to come. You have
been spared from that chastisement. You have escaped also from the
imminent danger of peace with a military tyrant, which would inevitably
have led to invasion, when he should have been ready to undertake and
accomplish that great object of his ambition, and you must have been
least prepared and least able to resist him. But if the seeds of civil
war should at this time be quickening among you--if your soil is
everywhere sown with the dragon's teeth, and the fatal crop be at this
hour ready to spring up--the impending evil will be a hundredfold more
terrible than those which have been averted; and you will have cause to
perceive and acknowledge, that the wrath has been suspended only that it
may fall the heavier!"
"May God avert this also!" I exclaimed.
"As for famine," he pursued, "that curse will always follow in the train
of war: and even now the public tranquillity of England is fearfully
dependent upon the seasons. And touching pestilence, you fancy
yourselves secure, because the plague has not appeared among you for the
last hundred and fifty years: a portion of time, which long as it may
seem when compared with the brief term of mortal existence, is as nothing
in the physical history of the globe. The importation of that scourge is
as possible now as it was in former times: and were it once imported, do
you suppose it would rage with less violence among the crowded population
of your metropolis, than it did before the fire, or that it would not
reach parts of the country which were never infected in any former
visitation? On the contrary, its ravages would be more general and more
tremendous, for it would inevitably be carried everywhere. Your
provincial cities have doubled and trebled in size; and in London itself,
great part of the population is as much crowded now as it was then, and
the space which is covered with houses is increased at least fourfold.
What if the sweating-sickness, emphatically called the English disease,
were to show itself again? Can any cause be assigned why it is not as
likely to break out in the nineteenth century as in the fifteenth? What
if your manufactures, according to the ominous opinion which your
greatest physiologist has expressed, were to generate for you new
physical plagues, as they have already produced a moral pestilence
unknown to all preceding ages? What if the small-pox, which you vainly
believed to be subdued, should have assumed a new and more formidable
character; and (as there seems no trifling grounds for apprehending)
instead of being protected by vaccination from its danger, you should
ascertain that inoculation itself affords no certain security?
Visitations of this kind are in the order of nature and of providence.
Physically considered, the likelihood of their recurrence becomes every
year more probable than the last; and looking to the moral government of
the world, was there ever a time when the sins of this kingdom called
more cryingly for chastisement?"
_Montesinos_.--[Greek text]!
_Sir Thomas More_.--I denounce no judgments. But I am reminding you that
there is as much cause for the prayer in your Litany against plague,
pestilence, and famine, as for that which entreats God to deliver you all
from sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; from all false doctrine,
heresy, and schism. In this, as in all things, it behoves the Christian
to live in a humble and grateful sense of his continual dependence upon
the Almighty: not to rest in a presumptuous confidence upon the improved
state of human knowledge, or the altered course of natural visitations.
_Montesinos_.--Oh, how wholesome it is to receive instruction with a
willing and a humble mind! In attending to your discourse I feel myself
in the healthy state of a pupil, when without one hostile or contrarient
prepossession, he listens to a teacher in whom he has entire confidence.
And I feel also how much better it is that the authority of elder and
wiser intellects should pass even for more than it is worth, than that it
should be undervalued as in these days, and set at nought. When any
person boasts that he is--
"_Nullias addictus jurare in verba magistri_,"
the reason of that boast may easily be perceived; it is because he
thinks, like Jupiter, that it would be disparaging his own all-wiseness
to swear by anything but himself. But wisdom will as little enter into a
proud or a conceited mind as into a malicious one. In this sense also it
may be said, that he who humbleth himself shall be exalted.
_Sir Thomas More_.--It is not implicit assent that I require, but
reasonable conviction after calm and sufficient consideration. David was
permitted to choose between the three severest dispensations of God's
displeasure, and he made choice of pestilence as the least dreadful.
Ought a reflecting and religious man to be surprised, if some such
punishment were dispensed to this country, not less in mercy than in
judgment, as the means of averting a more terrible and abiding scourge?
An endemic malady, as destructive as the plague, has naturalised itself
among your American brethren, and in Spain. You have hitherto escaped
it, speaking with reference to secondary causes, merely because it has
not yet been imported. But any season may bring it to your own shores;
or at any hour it may appear among you homebred.
_Montesinos_.--We should have little reason, then, to boast of our
improvements in the science of medicine; for our practitioners at
Gibraltar found themselves as unable to stop its progress, or mitigate
its symptoms, as the most ignorant empirics in the peninsula.
_Sir Thomas More_.--You were at one time near enough that pestilence to
feel as if you were within its reach?
_Montesinos_.--It was in 1800, the year when it first appeared in
Andalusia. That summer I fell in at Cintra with a young German, on the
way from his own country to his brothers at Cadiz, where they were
established as merchants. Many days had not elapsed after his arrival in
that city when a ship which was consigned to their firm brought with it
the infection; and the first news which reached us of our poor
acquaintance was that the yellow fever had broken out in his brother's
house, and that he, they, and the greater part of the household, were
dead. There was every reason to fear that the pestilence would extend
into Portugal, both governments being, as usual, slow in providing any
measures of precaution, and those measures being nugatory when taken. I
was at Faro in the ensuing spring, at the house of Mr. Lempriere, the
British Consul. Inquiring of him upon the subject, the old man lifted up
his hands, and replied in a passionate manner, which I shall never
forget, "Oh, sir, we escaped by the mercy of God; only by the mercy of
God!" The governor of Algarve, even when the danger was known and
acknowledged, would not venture to prohibit the communication with Spain
till he received orders from Lisbon; and then the prohibition was so
enforced as to be useless. The crew of a boat from the infected province
were seized and marched through the country to Tavira: they were then
sent to perform quarantine upon a little insulated ground, and the guards
who were set over them, lived with them, and were regularly relieved.
When such were the precautionary measures, well indeed might it be said,
that Portugal escaped only by the mercy of God! I have often reflected
upon the little effect which this imminent danger appeared to produce
upon those persons with whom I associated. The young, with that hilarity
which belongs to thoughtless youth, used to converse about the places
whither they should retire, and the course of life and expedients to
which they should be driven in case it were necessary for them to fly
from Lisbon. A few elder and more considerate persons said little upon
the subject, but that little denoted a deep sense of the danger, and more
anxiety than they thought proper to express. The great majority seemed
to be altogether unconcerned; neither their business nor their amusements
were interrupted; they feasted, they danced, they met at the card-table
as usual; and the plague (for so it was called at that time, before its
nature was clearly understood) was as regular a topic of conversation as
the news brought by the last packet.
_Sir Thomas More_.--And what was your own state of mind?
_Montesinos_.--Very much what it has long been with regard to the moral
pestilence of this unhappy age, and the condition of this country more
especially. I saw the danger in its whole extent and relied on the mercy
of God.
_Sir Thomas More_.--In all cases that is the surest reliance: but when
human means are available, it becomes a Mahommedan rather than a
Christian to rely upon Providence or fate alone, and make no effort for
its own preservation. Individuals never fall into this error among you,
drink as deeply as they may of fatalism; that narcotic will sometimes
paralyse the moral sense, but it leaves the faculty of worldly prudence
unimpaired. Far otherwise is it with your government: for such are the
notions of liberty in England, that evils of every kind--physical, moral,
and political, are allowed their free range. As relates to infectious
diseases, for example, this kingdom is now in a less civilised state than
it was in my days, three centuries ago, when the leper was separated from
general society; and when, although the science of medicine was at once
barbarous and fantastical, the existence of pesthouses showed at least
some approaches towards a medical police.
_Montesinos_.--They order these things better in Utopia.
_Sir Thomas More_.--In this, as well as in some other points upon which
we shall touch hereafter, the difference between you and the Utopians is
as great as between the existing generation and the race by whom yonder
circle was set up. With regard to diseases and remedies in general, the
real state of the case may be consolatory, but it is not comfortable.
Great and certain progress has been made in chirurgery; and if the
improvements in the other branch of medical science have not been so
certain and so great, it is because the physician works in the dark, and
has to deal with what is hidden and mysterious. But the evils for which
these sciences are the palliatives have increased in a proportion that
heavily overweighs the benefit of improved therapeutics. For as the
|
Europe and Havana.
Europe used to be a continent of kings—now it is only America’s corner
saloon.
We have never held any particular briefs for Squirrel whisky and other
forms of 100 proof “hootch.” But even our former president, Woodrow—what
was his name?—Wilson, is strong for wines and beers and we are willing
to stack with him on this question, at least. It is going to be a hard
job—getting any concessions from the prohibitionists. We believe Gus has
the right idea, however, when he says the day of the “bum voyage” to
Europe is nearing a close, and that the old familiar sign “Wines, Liquors
and Segars” may soon be dusted off and tacked up outside the front door.
* * * * *
The Way They Sing It
We will now sing that little Nanny-goat song entitled “Mammy.” Also that
well known ballad “Just a Japanese Ashcan.”
* * * * *
The stage contortionist leads a double life.
_Smokehouse Poetry_
_Every once in a while we get regular he-man verse prompted by dreams
in some feather bed, but from the pen of Budd L. McKillips, Whiz Bang
readers again are to be treated with a poem inspired by real life. In
the Winter Annual of the Whiz Bang we reproduced Mr. McKillips’ poem
“After the Raid,” inspired while Mr. McKillips, as a newspaper reporter,
“covered” story of the raid on the National Dutch Room cabaret in
Minneapolis. Recently pretty Zelda Crosby, picture scenario writer, of
New York, committed suicide in a hotel by drinking poison, as a result of
a prominent film magnate spurning her after teaching her the ways of love
and folly. This magnate, like many other alleged reformers, has been a
leading figure in the movement for purity in pictures. The title of Mr.
McKillips poem, written exclusively for the Whiz Bang, is “The Girl From
Over ‘There’.” In addition to that poem we are publishing a crackerjack
rival to the “Gila Monster Route,” with which Winter Annual readers have
fallen in love, called “The Blanket Stiff.”_
* * * * *
The Spirit of Mortal
Oh, Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, like a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
And be scattered around and together be laid,
And the old and the young and the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant’s affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each all are away to their dwellings of rest.
The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who limbed with his goats to the steep,
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
So the multitude goes like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been:
We see the same sights our fathers have seen—
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling,
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.
They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber shall come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died!—ay; they died, we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode;
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
’Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon, the bier and the shroud;
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
* * * * *
Just Thinking
By Hudson Hawley.
(In the Stars and Stripes.)
Standin’ up here on the fire-step
Lookin’ ahead in the mist,
With a tin hat over your ivory
And a rifle clutched in your fist;
Waitin’ and watchin’ and wond’rin’
If the Huns comin’ over tonight—
Say, aren’t the things you think of,
Enough to give you a fright?
Things you ain’t even thought of
For a couple o’ months or more;
Things that ’ull set you laughin’;
Things that ’ull make you sore;
Things that you saw in the movies,
Things that you saw on the street,
Things that you’re really proud of,
Things that are—not so sweet.
Debts that are past collection,
Stories you hear and forget,
Ball games and birthday parties,
Hours of drill in the wet;
Headlines, recruitin’ posters,
Sunsets way out at sea,
Evenings of pay days—golly—
It’s a queer thing, this memory!
Faces of pals in the home burg,
Voices of women folk,
Verses you learned in school days,
Pop up in the mist and smoke,
As you stand there grippin’ that rifle,
A standin’ and chilled to the bone,
Wonderin’ and wonderin’ and wonderin,’
Just thinkin’ there—all alone!
When will the war be over?
When will the gang break through?
What will the U. S. look like?
What will there be to do?
Where will the Boshes be then?
Who will have married Nell?
When’s that relief a-comin’ up?
Gosh! But this thinkin’s hell!
* * * * *
Gee Whiz
By Dorothy.
Dream girl with your raven hair
Eyes of brown and dimples too
Can’t you find one day to spare
That I may elope with you?
Too many ginks are on your hooks
You trifle right and left
They toddle round with hungry looks
Poor nuts they’re all bereft.
Dream girl get your cigarettes
And I’ll produce the booze,
Put the brake on vain regrets
And let us burn the fuse.
Hire a hall or buy a yacht
It’s all the same, Oh! gee
But give me everything you’ve got
It’s coming straight to ME.
Dream girl with your raven hair
Come cuddle up and tease
Love me, bite me like a bear,
Then kiss me—naughty—please.
Make it today and don’t postpone
Don’t make your sweetie pout,
Dear heart I’m sitting all alone
For the darned old booze gave out.
* * * * *
The Land of Gee and Haw
By Ted Lattourette Hansford.
I have a home I’m not ashamed of,
In the land of Gee and Haw,
Where Jeff Davis found a pile of rocks
And called it Arkansaw.
And I am going back to Flatrock,
Where the cornfed people stay,
And they make a little moonshine
Just to pass the time away.
I can see old Hank and Silas,
A firing up the drum
To run a drink that’s guaranteed
To put sorrow on the bum.
It glistens like the dewdrops,
At the dawn of early morn,
And you can smell the boys’ feet
That plowed the yaller corn.
It fills your heart with gratitude,
And keeps you feeling fine,
Like everybody was owin’ you
And you didn’t need a dime.
’Tis the land where satisfaction,
Peace, love and feuds reside,
And the farms they sit up edgeways;
You can farm on either side.
Where they dance from dark till daylight,
Calling swing, and balance all;
With the fiddler full o’ pine top,
Playing Turkey in The Straw.
When you read these lines, yours truly
Will be there for evermore,
Wading through the moonshine,
Singing Sailor on The Shore.
And my address, should you want me,
Will be Flatrock, Arkansaw;
Care o’ Wildcat Hiram Johnson,
In the Land of Gee and Haw.
* * * * *
Ten Years on the Islands
Ten years on the Islands,
And you’re mad;
Not a spark of decency—
Oh! it’s sad;
Can’t recall one sober day,
That you’ve had;
You’ve let the tropics get you,
And you’re bad.
Ten years on the Islands,
And you fell,
Hardly conscious of surrender,
To the spell;
You’re eaten up with leprosy,
Traders tell,
You’re a comber of the beaches—
Gone to hell.
Ten years on the Islands,
It’s too long,
To preserve one’s sense of right,
And of wrong,
The tropic’s spell is gentle,
But it’s strong,
It feeds the soul on lotus,
Till it’s gone.
* * * * *
Spoiled Girl
When you are awfully cross to me
I pout, and pout, and pout,
My lip goes down, my eyes get big
And then my tears come out.
When you are awfully good to me
I smile, and smile, and smile,
So if you like sun more than rain
Try being good awhile.
* * * * *
Great Gawsch!
“Hang it all, daughter,” exploded old Jenkins. “You can’t marry young
Dobbins, I won’t have it. Why he only makes eighteen dollars a week.”
“I know father,” replied the sweet young thing, “but a week passes so
quickly when you are fond of each other.”
* * * * *
Hot Dog!
It doesn’t extinguish the conflagration in a man’s burning brain when a
pretty girl turns her hose on him.
* * * * *
How to Get Tips
Smith Dalrymple tells this one: When I was in Bartlesville I went into a
lady barber shop to get shaved. That was the first female joint I ever
saw. When I went in the barber was sitting on a fellow’s lap.
She jumped up and said, “You’re next.”
I said, “I know it and I know who I am next to.”
She said, “Do you want a close shave?”
I said, “No, I just had one, my wife passed the window and didn’t look
in.”
I gave her a quarter, she handed me back ten cents and before I thought
where I was I said, “Put it in the piano.”
* * * * *
Those Flivvers Again
We heard a couple talking in the rear of a machine ahead of us. The man
sighed, “Oh, dearest, you never have acted this way before. Always you
have been cold towards me and now you’re—”
So I put on my brakes and pulled my radiator away from the back of their
machine.
* * * * *
Someone’s Inhaling Ether
(From the Chicago Tribune)
“She had those wide blue eyes whose expression can be misleading in their
infantile pathos; hair fine and shining like gossamer gold; a complexion
firm and white, with the barest breath of rose leaf pink on the cheek
bones, and the whole of her was small, neat, rounded.”
* * * * *
Just Like the Army
The prosy old parson was coming and his hostess carefully drilled her
daughter to answer the string of questions he always asked every little
girl: (1) “What is your name?” (2) “How old are you?” (3) “Are you a good
little girl?” (4) “Do you know where bad little girls go?”
But the little girl was overtrained and when the reverend visitor began
by asking her her name, she spilled all the answers at once in a single
breath.
“Dorothy, sir; six years old, sir; yes, sir; go to hell, sir.”
* * * * *
Blank Verse
Dear Captain Billy,
I am full of regrets,
Because the other night
I set out to find the gold
At the end of the rainbow.
And all that I saw was
“The Gold Diggers.”
Ain’t that always the way
In Boston?
* * * * *
Sneeze Hearty
“I rise to propose a little toast,” announced the president of the Hay
Fever Club.
“What is it?”
“Here’s looking at—choo!”
_Hollywood Flirtations_
It is rumored around filmland that handsome (?) “Bull” Montana is shortly
to be married. Doug Fairbanks, in lowbrow days before he married Mary,
used to pal around with “Bull” and other ringside favorites, but ’tis
said Mary ruled against Bull as being “declasse.”
* * * * *
It will be remembered that Viola Dana was a very close friend of Orma
Locklear, the famous aviator, who was killed about a year ago. A few
months later, she was often seen with Earl Daugherty, also a well known
aviator, who maintains one of the finest flying fields in Southern
California. Now Earl and Viola are never seen together. What happened,
Viola?
* * * * *
’Tis said on “Elinor Glyn Night” at the Ambassador Cocoanut Grove, our
visiting English authoress ate her entire supper without once removing
her long white gloves. Those were “great moments” when the olives,
corn and asparagus came on! Elinor was again accompanied by that tall,
youngish actor, Dana Todd. Hollywood has been undergoing mental
confusion all summer as to whether Dana was in love with Gloria Swanson
or Elinor or merely a protege protector of both ladies when they took
their evenings out.
* * * * *
Lois Wilson, Lasky star, has a brand new Chicago millionaire beau who
seems to be quite serious in his intentions. Mildred Harris, who has also
been playing over at the Lasky lot of late, is favoring a millionaire of
brunette hue.
* * * * *
Mabel Normand went off on a farm in Vermont last winter and drank milk
until she could again ask her friends how one could lose weight. Just
now, a distinguished looking gentleman with gray hair is trotting Mabel
about to the dance emporiums.
* * * * *
Bessie Love is often seen at the cafes, but almost always with “mama.”
Lost your hunting license, Bessie?
* * * * *
The other evening when Clara Kimball Young stepped out with Harry
Garson wearing a whole photoplay worth of ermine and diamonds, a very
embarrassing thing happened. They danced of course, but in one of those
floor jams, Clara suddenly found her lovely head parked on the shoulder
of her ex-spouse, Jimmy Young. Gallant to the end, Jimmy appeared not to
notice—but when the next dance began, Jimmy sat it out with his partner
at one end of the ball-room while Clara feigned weariness at the other
end!
* * * * *
Ruth Renick, film star, is in love with an unknown hero. While horseback
riding the other day, she hurt her ankle and went into a drug store for
aid. Then she grew faint and fell right over into the arms of a handsome
stranger. He vanished when she woke up and that ends the story. Ruth and
“we all” are hoping for developments.
* * * * *
Roy Stewart has been riding horseback of late with Miss Stanley
Partridge, a young Los Angeles society girl.
* * * * *
Walter Morosco and Betty Compson are often seen stepping about together.
* * * * *
Yes, we admit that this item should have headline position. ’Tis true
that Mr. and Mrs. Wallace MacDonald (Doris May), took a second-run
honeymoon over at Catalina.
* * * * *
Bill Desmond and his own wife, Mary McIvor, often step out together and
dance together all evening—because they like it. This same state of
affairs exists with the Wesley Ruggles and Conrad Nagles as well as in
the Bryant Washburn household.
* * * * *
Evelyn Nesbit, formerly Mrs. Harry K. Thaw, recently caused the arrest of
four men on charges of disorderly conduct. She complained they entered
the hallway outside of her apartment and that one seized her by the
shoulders and made an insulting remark. The complainant said she knew
none of the men. At the station house Miss Nesbit said that the men fled
in a taxicab when she ran to the street yelling “fire” and calling for
the police. The quartet returned later and encountered two policemen.
* * * * *
Can We Forgive Him?
The London Post reports the following—
There was fighting in the fo’c’sle; and the aggressor, a hard-faced,
hard-fisted sailor man from Rotherhithe, was called upon to explain.
“That square-headed Swede miscalled me,” he bellowed. “He said I was an
Irishman, and I’m not. Me mother was a good Mexican lady and me father
was two marines from Chatham!”
The explanation cordially accepted.
* * * * *
Pithole Filosophy
One time I got mad at a sassy kid; I said, “There is enough brass in your
face to make a large kettle.”
He said “Yes, and there’s enough sap in your head to fill it.”
* * * * *
The Wails of a Wolstead Wictim
Oh to spend “jack” like a Jackass; to have the “hips” of a hippo; the
neck of a giraffe; the thirst of a camel and the “jag” of a jaguar.
* * * * *
Giving Him Fair Warning
She—“What are you thinking about?”
He—“Just what you’re thinking about.”
She—“If you do, I’ll scream.”—Phoenix.
* * * * *
The Way of a Lad With a Lass
He—“Hu-nnnh?”
She—“Nu’unnnh.”
He—“Please.”
She—“I told you NO!”
He—“Hu’nnnnnnh?”
She—“Nu’unnnnnnh.”
He—“Huu’n n n n n nh?”
She—“Nu—Unnnnnnn’huh.”
Smack!
* * * * *
Modern Literature
She nestled against the two strong arms that held her. She pressed her
flushed cheek against the smooth skin-so near-so tan-so glowing.
“How handsome!” she cried, her eyes noting the fine straight back, the
sturdy, well-shaped legs.
“How handsome!” she repeated. “I adore a leather upholstered chair.”
* * * * *
Flapper Blues
Ain’t no use of living, nothing gained,
Ain’t no use of eating just pain,
Ain’t no use of kissing he’ll tell,
Ain’t no use of nothing, Oh, well.
* * * * *
Djever Hear This One?
An Englishman bragged that he was once mistaken for Lloyd George. The
American boasted that he had been taken for President Wilson.
Paddy said he had them all beat.
“A fellow walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Great
God, is that you?’”
* * * * *
Pink Pills for Pale People
Lydia Pinkham recently received a love letter from the vegetable compound
magnate reading as follows, our correspondents report:
“Do you carrot all for me? My bleeding heart beets for you. My
love is as soft as a squash, but as strong as an onion. You are
a peach with your radish hair and turnip nose. Your cherry lips
and forget-me-not eyes call me. You are the apple of my eye,
and if we canteloupe lettuce marry for I am sure we would make
a happy pear.”
* * * * *
Lovely Calves We’re Having!
“Oh see the darling little cow-lets!”
“Miss, those are not cow-lets, they’re bull-ets.”
Pasture Pot Pourri
The other day a stranger walked up and asked me if I was a doctor. I
informed him that I wasn’t, but that I thought I knew where he could get
some.
* * * * *
Some women get red in the face from modesty, some from anger, and some
from the druggist.
* * * * *
Pour Her Back Into the Ocean
She wiggled, she waddled,
She leapt and she toddled;
She shivered, she quivered, she shook.
She rippled, she trippled,
She sprang and she skippled—
Her dance was “The Song of the Brook.”
* * * * *
The Song of a Sailor
“_There’s just one Gal in Galveston, but there’s More in Baltimore._”
* * * * *
I went into a restaurant. I said, “Have you got anything fit for a hog to
eat?”
He said, “Yes, what do you want?”
* * * * *
When a married man gets his hair cut, his wife loses her strongest hold
on him.
* * * * *
The barber has a scraping acquaintance with a great many people.
* * * * *
Essence of Sweet Peas
“The mean old thing wouldn’t lettuce.”
“Can we take a little spin-ach?”
“No, I’ll see my car-rot first.”
* * * * *
There is something mysteriously attractive about all mysteries—except
hash.
* * * * *
_A request has come from a Philadelphia reader that all our jokes be
written on tissue paper so that he can see through them._
* * * * *
May Have Better Luck
(From Sedalia Correspondence of Rogers Democrat)
Mrs. Albert Evans didn’t have good luck with her incubator. She had only
thirty little chicks, but she is undaunted and she is setting again.
* * * * *
Mary wears her new short skirt,
Cut just about in half;
Who cares a slam ’bout Mary’s lamb,
Now we can see her calf?
* * * * *
The woman with a past is always glad to see a man with a present.
* * * * *
The Latest Song “Hit”
By A. Balland Batt.
“When the Baseball season starts, Sweetheart, I’ll be running home to
you.”
* * * * *
_Miss Marrietta Nutt will now render the latest “catch”. “The toy shop
business is booming since they show their Teddy bears.”_
* * * * *
We Expect a Free Can For This!
_I saw a girl the other day who was so bashful she asked for a lady clerk
when she wanted to buy some Arbuckle’s coffee._
* * * * *
The Happy Ham
_All smokers are inveterate;_
_Their vice becomes inured,_
_Only a ham can smoke and smoke,_
_And smoking still be cured._
* * * * *
I kicked a mongrel cur,
He uttered a mournful wail.
Where did I kick him, Sir?
Ah! Thereby hangs a tail.
* * * * *
_The most disgusting sight in the world is to see another fellow in an
automobile with your best girl._
* * * * *
The old inhabitant says, “I kin remember when a young lady passed you,
you always could hear the rustle of stiffly starched skirts.”
* * * * *
Naughty Egg
I wish I was a crow’s egg
As bad as bad can be,
All cuddled up in a little nest
Way up in a big tree.
And when a grinning little boy
Looked up at me in glee,
I’d bust my naughty little self
And sprinkle him with me.
* * * * *
The Diamond Queen
Now on one hand she has an immense fortune and on the other hand she has
warts.
* * * * *
When a girl casts her bread upon the waters, she expects it to come back
in the shape of a wedding cake.
* * * * *
_One of the season’s popular football rooters’ song is that old familiar
ballad “After the Ball.”_
* * * * *
The Hootch Hound’s Lament
It’s easy to stay two-thirds pickled all day,
Get drunk and sleep out in the yard,
But to put in a night without one drink in sight;
It’s the getting back sober that’s hard.
* * * * *
Love is a hallucination that makes an otherwise sane man believe he can
set up housekeeping on a gas stove and a canary bird.
* * * * *
St. Paul Blues
_When I’m dead bury me deep,_
_Bury me in the middle of St. Peter street;_
_Put my hands across my chest_
_And tell the girls I’ve gone to rest._
* * * * *
_“What a curve,” said the garter, as it came around the last stretch._
* * * * *
Many a girl who never had her ears pierced has frequently had them bored.
_Movie Hot Stuff_
Mrs. Juanita M. Cohen has filed a heart-balm suit for $50,000 against
Jackie Saunders for the loss of the love and affection of J. Warde Cohen,
her husband. Jackie affirms that Mr. Cohen has no love for his wife and
that no pretty stranger can steal anything which doesn’t exist. Jackie
and her lawyers cite several scenes that have taken place between the
Cohens, all to prove that the little God Eros was not about. Rather a
clever way to turn the matter about, Jackie!
* * * * *
At several recent parties and dinners attended by film stars and given
since the Arbuckle affair has been disclosed, the picture people have not
refused cocktails or wine offered by the host. The picture people have
been drinking their cocktails with a bit of defiance as if to show the
world that “there are plenty of us who can drink with moderation and do
nothing to hurt our neighbor or disgrace the community.”
Before prohibition made such conditions imperative, all of us might have
thought the party a bit too free and careless if drinks were served in
hotel bedrooms and prelude parties to hotel dinners given on the upper
floors. For those who still believe in the free rights of the individual,
hotel bedroom drinking is the only kind allowed by law. Perhaps if the
Arbuckle party had been allowed to order their drinks in a hotel lobby or
tea-room, the tragedy of Miss Rappe’s death would never have occurred.
At any rate, let it be said that at two large dinner parties given since
the Arbuckle affair, the film people drank with decorum and several
Pasadena and Los Angeles millionaire society men were the ones laid out
to “rest and recuperate!”
Another party planned to take place on a yacht equipped with “orchid and
rose suites,” promising to border on the near dangerous, was declined by
a number of prominent Hollywood stars. The party took place without the
film folk, there being plenty of fast folk in the society set to attend
who had no professional reputation to protect.
* * * * *
The divorce case of the Charles Kenyons developed into an Alphonse and
Gaston affair. Charlie Kenyon is the author of the successful play
“Kindling” and has written many photoplays for the Fox and Goldwyn
studios at which he has been employed.
During the hotly contested divorce suit, both accused the other of
desertion. Mrs. Kenyon testified that when her husband came home late at
night and she upbraided him concerning the matter, he said he would have
to live his own life and if he couldn’t live it there, he would have to
go somewhere else. Therefore, Kenyon deserted.
Kenyon, on the other hand, said that his wife deserted him because her
actions and treatment of him made going away the only possibly manly act.
Quite a paradox for you isn’t it, Judge?
Mrs. Kenyon has previously divorced two husbands. It is said that Kenyon
remained a bachelor several years while he waited for the present Mrs.
Kenyon to free herself from her last husband and marry him.
* * * * *
H. H. Waters, scenario writer, was found clad only in a suit of pajamas,
the other morning just outside the Hollywood Hotel. He was unconscious
and bleeding profusely. The names of the other picture folk who attended
the party have been kept under cover.
* * * * *
Our Guv’ment’s too annoying! The whole blasted Pacific fleet has been
back in Los Angeles harbor since September without a movie guest aboard!
You see there’s some sort of a board of inspection from Washington going
over the nuts and bolts, and its been considered tactful to keep the milk
on the table and cover the Victrola!
* * * * *
While Doug and Mary were recovering from a tremendous ovation in London
and were receiving a similar welcome in Gay Paree, Charlie Chaplin native
Englishman, was being slapped by the press of his native land. The London
Post, for example, says this:
“Charlie Chaplin was good enough to remark on the sadness of the faces of
the Londoners he met in his walks. Well, we went through a bit of a war
while Charlie was in Los Angeles.”
* * * * *
Going, Going, Gone!
When the rye is in the meadow
And the corn is in the shock
And your cellar’s dry as powder
And your diamonds all in hock,
When the gin is all in Holland
And the home brew knocked sky-high
Oh, tell me Captain Billy
When the milk weed’s going dry.
* * * * *
How to Get the Cash
“Bonuses for Babies”
Is all the cry In France;
And so the largest families
Will get the biggest chance;
But where’s the money coming from?
French Law for laughter bids
By taxing all the bachelors
For other people’s kids!
* * * * *
The nox was lit by the lux of Luna,
It was a nox most opportuna,
To catch a possum or a coona.
The nix was scattered o’er the Mundus,
A shallow nix et non profundus.
* * * * *
_The undertaker is always able to put up a stiff argument._
_Classified Ads_
The Colonel Knows His Cat
(From San Antonio Express.)
Reward—Lost, Boston female, 8 months old, 12 lbs., mahogany brindle,
screw tail, white chest, back of neck and blazed face. Col. M. L.
Crimmins, 106 Groveland Place.
* * * * *
Why, Mabel!
(From St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)
Miss Mabel Wilber, in the leading soprano role of Daisy the Barmaid,
later Little Boy Blue, sang well and wore several masculine costumes
which showed her versatility.
* * * * *
A Warm Proposition
(San Francisco Chronicle.)
Young man, 28, wishes the acquaintance of a lonely, stout lady; object
mat. Box 500, Chronicle Branch, San Jose.
* * * * *
Hand In Hand
(From the Bald Knob, Ark., Eagle.)
A jolly bunch of our young people went on a kodaking expedition Sunday
that resulted in many exposures and a very enjoyable time.
* * * * *
Like Dimples, They Come High
(From the Graceville, Minn., Enterprise.)
Born—To Mr. and Mrs. G. C. Heimann, Sunday, August 7th, a son.
You can get one this month only for $40.00. See Chris. Nelson, The Tailor.
* * * * *
The timid girl appreciates the sympathy that makes a man feel for her in
the dark.
* * * * *
Bargain Day
The late Cy Warman, who deserted railway literature for a real railway
job in Montreal, told this story at a luncheon not long before his death:
A Scotchman came upon an automobile overturned at a railway crossing.
Beside it lay a man all smashed up.
“Get a doctor,” he moaned.
“Did the train hit you?” asked the Scotchman.
“Yes, yes; get a doctor.”
“Has the claim agent been here yet?”
“No, no; please get a doctor.”
“Move over, you,” said the Scot, “till I lie down beside you.”
* * * * *
A Letter in Meter
There are meters of accent,
There are meters of tone,
But the best way to meet her
Is to meter alone.
There are letters of accent
There are letters of tone,
But the best way to letter
Is to letter alone.
* * * * *
Page the Weather Boy!
The fancy display in hosiery on a rainy day affects a man’s eyes to such
an extent that he is always anxious to see it clear up.
* * * * *
_Playing with loaded dice is shaky business at best._
* * * * *
Ain’t It the Truth?
It usually takes a St. Patrick’s Day parade longer to pass a bootlegging
joint than any other point on the line of march.
* * * * *
The High Cost of Babies
The following is an original advertisement appearing in the Genesee
(Idaho) News:
Eight Months’ Warning.
After October 1st, all babies C. O. D.
W. H. Ehlen, M. D.
H. Rouse, M. D.
* * * * *
The Tattlers
Age and her little brother will always tell on a girl.
* * * * *
They nicknamed the baby Steamboat because they used a paddle behind.
* * * * *
A little boy wrote a composition on man and he said it was a person split
half way up and who walks on the split end.
* * * * *
Something to Worry About
The pulse of Napoleon is said to have made only 50 beats a minute.
* * * * *
_According to new regulations in the British army, each soldier in
barracks is allowed 600 cubic feet of
|
that comes of spiritual energy, and all firmly concentrated in
Yoga--these ascetics presented themselves before Rama in the asyhim of
Sarabhanga. And coming before Rama, the foremost of those practising
righteousness, those sages conversant with morality,--met in a body,
said unto that pre-eminently virtuous one, "A mighty car-warrior, thou
art the foremost person of the Ikshwaku race and the world; as well as
their lord,--even as Maghavan is the lord of the celestials. Famous over
the three worlds in high worth and prowess, in thee are found truth and
virtue in profusion and obedience unto the mandate of thy sire. O lord,
it behoves thee cognizant of virtue and attached unto it, to forgive us
for what we as suiters say unto thee. The sin, O lord, of that monarch
is mighty that taketh a sixth part of the subjects' incomes, but doth
not protect them as sons. But he that, setting his heart on protecting
the people, doth ever carefully protect all the inhabitants of his
dominions, like his own life or like his son dearer unto him than life
itself, reapeth, O Rama, enduring renown extending over many years, and
(at length) attaining the regions of Brahma, is glorified there. The
king that protects his subjects righteously, is entitled to a fourth
part of the great religious merit that is reaped by an ascetic
subsisting on fruits and roots. O Rama, this many Brahmanas--this great
body of men that have assumed the Vanaprastha mode of life, although
having thee for their lord, are being sorely troubled by Rakshasas, as
if they had none. Come and behold the bodies of innumerable ascetics of
pure hearts that have in various ways been slaughtered by Rakshasas in
the forest. And great is the worry that is experienced by the dwellers
on the river Pampi and the Mandakini as well as those that reside in
Chitrakuta. We cannot bear the terrible affliction of the ascetics in
the forest at the hands of Rakshasas of dreadful deeds. Therefore, for
obtaining refuge, have we come before thee who art the refuge (of all).
Do thou, O Rama, deliver us all, who are being exceedingly afflicted by
the rangers of the night. O hero, we have no greater refuge on earth
than thyself. Do thou, O king's son, rescue us all from Rakshasas."
Hearing these words of the sages and ascetics, that righteous-souled one
addressed them, saying, "It doth not behove you to speak thus. I should
be commanded by the anchorets. I have entered the forest solely with a
view to my own purpose. I have entered this forest in obedience to the
mandate of my father, with the object (at the same time) of putting an
end to these ravages of the Rakshasas on you. I have at my own will come
hither for securing your interest. Then shall my stay in the woods be
crowned with mighty fruit. I wish to slay in battle the enemies of the
ascetics. Let the sages and ascetics behold my prowess as well as that
of my brother." Having been conferred a boon by the ascetics, that hero
entered upon a noble undertaking, and accompanied by the ascetics, in
company with Lakshmana directed his course to (the hermitage of)
Sutikshna.
SECTION VII.
Rama accompanied by his brother as well as Sita went to the asylum of
Sutikshna in company with the twice-born ones. And having proceeded far,
and crossed many a stream of copious waters, Rama saw a holy peak
towering high like the mighty Meru. Then those worthy scions of the
Ikshwaku race--descendants of Raghu--with Sita entered the forest ever
furnished with various kinds of trees. And having entered the dense
forest abounding in blossoms and fruits and trees, Rama saw in a recess
an asylum glittering with bark and garlands. There Rama duly addressed
an ascetic seated in the lotus-attitude[9] for warding off evil, even
Sutikshna, "O thou conversant with righteousness, speak to me, O
Maharshi, O thou that hast truth for thy prowess." Thereupon, eying Rama
keenly, that calm (ascetic)--the foremost of those practising
righteousness, embracing him with his arms, said, "Welcome, thou
foremost of the Raghus, O Rama, thou the best of those practising
righteousness. This asylum now hath been furnished with its master in
consequence of thy visit. O illustrious one, O hero, expecting thee, I
have not yet ascended heaven, renouncing on earth this body of mine. I
had (already) heard that, coming to Chitrakuta, (thou hadst been staying
there), having been deprived of the kingdom. Here came, O Kakutstha, the
Sovereign of the celestials of an hundred sacrifices. Coming to me, that
mighty deity, the Sovereign of the celestials, said that I had acquired
all the worlds by my pious acts. Do thou, by my grace, in company with
thy wife and Lakshmana, dwell delightfully in those regions won by my
asceticism, containing Devarshis." Thereupon the self-possessed Rama
answered that blazing and truth-telling Brahmana of fiery austerities,
like Vasava answering Brahma, saying, "O mighty ascetic, I myself will
win those regions. I wish to be directed to a dwelling in this forest.
Thou art possessed of ability in respect of everything, and art (at the
same time) engaged in the welfare of all beings,--this hath been told
unto me by the high-souled Sarabhanga of the Gautama race." Thus
addressed by Rama, that Maharshi known over all the worlds, spoke sweet
words ia great joy, "O meritorious Rama, even this is the asylum (for
thee). Do thou live here pleasantly. It is inhabited by numbers of
saints and is always provided with fruits and roots. This forest is
haunted by herds of deer that range here without doing harm to any one,
although they possess great energy; and go away, having bewitched people
(by their beauty). Save what comes from these deer, there is no other
evil to be encountered here." Hearing those words of the Maharshi, the
placid elder brother of Lakshmana, taking up his bow with the arrow set,
said "O exalted one, if by means of sharpened shafts blazing like
lightning, I slay those herds of deer when they come, it shall impart
pain unto thee,--and what can be more unfortunate than this? Therefore I
shall not be able to dwell long in this asylum." Having said this, Rama
ceased and became engaged in his evening adorations, and, having
finished them, along with Sita and Lakshmana fixed his quarters in the
asylum of Sutikshna. Then, when the evening had passed away and night
fell, Sutikshna, having done homage unto those chiefs of men, offered
them excellent fare, suitable to ascetics.
[9] The _yoga_ system has many positions for concentrating
thought.--T.
SECTION VIII.
Having been well entertained by Sutikshna, Rama in company with
Sumitra's son, having passed away the night there, awoke in the morning.
And arising in due time, Rama along with Sita, bathed in cool waters
odorous with the aroma of lotuses; and having in proper time duly
worshipped Fire as well as the deities, in that forest containing abodes
of ascetics, Rama, Lakshmana and Videha's daughter, their sins purged
off, seeing the sun risen, approached Sutikshna and spoke unto him these
mild words, saying--O Reverend sir, we have stayed here pleasantly,
being excellently ministered unto by thee. We greet thee, and go away.
The ascetics urge speed upon us. We hasten to view the collections of
asylums that belong unto the holy sages inhabiting the forest of
Dandaka. Now we crave thy permission along with that of these foremost
of anchorites, steady in virtue, crowned with asceticism and
self-controled, resembling smokeless flames. And we intend to set out
ere the sun, like unto a low-sprung one that hath attained to auspicious
fortune through evil ways, with rays incapable of being borne, shines
too fiercely." Having said this, Raghava along with Sita and Sumitra's
son bowed down unto the ascetic's feet. And as they touched his feet,
that best of ascetics, raising Rama and Lakshmana up, embraced them
closely and said, "O Rama, go thy way safely, in company with Sumitra's
son and this Sita that followeth thee like a shadow. Behold the
beauteous asylums, O hero, of these pure-spirited ascetics inhabiting
the forest of Dandaka. Thou wilt see blossoming woods garnishod with
fruits and roots, containing goodly deer, and mild feathered tribes;
tanks and pools laughing with blown lotuses, containing pleasant waters,
and abounding in Karandavas; charming mountain-springs; and romantic
forests picturesque with peacocks. Go, O child; and go thou also, O
Sumitra'a son. And come again to my asylum after having seen these."
Thus addressed, Kakutstha along with Lakshmana, having gone round the
ascetic, prepared for departing. Then Sita of expansive eyes handed to
the brothers excellent quivers, bows and shining swords. Then fastening
the graceful quivers, and taking the sweet-sounding bows, both Rama and
Lakshmana issued from the hermitage. And permitted by the Maharshi, the
Raghavas furnished with grace, equipped with bows and scimitars, swiftly
set out along with Sita.
SECTION IX.
When the son of Raghu had set out with Sutikshna's permission, Sita
addressed him in affectionate words and convincing speech,
saying,--"Although thou art great and followest the narrow way (of
righteousness), yet thou art on the eve of entering into
unrighteousness. But thou couldst by refraining from action, eschew this
unrighteousness that springs from an evil begot of desire. This evil
begot of desire is threefold. One prominent evil is falsehood, and both
the others are of weightier significance, --association with others'
wives, and vindictiveness without any (basis of) hostility. Falsehood, O
Raghava, hath never been thine, nor can it ever be thine (in the
future). Nor yet, O foremost of men, canst thou ever even in fancy be
(guilty of) going after others' wives, which marreth all religious
merit. These, O Rama, are by no means in thee. O King's son, thou ever
and a day directest thy attentions unto thy own wife. And thou art
righteous and truthful and doest the will of thy sire. In thee are
established virtue and truth--and every thing; and by help of thy
conquered senses, thou, O mighty-armed one, art capable of bearing
everything. And, O thou of a gracious presence, thine is control over
sense. The third evil that leads men through ignorance to bear hostility
towards others without any (cause of) hostility, is now present (unto
thee). Thou hast, O hero, for the protection of the saints dwelling in
the forest of Dandaka, promised the slaughter of Rakshasas in battle.
And it is for this reason that equipped with bows and arrows, thou hast
along with thy brother set out for the forest known as Dandaka. Seeing
thee set out, my mind reflecting on thy truthfulness as well as thy
happiness in this world and welfare in the next, is wrought up with
anxiety. And, O hero, I do not relish this journey to Dandaka. Thereof I
will tell thee the reason. Do thou listen to me as I tell thee. Bearing
bows and arrows in thy hands, thou hast come to the wood along with thy
brother; and (it may well happen) that seeing grim rangers of the
forest, thou mayst discharge thy shafts. And even as the vicinity of
faggots increases the energy of (ire, the proximity of (the bow)
enhances the strength and energy of the Kshatriya. Formerly, O
long-armed one, in a sacred wood haunted by beasts and birds, there
lived a truthful ascetic of a pure person. Intending to disturb his
austerities, Sachi's lord, Indra, bearing a sword in his hand, came to
the asylum in the guise of a warrior. And in that asylum, that excellent
scimitar was deposited as a trust with that righteous person practising
asceticism. Receiving that weapon, that ascetic intent upon preserving
his trust, rangeth the forest, maintaining his faith. And intent upon
preserving his trust, he goeth nowhere for procuring fruits and roots
without that sword deposited with him as a trust. Constantly carrying
the sword, by degrees, the ascetic, foregoing all thoughts about
asceticism, had his mind involved in fierce sentiments. Thus in
consequence of bearing that weapon, that ascetic taken up with fierce
thoughts, losing his sobriety and led astray from righteousness, went to
hell. This ancient story anent the carrying of arms, asserts that even
as fire worketh change in a piece of wood, the presence of arms worketh
alteration in the mind of him bearing them. From affection and the high
honor in which I hold thee, I merely remind thee of this matter. I do
not teach thee. Equipped with bows as thou art, thou shouldst renounce
all thoughts of slaying without hostility the Rakshasas residing in
Dandaka. Without offence none should be slain.--It is the duty of
Kshatriya heroes by means of their bows to protect persons of subdued
souls, come by any calamity. Where are arms? And where is the forest?
Where is Kshatriya virtue? And where is asceticism? These arc opposed to
each other,--let us, therefore, honor the morality that pertains to this
place. From following arms, one's sense gets befouled and deformed.
Again going to Ayodhya, thou wilt observe the duties of Kshatriyas. Then
my mother-in-law and father-in-law shall experience enduring delight,
if, having renounced the kingdom, thou lead the life of an ascetic.
Interest springs from righteousness; and happiness also results
therefrom. One attains everything through righteousness--in this world
the only substantial thing. Repressing self by diverse restrictions,
intelligent people attain righteousness; but virtue crowned with
felicity, is incapable of being attained by following pleasure. O mild
one, ever cherishing thy heart in purity, do thou practise piety, in the
wood of asceticism. Everything--the three worlds--are truly known unto
thee. I have spoken this through feminine fickleness. Who can speak of
righteousness unto thee? Reflecting on and understanding things, do thou
along with thy younger brother speedily do what thou likest."
SECTION X.
Hearing Vaidehi's words spoken through high regard (for her husbands
Rama with his energy enhanced, answered Janaka's daughter, saying, "O
noble lady, thou hast spoken mild words fraught with worth and profit;
and, O Janaka's daughter versed in virtue, thou hast expounded the
duties of Kshatriyas. What, O exalted one, shall I say? Thou hast
thyself by thy words (furnished an answer to what thou hadst said).
Kshatriyas wear bows in order that the word 'distressed' may not exist
(on earth). O Sita, those ascetics of severe vows that are beset with
perils in Dandaka, having personally come unto me, who am their refuge,
have sought protection at my hands. Always dwelling in the forest,
subsisting on fruits and roots, they on account of Rakshasas of cruel
deeds, do not, O timid one, attain ease. These ascetics are devoured by
terrible Rakshasas) living on human flesh. Being eaten up (by the
Rakshasas), the anchorites living in the forest of Dandaka--those best
of the twice-born ones-- said unto us--'Be thou gracious unto us.'
Hearing those words of theirs which fell from their lips, I, resolving
to act in accordance with their request, said,--'Be ye propitious.' This
is surpassing shame unto me that such Vipras who themselves are worthy
of being sought, seek me. What shall I do? I said this in the presence
of those twice-born ones. Thereat all those that had come, said, 'We
have been, O Rama, immensely harassed in the forest of Dandaka by
Rakshasas wearing shapes at will. Do thou deliver us. These
irrepressible Rakshasas living on human flesh vanquish us at the time of
_Homa_, and on the occasions of Parvas, O sinless one. Of the saints and
ascetics afflicted by the Rakshasas, who are on the search for their
refuge, thou art our best refuge. We can by virtue of the energy of our
asceticism easily destroy the rangers of the night; but we are loath to
lose our asceticism earned in a long time. O Raghava, our austerities
are constantly disturbed, and we can hardly perform them. Therefore,
although sore afflicted and devoured by the Rakshasas dwelling in the
forest of Dandaka, we do not cast our curse on them. Thou along with thy
brother art our protector: thou art our master in this forest.' Having
heard these words, I promised my perfect protection unto the saints in
the forest of Dandaka, O daughter of Janaka. Having promised, I living
cannot violate my vow concerning the ascetics; verily truth is ever dear
unto me. I had rather renounce my life, or thee, O Sita, along with
Lakshmana,--but by no means my promise made, especially unto Brahmanas.
O Videha's daughter, the protection of the saints is incumbent on me
even without any representation,--and what (shall I say) when I have
promised the same? Thou hast spoken this unto me through affection and
friendship. I have been well pleased with thee, O Sita. One doth not
instruct another that one doth not bear affection to. O beauteous
damsel, (what thou hast said) is worthy of both thy love and thy race. "
Having said these words unto Mithila's princess, the beloved Sita, the
high-souled Rama, equipped with bows, along with Lakshmana, directed his
steps towards the inviting woods of asceticism.
SECTION XI.
Rama went first; in the middle, Sita; and bearing a bow in his hand,
Lakshmana went in their wake And they went with Sita, seeing many
mountain-peaks, and forests, and delightful streams, and Chakravikas,
haunting river islets, and tanks with lotuses containing aquatic birds,
and herds of deer, and horned buffalos maddened with juices, and boars,
and elephants-- foes to trees. Having proceeded a long way, when the sun
was aslant, they together saw a delightful tank measuring a _yojana_,
fifed with red and pale lotuses, graced with herds of elephants, and
abounding in aquatic cranes, swans and _Kadanivas_. And in that tank
containing charming and pleasant waters, they heard sounds of song and
instrumental music; but no one was seen there. Thereat, from curiosity,
Rama and Lakshmana--mighty car-warrior--asked an ascetic named
Dharmabhrit, saying, "Hearing[10] this mighty wonder, we have been
worked up with intense curiosity. Do thou tell us what this is." Thus
accosted by Raghava, the ascetic then at once began to expatiate over
the potency of the pool. "This tank goes by the name of Panchapsara, and
is always filled with water. It was made, O Rama, by the ascetic
Mandakarni, by virtue of his asceticism. In yonder tank, the mighty
ascetic, living on air, performed signal austerities for ten thousand
years. Thereat, exceedingly agitated, all the deities with Agni at their
head, assembled together, said, 'This ascetic wishes to have the
position of one of us.' Thus all the deities present there were filled
with anxiety. Then with the view of disturbing his austerities, the
deities ordered five principal Apsaras, possessed of the splendour of
live lightning. And for compassing the end of the celestials, that
ascetic conversant with the morality and otherwise as well of this life
as that to come, was brought by those Apsaras under the sway of Madana.
And those five Apsaras (ultimately) became the wives of the ascetic; and
their hidden residence was reared in the pool. And there the five
Apsaras living happily, pleased the anchorite, established in youth
through asceticism and _yoga_. As thy sport, we hear the sounds of their
musical instruments, and the sweet voice of their song mixed with the
tinklings of their instruments." (Hearing this), the illustrious Raghava
along with his brother declared the story narrated by that one of a pure
heart to be wonderful. Thus conversing, Rama saw the collection of
asylums, strewn with Kuça and bark, and be-girt with energy derived from
Brahma lore. Entering (the place) along with Vaidehi and Lakshmana, the
highly famous Raghava dwelt there respected by all the ascetics. Having
happily dwelt in those collections of graceful asylums, honored of the
Maharshis, Kakutstha by turns went to the hermitages of those ascetics
with whom that one well versed in arms had dwelt before. And Raghava
happily passed his days somewhere for ten months, somewhere for one
year, somewhere for four months somewhere for five or six months,
somewhere for many months, somewhere for a month and a half, --somewhere
for more, somewhere for three months, and somewhere for eight. And as
Rama lived in the asylums of the ascetics and amused himself through
their good graces, ten years were passed away (in this way). Having gone
round the asylums of all the ascetics, Raghava cognizant of
righteousness returned to the hermitage of Sutikshna. Coming to this
asylum, respected by the ascetics, that subduer of enemies, Rama, stayed
there for a time. Once upon a time, as Kakutstha dwelling in that asylum
was seated, he humbly observed unto that great ascetic, "I have always
heard from men speaking on the subject that that foremost of ascetics,
the reverend Agastya, lives in this forest. On account of the vastness
of this forest, I do not know that place. Where is the hermitage of that
intelligent Maharshi? For propitiating that revered one, I, accompanied
by my brother and Sita, will go to Agastya for paying our respects unto
the ascetic. This great desire is burning in my heart, that I should
myself minister unto that best of anchorets." Hearing these words of the
righteous-souled Rama, Sutikhna, well pleased, answered Daçaratha's son,
saying, "I also am desirous of telling thee this along with Lakshmana.
Repair unto Agastya in company with Sita, O RSghava. By luck thou hast
thyself said this unto me as to thy purpose. I will, O Rama, tell thee
where that mighty ascetic, Agastya, is. My child, go four miles from the
hermitage in a southerly direction; and thou wilt come to the hermitage
of the brother of the auspicious Agastya situated on a land covered with
trees, graced with _Pippali_ woods, abounding in fruits and flowers,
charming, and resonant with the notes of various birds. There are many
tanks containing delightful waters, swarming with swans and Karandavas,
and beauteous with Chakravakas. Passing a night there, do thou, O Rama,
in the morning, taking a southerly course, go by the skirts of the
forest tract. Passing a _yojana_, thou shalt come upon Agastya's asylum,
located at a charming woodland graced with many a tree. There Videha's
daughter and Lakshmana shall experience delight in thy company. O
magnanimous one, if thou intend to see the mighty ascetic, Agastya, in
that charming woodland, containing a great many trees, then do thou make
up thy mind to set out this very day." Hearing these words of the
anchoret, Rama, saluting him, along with his brother, set off for
Agastya's (place) with his younger brother and Sita. And, pleasantly
proceeding by the way directed by Sutikshna, seeing pirturesque woods,
hills resembling clouds, watery expanses and streams flowing by their
path; Rama filled with delight said these words unto Lakshmana, "Surely
we see the asylum of that high-souled one, the ascetic, Agastya's
brother of pious acts. These trees standing by thousands on the way
bending beneath the weight of fruits and flowers, hear the signs that
had been mentioned to me as belonging to this wood. And from the wood is
wafted by the wind the pungent odour of ripe _pippalis_. And here and
there are found heaps of fire-wood, and torn _Darva_ are seen, of the
lustre of lapises. And the top of the column of smoke belonging unto the
fire lit in the asylum in this wood, appears like the peak of a dark
mountain. And twice-born ones, having performed their ablutions in
sacred and retired bathing places, are offering flowers gathered by
themselves, O placid one, from what I had heard from Sutikshna, this
would appear to be the asylum of Agastya's brother. The righteous
Agastya it is who, wishing for the welfare of the worlds, destroying by
virtue of his austerities a Daitya resembling Death, hath rendered this
quarter habitable. Once on a time here dwelt together two mighty Asuras,
brothers given to slaughtering Brahmanas--the wily Vatapi and Ilwala.
Wearing the form of a Brahmana, and speaking Sanskrit, the cruel one
used to invite Vipras to a _Sraddha_. And, cooking his brother wearing
the shape of a sheep, he used to feed the twice-born ones according to
the rites prescribed for _Sraddhas_. Then when the Vipras had fed,
Ilwala said,-- "O Vatapi, come out, uttering a loud sound." Hearing his
brother's words, Vatapi, bleating like a sheep, came out, riving their
bodies. In this way, thousands of Brahmanas gathered together, were
destroyed by flesh-eating ones wearing shapes at will. (And it came to
pass that once upon a time) the Maharshi Agastya, having been invited to
a Sraddha, fed on the mighty Asura. Thereupon uttering--'Finished' and
offering water to wash hands with, Ilwala said unto his brother, 'Come
out'! And, as that brother of Vatapi, given to slaughtering Vipras was
speaking thus, that foremost of ascetics, the intelligent Agastya, said
with a laugh, 'Where is the power of coming out, of the Rakshasa, thy
brother wearing the shape of a sheep, who hath gone to Yama's abode?'
Hearing his words, from wrath the ranger of the night prepared to assail
the ascetic, and he rushed against that foremost of the twice-born ones.
And, being consumed by that ascetic of flaming energy with his eyes
resembling fire, the Rakshasa met his end. This asylum graced with pools
and groves belongs to the brother of him who hath performed this arduous
feat from compassion for the Vipras'. As Rama was thus conversing with
Sumitra's son, the sun set and evening approached. Then, duly performing
his afternoon adorations along with his brother, Rama entered the
hermitage, and saluted the ascetic. Well received by the ascetic,
Raghava spent there a night, eating fruits and roots. When the night had
passed away, and the solar disc arose, Raghava greeted Agastya's
brother, saying, "O reverend Sir, I salute thee. I have pleasantly
passed the night. I greet thee; I shall go to behold my preceptor, thy
elder brother." Thereat, on the ascetic's saying, 'Go thou,' the
descendant of Raghu went away by the prescribed route. And Rama viewed
the forest, and Niharas, and Panaças, and Salas, Vanjulas and Tinisas,
and Chirivilwas, and Madhukas, and Vilvas, and Tindukas,--all in full
flower, and graced with blossoming creepers, and trees in the wood by
hundreds, roughly handled by elephants with their trunks, and graced by
monkeys, and resounding with the voices of an hundred maddened warblers.
Then the lotus-eyed Rama said unto that enhancer of auspiciousness, the
heroic Lakshmana, who was by him, and was following him at his back,
"The leaves of these trees are glossy, and the beasts and birds are
mild, even as (we had been told). The asylum of the pure-hearted
Maharshi must not be far. This asylum capable of removing the fatigue of
the weary, belonging to him that is known among men as Agastya by his
own acts, is seen, with the (neighbouring woods) filled with smoke, and
itself decorated with bark and wreaths, containing herds of mild deer,
and ringing with the notes of various birds. This is the asylum of that
pious one, who destroying (the Asura resembling) Death, hath, desirous
of the welfare of mankind, rendered the Southern quarter habitable, and
through whose potency the Rakshasas from fear barely cast their eyes in
this direction, but do not approach. Ever since that one of pious ways
possessed himself of this quarter, the rangers of the night have
foregone their hostility, and assumed a peaceful attitude. This Southern
quarter rendered safe (by Agastya),and incapable of being harassed by
those ones of tortuous ways, is celebrated over the three worlds in
conection with the name of the reverend ascetic. And this graceful
asylum ranged by mild beasts belongs to that long-lived one of renowned
achievements-- Agastya--in obedience to whose command, the Vindhya
mountain--foremost of its kind--which had always obstructed ihe way of
the Sun, doth not increase. This pious one honored of men, ever engaged
in the welfare of the righteous, shall do good unto us, who have come to
him. I shall adore the mighty ascetic, Agastya, and, O mild one, O
master, here pass away the remainder of the term of my banishment. Here
celestials with the Gandharbas, and Siddhas and eminent saints,
observing restrictions in respect of food, adore Agastya. And the
ascetic is such that a liar cannot live here, nor a cunning or a crafty
person, nor a wicked wight, nor one that is given to unrighteousness.
And adoring righteousness, celestials, and Yakshas, and Nagas, and
birds, live here restricting their fare. And high-souled Siddhas and
eminent saints, renouncing their bodies, repair to celestial regions in
cars resembling the sun. And adored by auspicious individuals, the
deities here confer on them the states of Yakshas and celestials, and
divers kingdoms. O Sumitra's son, entering the asylum before us, do thou
announce unto the saints that I along with Sita, have arrived here."
[10] Some texts:--Seeing.
SECTION XII.
Having entered the asylum, Raghava's younger brother, Lakshmana, coming
to a disciple of Agastya, spoke unto him, saying, "There was a king,
named Daçaratha. His eldest son, the strong Rama, hath come (to this
asylum) along with his wife, Sita, for seeing the ascetic.--Named
Lakshmana, I am his younger brother, obedient and devoted to him.--Thou
mayst have heard of it. Having entered this horrid forest, in consonance
with the mandate of our sire, we desire to see the reverend one. Tell
this unto him." Hearing Lakshmana's words, that ascetic, saying. "So be
it!", entered the chamber of the sacrificial fire, for the purpose of
communicating (the news unto Agastya). Entering in, Agastya's beloved
disciple, with joined hands communicated unto that foremost of ascetics,
incapable of being repressed,[11] exactly what Lakshmana had told
him,--"For seeing the reverend one, and serving him as well, those
subduers of their foes, Daçaratha's sons, Rama and Lakshmana,
accompanied by Sita, have entered this asylum. It now behoves thee to
command what is to be done next." Hearing from his disciple that Rama
had come along with Lakshmana and the highly virtuous Vaidehi, Agastya
said, "By luck it is that after a long time, Rama hath come to see me. I
had mentally wished for his arrival. Go thou; and let Rama, having been
respectfully received, come before me. Why hast thou not brought him
thyself?" Thus addressed by the high-souled and righteous ascetic, the
disciple saluting him, with joined hands, said, "So be it." Then issuing
out, the disciple said unto Lakshmana, "Where is Rama? Let him come and
enter in." Thereat, going to the asylum in company with the disciple (of
Agastya), Lakshmana showed unto him Kakutstha and the daughter of
Janaka, Sita. Then joyfully communicating unto Rama the words of the
reverend one, the disciple (of Agastya) duly took in that one worthy of
being honored. And seeing the asylum teeming with mild deer, Rama
entered in with Lakshmana and Sita. And there Rama beheld the place of
Brahma, and that of Agni,--that of Vishnu, and that of the great Indra,
the place of Vivaswat, and that of Soma, and that of Bhaga, and that of
Dhata and Vidhata, and that of Vayu, and that of the high-souled Varuna
having the noose in his hand, and that of Gayatri, and that of the
Vasus, and that of the monarch of the _Nagas_, and that of Garuda, and
that of Kartikeya, and that of Dharma. And it came to pass that,
surrounded by his disciples, the ascetic came (before Rama). And Rama
saw that one of flaming energy at the head of the ascetics; and the hero
said unto Lakshmana, enhancer of auspiciousness, "O Lakshmana, the
revered saint, Agastya, is coming out. I recognize that mass of
asceticism by a certain kind of majesty (that characterizes him)."
Having said this touching Agastya of the splendour of the sun, that son
of Raghu took hold of his feet. Then, having paid him homage,
|
of Oxford--the Isis and the Cherwell--are so much part of her
meadow loveliness, that the one seems almost to include the others.
Where the meadows are the fairest, there the rivers gleam and sparkle in
the summer sun of memory. The Isis, stately stream, proud of the great
oarsmen she has taught, and of historic boats that she has borne; the
Cherwell, winding, secretive, alluring, willow-girt, whispering of men
and maidens, and of the dream days of ambitious youth. Each river has
its bridge. The mightier stream, as is most fitting, spanned where for
centuries the road has passed from Oxford into Berkshire; the little
Cherwell, to make up for any loss in navigable importance, crossed near
Magdalen Tower by the lovely bridge which was built over the two
branches of the stream more than two hundred years ago.
The meadows and the rivers bring to mind the trees. What and where would
be the loveliness of Oxford without her trees? Some have already been
mentioned--the stately elms of the Broad Walk, and the old gnarled
willows along the Cherwell's banks. But there are others, needing
perhaps a little looking for, but none the less an integral part of
Oxford's beauty when once found. One of these, the great cedar in the
Fellows' garden at Wadham, was wrecked in a gale not so very long ago,
and many who had been familiar with its dark-green foliage contrasting
with the soft grey of the chapel walls, feel almost as though they had
lost a friend.
Then just across the road there are the limes of Trinity, pollarded
every seven years to form the roof of an avenue, a most retired spot,
but counting for much with those who love green leaves and dappled
shade.
Of the trees of Oxford pages might be written. They are everywhere,
though not everywhere in prominence. Often enough it is just the peep,
the suggestion of hidden beauty, that is seen as we pass from one
college to another and a green bough overtops the wall. Lovers of Venice
know how delightful is the same thing here and there along a side canal,
where a treetop is reflected with a crumbling wall in the still water
below. In Oxford these overhanging boughs have no reflections, but the
patch of purple shadow on the pavement is often as valuable to the
picture. Talking of Venice brings to mind a bit of Oxford that must
often remind the wayfarer to and from the railway of the Italian city.
Not far from the old castle tower that has been already mentioned, a
branch of the river flows in a lovely curve, and has upon one side
weather-stained old brick walls, and on the other a causeway upon which
stand ancient gabled houses. These buildings and the causeway reflect in
the grey-green water of the river, and when the posts that edge the
latter are taken into account, and a figure or two lounging by the rails
are repeated in the reflections, the whole scene is not a little
reminiscent of Venice in a quiet scheme of colour.
But this has nothing to do with Oxford's trees. Before turning our
thoughts to any of her other beauties, that noble chestnut tree must be
remembered which stands in Exeter garden, and, surmounting the wall,
shades some of the Brasenose College rooms. In one of these lived Bishop
Heber, and the tree on which he looked from his window has ever since
been called by his name.
It is but natural that such thoughts as these should bring to mind the
Oxford gardens, which some have thought the very choicest jewels that
she wears. And indeed there is an indescribable charm in these old
college gardens, with their trees and their herbaceous borders, their
lawns and their high old walls--a charm which must, one fancies, have
grown gradually, so that it depends for its existence not so much upon
the actual beauty of each spot, as upon the spirit and associations
that differentiate them from all other gardens. Not that they have not
beauty of a most enchanting kind. St. John's, New College, Worcester--to
name the three that occur most readily--possess gardens of special
loveliness, and the two former of great size, that of St. John's being
five acres in extent. It is to this that one should find one's way to
see the most fascinating garden of all. The front of the buildings, with
the beautiful library windows, suggests some lovely old manor house, and
as one looks back across the lawns and through the trees the effect is
not only dignified, as is that of so many college gardens, but is full
of the peace and quiet beauty of one of England's stately homes.
[Illustration: FISHER ROW AND REMAINS OF OXFORD CASTLE]
Not a little has the modern revival of gardening, which has brought back
the old herbaceous border, added to the charm of college gardens. It has
been said with truth that the secret of a garden's beauty lies mainly in
its background. How true this is! Flowers may blaze with colour in an
open field--and who has not marvelled as he passes in the train the
seed-ground of some great horticulturist?--but seen thus they have but
little charm. In a college garden a border filled with delphiniums and
madonna lilies is backed by sombre yews, while the thick foliage of elm
or chestnut quiets harmoniously the farther distance. See how the
spires of blue--now declaring themselves for Oxford, now for
Cambridge--are twice as vivid for the contrast, and how the lilies shine
against the deep dark green, like fairest maidens round some black
panelled hall! Or see again the monthly roses, blushing at intervals
along an old grey wall: how tenderly are their hues enhanced by contrast
with the time-stained stones! Such are a part of the fascination of
Oxford gardens.
Quite unlike these, yet having an attraction of their own which many
miss, are the Botanical Gardens hard by Magdalen Bridge. Their situation
on the brink of the River Cherwell, and almost under the shadow of
Magdalen Tower, is what probably appeals most strongly to the ordinary
observer, while those who merely pass the gardens by will delight in the
gateway, the work of Inigo Jones, with its statues of Charles I and II.
Formal these gardens are of necessity, but there hangs about them a
certain feeling of antiquity. They somehow seem to take their place
among their old-world surroundings; and fitly so, for they are the
oldest gardens of their kind in the country, having been originated by
the Earl of Danby as an assistance to the study of medicine, nearly
three hundred years ago.
Across the way, at Magdalen College, exists a pleasure ground which
cannot rightly be included among Oxford's gardens, though it is
certainly one of her best-known natural adornments. This is the deer
park adjoining the New Buildings. It is almost worth while in the summer
vacation to loiter near the narrow passage leading from the cloisters,
to witness the start of surprise and to hear the sight-seers' remarks,
as they suddenly come out from the dusk and impressive gloom into a
blaze of sunlight, with gay new buildings bright with window-boxes
straight before them, and a little herd of dappled deer feeding in the
sunshine and the shadow of the park. Hundreds of years seem to roll
away: the very locality appears to change: the visitor could scarcely
look more astonished if he were suddenly transported from the Coliseum
to the gardens of the Tuileries! No wonder a tourist once remarked, as
he issued from the cloisters: "I guess, sir, I've riz from the dead!"
It is tempting on this summer day to linger where grass is green and
trees throw grateful shade; and indeed it would seem that few of all the
many pens that have set down Oxford's charms have given their due to
these her natural delights. But there is much that crowds into the mind
and urgently complains lest there be not space enough to do them honour.
What of her streets? Perhaps no other city in England--some say in the
world--can boast of streets of equal beauty.
From Magdalen gate the High Street begins its curve--a true line of
beauty. Its variety of architecture and mixture of old with new might
suggest (to those who have only read and never seen) an inharmonious
whole. But somehow this is not so. The severe front of University
neither kills nor is killed by the seventeenth-century work, with
eighteenth-century cupola and statue of George II's consort, just across
the way. The old-world shops and gabled houses contrast with the modern
buildings, which contain the new Examination Schools, or show where some
college or other has forced its way into the High. They contrast, and do
not spoil the picture. Indeed it will be a cause of much lamentation, if
more of these old houses of the citizens of Oxford should be thrust
away, and the character of the street be changed to one long series of
college buildings, losing in colour, in variety, and in antiquity, and
especially in the story that it still tells of University and city
interdependent, and seeking each the other's good. It is the glorious
Church of St. Mary the Virgin that seems to bind all the varying charms
of the street together. Standing near the centre of the High, it
dominates the whole. The stately thirteenth-century tower with its
massive buttresses is surmounted by "a splendid pyramidal group of
turrets, pinnacles, and windows", from which the spire shoots upwards.
To a trained eye this spire is a continual marvel, when seen from a
short distance away, on account of the transparency of colour which for
some unexplained reason it presents. A silver grey hardly describes it;
but _light_ clothes it with a diaphanous glory, now warm now cool in
colour, and always lovely. Facing the street is an ornate Italian porch
with twisted pillars, erected in 1637. Above the entrance is the famous
statue of the Virgin and Child which gave such offence to the Puritans.
[Illustration: THE COTTAGES, WORCESTER COLLEGE GARDENS]
What stories the place could tell! It was here that John Wycliffe
thundered against the Romanism of his day. It was here that Cranmer
recanted his recantation, and promised that the hand that wrote it
should be the first to suffer at the stake. Hither, too, were laid to
rest the remains of Amy Robsart, brought after death from Cumnor. Space
will not allow of any recital of the famous names of those who have
occupied the University pulpit herein. But memories crowd into the mind
as the rather dreary interior of the Church is pictured. Here some
thirty-six or seven years ago an undergraduate went, full of
expectation, to hear Dr. Pusey preach. The crowd was great, and he had
to stand, while for an hour and a half or so the great man poured out a
learned disquisition against the Jews! Here too, about the same time,
the youthful members of the University flocked to hear Burgon's evening
sermons--quaint and original as the man himself--in one of which, after
describing the episode of Balaam and the ass, he threw up his hands and
cried, "To think that that type of brutality should speak with the voice
of a man--it delighteth me hugely!"
One of the beauties of the streets of Oxford is that they mostly have
something admirable at either end. Thus the picture of the High Street
is finished at one end with Magdalen Tower and Bridge, and at the other
with Carfax Church, or rather, nowadays, with all that is left--a very
ancient tower--of the City Church which stood upon the site of a
building so old that coins of the date of Athelstan were found beneath
its pavement.
Then see how Broad Street, as it narrows again towards the east, gives a
fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre, where many who have helped to make
their country's history, have been honoured by the granting of degrees,
and of the Clarendon Building with its lofty pillared porch, where once
the University Press was housed. Or look at that superb approach to
Oxford from the north, a boulevard of great breadth and dignity. From
St. Giles' Church, at which the road from Woodstock and from Banbury
converge, how fine is the prospect ending as it does in the tall trees,
before the dignified front of St. John's College, and the tower of St.
Mary Magdalen's Church.
The streets of Oxford! What scenes have been enacted there! Kings and
queens have paced them between cheering crowds; town and gown have
surged and struggled up and down their length, till from the highest
point at Carfax the water was turned on from Nicholson's old conduit
just to cool their ardour. Now and again a hush has fallen on all the
city, and from St. Mary's booms a minute-bell. Shops are half-closed and
flags half-masted. Then through the silent streets winds a black-robed
procession, half a mile in length, and one of Oxford's best-known sons
is carried to his rest. Or, maybe, all is bright with pleasure-seeking
crowds and ladies decked in all their bravery, and just a glimpse is
caught of scarlet and of black, with gleam of silver mace, as the
Vice-Chancellor's procession goes to give degrees. Or, just once more, a
line of Oxford cabs--who does not know the Oxford cab?--each with
unlicensed number of undergraduate fares, goes to the sound of rattle
and of song to speed the departure from his Alma Mater's arms of one who
has outstepped the limits of her patience.
So it goes on: a varying scene of dignity and ribaldry, taking each
other's place from time to time. But most often through all the years
the streets are filled with those who, day by day, come in from all the
country round, bringing their produce, seeking what they lack, and all
oblivious of the learned life of Oxford.
But there are so many people, to whom the human interest in the fairest
city counts for more than all the rest, that it is time to wander among
the quadrangles, the halls, the chapels, and the other ancient fabrics
that speak of the university life of Oxford. As we pass in through many
a massive gateway, tread many a stone-paved path, climb many an old oak
stair worn by the feet of many generations, it is strange if no strand
of sentiment puts us in touch with some of those who have passed that
way before.
And first to Merton, oldest of university colleges. It is almost sad to
write the words, for it is hard not to feel a pang of regret that the
charming old tale, once indeed confirmed by the Court of King's Bench
itself, that King Alfred founded University College in the High Street
years before any other was suggested, is a myth. The men of "Univ" have
at least the consolation that the tradition has existed, and if, in
spite of hard facts, they cling to the romance, there will be few to
blame them. It was Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England and Bishop of
Rochester, who invented colleges as we know them, and, by founding that
one which is known by his name, did, in 1265, set the model for all
future collegiate establishments. Mr. Eric Parker in "Oxford and
Cambridge" truly says, "Walter de Merton founded more than Merton
College. His idea of a community of students working together in a
common building towards a common end, inspired by the same influence and
guided by the same traditions, was the first and the true idea of all
colleges founded since."
[Illustration: OLD CLARENDON BUILDING, BROAD STREET]
The momentous step taken by this great Bishop in thus founding an
institution on these lines for the study of Theology, is remarkable as
illustrating the spirit of revolt from the absorption by monks and
friars of all existing educational affairs. The College was strictly
limited to secular clerks, who were "sent down" if they chose to join
any of the regular Orders. The subsequent religious history of the
College has had curious vicissitudes. Wycliff was a Fellow, and Merton
stood by him in the face of the rest of Oxford. Then came a wave of
Romanism; and in the reign of Mary she could count on Merton to provide
fanatics in her cause. A Fellow of Merton presided over the burning of
Ridley and Latimer, and the Vice-Chancellor who preached on the occasion
was also a Merton man. In the middle of the seventeenth century all this
was changed, and no grimmer Puritans were found in Oxford than the men
of Merton. It seems as though the founder's spirit of religious freedom
has from time to time cropped up, with an independence and hardihood
worthy of his name.
But it was not all at once in 1265 that the College sprang into
existence. At first Walter de Merton housed the students in lodgings in
what is now called Merton Street, building a hall and kitchen to provide
for their sustenance. Then followed the chapel with its grand tower, and
lastly the buildings for the students. As one stands in the quaint
little Mob Quad (the origin of which name has apparently been lost) it
is good to realize that this is the first collegiate quadrangle known.
How far the thought takes us back! How near to the fountainhead of much
that has grown familiar--so familiar that few people, and no
undergraduates, trouble their heads about it! It is just _there_: like
the river, and the trees, and the sky it exists, but why or how it came
into existence matters nothing to them. Take for example the office of
Dean. In every college there is a Dean, to whom is committed the order
and discipline of the place. Should there be a bonfire in the quad, it
is he who comes out and frantically attempts to put it out. Should an
unlucky undergraduate oversleep himself more often in the week than
college rules allow, it is the Dean who sends for him and gates him,
that is to say, confines him within the college gates after sunset or
thereabouts. The Dean is looked upon as an "institution", not wholly
delightful but still a necessary bit of Oxford life; but very few
undergraduates are aware that one must go back to the times of Walter de
Merton to find out how he came into being. The life of a student in the
first college was planned to be lived in great simplicity. His fare was
to be of the plainest, and he was not to talk at dinner. He was never to
be noisy. The rules, indeed, went so far as to say that, if he wanted to
talk at any time, he must talk in Latin. It may be supposed that human
nature was much the same in the thirteenth century as in the twentieth,
and such a life must have proved difficult to some. In order to enforce
the rules one student in every ten was made a kind of "præfect", with
disciplinary power over the others. Hence the "decanus", and lo! the
first of all the Deans!
Merton had not existed for much more than a century when it became
possessed through the magnificence of Rede, Bishop of Chichester, of its
wonderful library, so that not only has it the oldest quadrangle, but
also the oldest mediæval library in the kingdom. There is not a room in
Oxford so impressive with a sense of antiquity. Its lancet windows, its
rough desks sticking out from the bookcases, the chains which thwart the
project of the book-thief, all help to obliterate the ages; though the
decorations of the ceiling, and the stained-glass windows, tell of the
desire of later centuries to soften the original sternness of the room.
It is here that one must wait quietly as dusk begins to fall, if one
would see faint forms of those of whom Merton boasts as her noblest
sons. To all of them is this old room familiar, and to none more so than
to Henry Savile, lover of books and warden of the College just three
hundred years ago. He it was who induced Merton to give prompt and
generous aid to that other Fellow of the College, Sir Thomas Bodley,
when founding the great library that bears his name. Surely the spirits
of these two men at least must haunt the place!
And he who wrote of Oxford's sons--Anthony Wood--is he too never here?
And Patteson and Creighton of these later days, bishops who gave their
lives, the one upon a savage shore, the other to the endless toil of the
great diocese of London. Do they not pass along, and people with their
memory the shadowy recesses of this ancient place?
[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH]
Now let us stroll on--'tis but a step--to Christ Church. Sometimes it
seems as though this should take precedence of all other colleges. Its
chapel is Oxford's Cathedral, its quadrangles are the finest, its
founder was in some ways the most famous; and lastly (and of least
account), if one who has tried the task of "seeing Oxford" in an
afternoon is asked what he remembers best, it is ten to one that he
will say "the staircase and its ceiling leading up to Christ Church
Hall". And it _is_ of extraordinarily impressive beauty. The fan
groining of the roof, supported by just one slender column, which
springs from the foot of the staircase, is of exquisite form and
lightness. Then the wide, flat steps that turn at an acute angle, and
then lead on straight to the entrance of the Hall, form a worthy
approach to what has been described as the grandest of all mediæval
halls in the kingdom, except only that at Westminster. Let us stand
aside here for a moment and picture some of those who have ascended
these stairs in days gone by. A fanfare of trumpets sounds, and Henry
VIII goes up with ponderous step. Here too comes Queen Elizabeth,
jesting in caustic fashion with her courtiers, as she sweeps along to
witness a dramatic entertainment in the Hall. Of lesser folk there pass
by Dr. Fell ("I do not like thee, Dr. Fell"), who finished the building
of Tom Quad in 1665; and then a quiet studious-looking man, a fellow or
senior student of the College, who has nothing in his appearance to call
attention. But this is Burton, by some accounted a morose person, but by
those who knew him intimately a cheery and witty companion. Here, too,
with slow and faltering step comes Pusey in extreme old age, and Liddon
of ascetic mien. Hark to the laughter! It is Stubbs--historian
Bishop--with witty saying falling from his lips. And there is Liddell,
feared of the undergraduate, but splendid both in figure and in face.
And many another shade would fancy depict taking the old familiar way:
men of renown, but none, however royal his demeanour, however high his
literary rank, none to compare with him, Wolsey the great Cardinal, the
founder of the place.
It is worth while before we explore further to think for a few moments
about this wonderful personality, one of the most remarkable of all
Oxford's sons. At the very end of the fifteenth century he is discovered
as a Junior Fellow of Magdalen, then as Dean of Divinity, and in the
first years of the next century as Rector of Lymington. Rapidly climbing
the ecclesiastical tree, he reappears as Cardinal Archbishop of York,
and resumes his close connection with Oxford, in the guise of a great
promoter of learning, paying the salaries of lecturers out of his own
pocket and so on. But the position of a mere patron of education did not
satisfy his ambition. He determined on founding a college which should
eclipse even that of Wykeham--the already famous New College. He was a
rich man, but the vast undertaking upon which he had set his heart could
not be paid for out of the private purse of any living man. He was in
high favour with the King, and persuaded him to allow him to plunder
the monasteries, and devote the proceeds to the expenses of the great
foundation which he called Cardinal's College. Besides several small
religious houses, he, in 1522, obtained the surrender of the Priory of
St. Frideswide in Oxford itself.
Wolsey was possessed of sufficient funds to make a beginning. Clearing
away some portion of the old Church of St. Frideswide, he laid the
foundation of what afterwards became Christ Church in the summer of
1525. The work went on apace, but in a very few years there came a
serious check. Henry VIII had made up his mind to marry Ann Boleyn, and
this particular matrimonial venture had a curious influence on the
fortunes of the College. It came about in this way. To marry Ann, it was
necessary for the King to get his marriage with Catherine dissolved. The
Papacy declined to grant the decree. The ultimate result of this was
Henry's determination to free himself and his country from the power of
Rome. This in its turn resulted in Wolsey's downfall. The work of
building Cardinal's College ceased, and there was a great probability
that the beginning already made would be demolished. The King, however,
changed his mind, and in 1532 refounded and endowed it. It now received
the name of King Henry VIII's College. This title it bore for some
fourteen years, at the end of which the See of Oxford was removed from
Olney Abbey to St Frideswide's, which had already become a part of the
College. From that date the whole foundation, partly educational and
partly ecclesiastical in character, became one institution, and was then
and for ever after called Christ Church. It is an extraordinary story,
and, mixed up as it is with the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey, lends
a great amount of human interest to the inspection of the College.
There is nothing else at all like it in existence. Collegiate and
ecclesiastical life are inextricably mixed up. There is a Dean: but
instead of being an official appointed to keep order among the
undergraduates, he is both Head of the College and Dean of the
Cathedral. The great quadrangle is partly like the quad of another
college, in containing certain sets of rooms in the occupation of
undergraduates, and partly like a cathedral close, inasmuch as therein
is the Deanery and the residences of an archdeacon and canons. The
Cathedral itself is, though small, a dignified and beautiful building of
true cathedral character. At the same time it is the College Chapel, and
the undergraduates who daily attend its services are privileged to
worship in a magnificent fane, but at the same time must lose that sense
of what, for want of a better word, must be called the home-like charm
which endears to so many their College Chapel. The scenes, too, that
the quadrangles witness are curiously varied. Now there is a procession
of divines wending their way to some diocesan function, with bishops and
chaplains bringing up the rear, and anon a crowd of undergraduates,
smarting beneath some fancied grievance, or merely celebrating some
success upon the river, noisily express their wish to paint the college
red.
But Christ Church is not the only unique college in Oxford. As there is
no other to be found in any university so curiously combined with the
cathedral and ecclesiastical dignitaries of a see, so is there no other,
in this country at all events, that has preserved its original
intention, as a college for Fellows only, as has All Souls. Here no
noisy undergraduate is allowed to disturb the calm. There are, indeed,
four Bible Clerks who are undergraduate members and reside within its
walls, but their very name is enough to guarantee their unobtrusive
respectability--if indeed they exist in the flesh at all, for it is said
that none except the Fellows of the College have ever seen one! The
foundation is rich both in money and in fine buildings. Taking no share
in education within its own walls--having, that is to say, none of the
usual routine of college lectures and so on--it has had to justify the
retention of its wealth. This it has done to the full, for it provides a
large part of the funds for the teaching of Law in the University, and
greatly aids the study of Modern History. It also has shown itself most
liberal in supplying the wherewithal for the ever-increasing needs of
the Bodleian Library.
To most people All Souls is chiefly familiar for its entrance facing the
High Street, with porch and tower of the founder's date (1437), and for
its chapel and library. The chapel possesses in its reredos a work of
art which is one of the chief goals of the sightseer in Oxford. It
covers the entire east wall, and consists of an immense series of
niches, in which are numberless statues, surrounding a crucifixion scene
in the centre. Of its kind it is certainly the most beautiful thing in
the whole University. It was robbed of its statues and walled up in the
seventeenth century, but has been restored with wonderful success a
quarter of a century ago. The Library, called after its donor, Sir
Christopher Codrington, is singularly beautiful in decoration. It is 200
feet long, and contains every imaginable book necessary for the Student
of Law. By permitting a very wide use of this room All Souls College
gives one more evidence of its desire to further the general educational
work of Oxford.
Within the walls of a place so redolent of Law it is not strange to find
that Blackstone (he of the "Commentaries") had his rooms, but it is
remarkable to find how diverse are the professions which have been
adorned by Fellows of All Souls. Statesmen one might expect, and it
is not difficult to conjure up the form of the late Marquis of
Salisbury, stooping over a volume of Constitutional Law in the
Codrington Library. Easier, perhaps, to imagine him thus than in the
garb of a Christian warrior, as he stands in one of the niches of the
Chapel reredos. The Fellows of All Souls are supposed under their
statutes to be _splendide vestiti_, and in this respect Lord Salisbury,
who was probably never aware of what he wore, must have singularly
fallen short of the standard. But even so he would seem a more natural
personage to haunt the still quadrangles of the College than his
antagonist, Mr. Gladstone, who was an honorary Fellow of the College,
but whose impulsive, eager vivacity would harmonize ill with the spirit
of the place.
[Illustration: BRASENOSE COLLEGE AND RADCLIFFE LIBRARY ROTUNDA]
To-day it seems almost strange to find that All Souls has recruited the
ranks of great ecclesiastics, but so it is. From there came Archbishop
Sheldon, Bishops Heber and Jeremy Taylor, and many other great divines.
Even Architecture can claim a Fellowship of All Souls for one of its
greatest masters, Sir Christopher Wren.
But time presses. Oxford, all beautiful in her surroundings, great in
her history, splendid in her buildings, unique in such foundations as
have just been described, means so much more to most who have claimed
her as their Alma Mater. They have had some inkling of all these
things: especially perhaps they have imbibed, and made their lifelong
possession, a sense of her natural charms: but no matter what their
college may have been, no matter how little illustrious, historically or
architecturally, it is round the college life, the rooms, the
friendships, the homely details, that their loving memory hangs. It is
there that first they knew what independence meant: there that the
chairs and table were their very own: there that they could come and go
almost as they liked: there that they first knew the delight of
_voluntary_ work.
How it all comes back! A freshman passes the Entrance Examination just
well enough to get rooms in College--the last set vacant. They look out
upon a wall at the back of the buildings; in themselves they are small
and dark, the bedroom a mere cupboard. But they are his own. He enters
and finds a pot of marmalade and a tin of Bath Olivers on the table, put
there by the forethought of his scout. He gets his boxes open: hangs up
the school groups and the picture of his home: puts his books into the
shelves--and has made his abode complete. He waits impatiently for the
cap and gown he has ordered. The door flies open, and in rushes his
special friend, who has preceded him from Marlborough. The old threads
are picked up and knit together in a moment--and so the life begins.
There is not much variety from day to day: chapel first thing, at which
five attendances are required weekly, Sunday morning service (owing to
its length) counting as two--then breakfast, seldom altogether alone. It
is the most sociable meal of the day, which says much for the youth and
health of the breakfasters! Should it be Sunday the undergraduate may
hope (often in vain) to be asked to breakfast by some man in lodgings.
Otherwise he will be condemned to feed either upon cold
chicken--tasteless and a little dry--or upon gherkin pie, known only (by
the mercy of Providence) to certain colleges in Oxford, and consisting
of a dish of cold fat, interspersed with gherkins, and covered with lid
of heavy pastry.
Afterwards, on week days, there are lectures, then a quick change to
flannels and a hurried luncheon, and then in summertime the river or the
cricket fields. Back again he comes to cold supper and long draughts of
shandygaff in hall; then a pipe or two and a chat, and then (sometimes)
a spell of reading before bed and sleep. But all this is nearly forty
years ago:--a mere memory:--but yet it is things like these that first
come to mind when Oxford's name is heard.
And then the scout! How many memories he brings! The college servants
were a race apart with curious standards of their own. It is true they
fattened on the undergraduate. Did not the cook of a certain college
disdain to enter his son at the college for which he cooked, and send
him to Christ Church? Did not each scout bear away all that was left
upon his masters' tables in a vast basket, beneath the weight of which
he could scarcely stagger home? Quite true, but all the same how would
the freshman have fared had not his scout looked after him, seen that he
did what it behoved him to do, and kept him not seldom from some faux
pas? A senior scout had often an almost fatherly regard for the men upon
his staircase. One, who comes at once to mind, would stand and urge and
argue long enough by the bedside of some lazy youth, for whom an
interview with the Dean was imminent, persuading him to get up for
Chapel, and the same man would take it seriously to heart if any of his
particular gentlemen behaved in a manner which he considered unseemly. A
good scout attached himself to his many masters and never forgot them.
If any member of a college revisits his old haunts after years of
absence, the one man who may be depended upon to give him a warm welcome
is his old scout.
Of the tutors and fellows of the colleges, and their frequent kindness
to the junior members of their college, this is not the place to
expatiate. They are of course an intimate part of every man's college
life, and around them many happy memories will generally dwell. The
point that it is desired to emphasize is that, in looking back upon
Oxford, it is these matters that have been briefly described--the
details of the college and the college life--that are remembered with
the greatest affection.
A Trinity man will tell you of the Grinling Gibbons carvings in the
Chapel, but he thinks with greater tenderness of an old armchair in his
rooms in the garden quad. A Corpus man will take a pride in belonging to
a college that has always set before itself a high standard of learning,
and is suitably possessed of a magnificent old library, but it is of his
|
have just been
describing in that they appear filmy and transparent, whereas the others
are solid and opaque. Again, the paths of the planets around the sun and
of the satellites around their primaries are not actually circles; they
are ovals, but their ovalness is not of a marked degree. The paths of
comets on the other hand are usually _very_ oval; so that in their
courses many of them pass out as far as the known limits of the solar
system, and even far beyond. It should be mentioned that nowadays the
tendency is to consider comets as permanent members of the system,
though this was formerly not by any means an article of faith with
astronomers.
Meteors are very small bodies, as a rule perhaps no larger than pebbles,
which move about unseen in space, and of which we do not become aware
until they arrive very close to the earth. They are then made visible to
us for a moment or two in consequence of being heated to a white heat by
the friction of rushing through the atmosphere, and are thus usually
turned into ashes and vapour long before they reach the surface of our
globe. Though occasionally a meteoric body survives the fiery ordeal,
and reaches the earth more or less in a solid state to bury itself deep
in the soil, the majority of these celestial visitants constitute no
source of danger whatever for us. Any one who will take the trouble to
gaze at the sky for a short time on a clear night, is fairly certain to
be rewarded with the view of a meteor. The impression received is as if
one of the stars had suddenly left its accustomed place, and dashed
across the heavens, leaving in its course a trail of light. It is for
this reason that meteors are popularly known under the name of "shooting
stars."
[1] By the Italian astronomer, Piazzi, at Palermo.
[2] Probably eight. (See note, page 232.)
CHAPTER III
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
We have seen, in the course of the last chapter, that the solar system
is composed as follows:--there is a central body, the sun, around which
revolve along stated paths a number of important bodies known as
planets. Certain of these planets, in their courses, carry along in
company still smaller bodies called satellites, which revolve around
them. With regard, however, to the remaining members of the system, viz.
the comets and the meteors, it is not advisable at this stage to add
more to what has been said in the preceding chapter. For the time being,
therefore, we will devote our attention merely to the sun, the planets,
and the satellites.
Of what shape then are these bodies? Of one shape, and that one alone
which appears to characterise all solid objects in the celestial spaces:
they are spherical, which means _round like a ball_.
Each of these spherical bodies rotates; that is to say, turns round and
round, as a top does when it is spinning. This rotation is said to take
place "upon an axis," a statement which may be explained as
follows:--Imagine a ball with a knitting-needle run right through its
centre. Then imagine this needle held pointing in one fixed direction
while the ball is turned round and round. Well, it is the same thing
with the earth. As it journeys about the sun, it keeps turning round and
round continually as if pivoted upon a mighty knitting needle
transfixing it from North Pole to South Pole. In reality, however, there
is no such material axis to regulate the constant direction of the
rotation, just as there are no actual supports to uphold the earth
itself in space. The causes which keep the celestial spheres poised, and
which control their motions, are far more wonderful than any mechanical
device.
At this juncture it will be well to emphasise the sharp distinction
between the terms _rotation_ and _revolution_. The term "rotation" is
invariably used by astronomers to signify the motion which a celestial
body has upon an axis; the term "revolution," on the other hand, is used
for the movement of one celestial body around another. Speaking of the
earth, for instance, we say, that it _rotates_ on its axis, and that it
_revolves_ around the sun.
So far, nothing has been said about the sizes of the members of our
system. Is there any stock size, any pattern according to which they may
be judged? None whatever! They vary enormously. Very much the largest of
all is the Sun, which is several hundred times larger than all the
planets and satellites of the system rolled together. Next comes Jupiter
and afterwards the other planets in the following order of
size:--Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, the Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury.
Very much smaller than any of these are the asteroids, of which Ceres,
the largest, is less than 500 miles in diameter. It is, by the way, a
strange fact that the zone of asteroids should mark the separation of
the small planets from the giant ones. The following table, giving
roughly the various diameters of the sun and the principal planets in
miles, will clearly illustrate the great discrepancy in size which
prevails in the system.
Sun 866,540 miles
Mercury 2,765 "
Venus 7,826 "
Earth 7,918 "
Mars 4,332 "
ZONE OF ASTEROIDS
Jupiter 87,380 "
Saturn 73,125 "
Uranus[3] 34,900 "
Neptune[3] 32,900 "
It does not seem possible to arrive at any generalisation from the above
data, except it be to state that there is a continuous increase in size
from Mercury to the earth, and a similar decrease in size from Jupiter
outwards. Were Mars greater than the earth, the planets could then with
truth be said to increase in size up to Jupiter, and then to decrease.
But the zone of asteroids, and the relative smallness of Mars, negative
any attempt to regard the dimensions of the planets as an orderly
sequence.
Next with respect to relative distance from the sun, Venus circulates
nearly twice as far from it as Mercury, the earth nearly three times as
far, and Mars nearly four times. After this, just as we found a sudden
increase in size, so do we meet with a sudden increase in distance.
Jupiter, for instance, is about thirteen times as far as Mercury, Saturn
about twenty-five times, Uranus about forty-nine times, and Neptune
about seventy-seven. (See Fig. 2, p. 21.)
It will thus be seen how enormously the solar system was enlarged in
extent by the discovery of the outermost planets. The finding of Uranus
plainly doubled its breadth; the finding of Neptune made it more than
half as broad again. Nothing indeed can better show the import of these
great discoveries than to take a pair of compasses and roughly set out
the above relative paths in a series of concentric circles upon a large
sheet of paper, and then to consider that the path of Saturn was the
supposed boundary of our solar system prior to the year 1781.
We have seen that the usual shape of celestial bodies themselves is
spherical. Of what form then are their paths, or _orbits_, as these are
called? One might be inclined at a venture to answer "circular," but
this is not the case. The orbits of the planets cannot be regarded as
true circles. They are ovals, or, to speak in technical language,
"ellipses." Their ovalness or "ellipticity" is, however, in each case
not by any means of the same degree. Some orbits--for instance, that of
the earth--differ only slightly from circles; while others--those of
Mars or Mercury, for example--are markedly elliptic. The orbit of the
tiny planet Eros is, however, far and away the most elliptic of all, as
we shall see when we come to deal with that little planet in detail.
It has been stated that the sun and planets are always rotating. The
various rates at which they do so will, however, be best appreciated by
a comparison with the rate at which the earth itself rotates.
But first of all, let us see what ground we have, if any, for asserting
that the earth rotates at all?
If we carefully watch the heavens we notice that the background of the
sky, with all the brilliant objects which sparkle in it, appears to turn
once round us in about twenty-four hours; and that the pivot upon which
this movement takes place is situated somewhere near what is known to us
as the _Pole Star_. This was one of the earliest facts noted with regard
to the sky; and to the men of old it therefore seems as if the heavens
and all therein were always revolving around the earth. It was natural
enough for them to take this view, for they had not the slightest idea
of the immense distance of the celestial bodies, and in the absence of
any knowledge of the kind they were inclined to imagine them
comparatively near. It was indeed only after the lapse of many
centuries, when men had at last realised the enormous gulf which
separated them from even the nearest object in the sky, that a more
reasonable opinion began to prevail. It was then seen that this
revolution of the heavens about the earth could be more easily and more
satisfactorily explained by supposing a mere rotation of the solid earth
about a fixed axis, pointed in the direction of the polar star. The
probability of such a rotation on the part of the earth itself was
further strengthened by the observations made with the telescope. When
the surfaces of the sun and planets were carefully studied these bodies
were seen to be rotating. This being the case, there could not surely
be much hesitation in granting that the earth rotated also; particularly
when it so simply explained the daily movement of the sky, and saved men
from the almost inconceivable notion that the whole stupendous vaulted
heaven was turning about them once in every twenty-four hours.
If the sun be regularly observed through a telescope, it will gradually
be gathered from the slow displacement of sunspots across its face,
their disappearance at one edge and their reappearance again at the
other edge, that it is rotating on an axis in a period of about
twenty-six days. The movement, too, of various well-known markings on
the surfaces of the planets Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn proves to us that
these bodies are rotating in periods, which are about twenty-four hours
for the first, and about ten hours for each of the other two. With
regard, however, to Uranus and Neptune there is much more uncertainty,
as these planets are at such great distances that even our best
telescopes give but a confused view of the markings which they display;
still a period of rotation of from ten to twelve hours appears to be
accepted for them. On the other hand the constant blaze of sunlight in
the neighbourhood of Mercury and Venus equally hampers astronomers in
this quest. The older telescopic observers considered that the rotation
periods of these two planets were about the same as that of the earth;
but of recent years the opinion has been gaining ground that they turn
round on their axes in exactly the same time as they revolve about the
sun. This question is, however, a very doubtful one, and will be again
referred to later on; but, putting it on one side, it will be seen from
what we have said above, that the rotation periods of the other planets
of our system are usually about twenty-four hours, or under. The fact
that the rotation period of the sun should run into _days_ need not seem
extraordinary when one considers its enormous size.
The periods taken by the various planets to revolve around the sun is
the next point which has to be considered. Here, too, it is well to
start with the earth's period of revolution as the standard, and to see
how the periods taken by the other planets compare with it.
The earth takes about 365-1/4 days to revolve around the sun. This
period of time is known to us as a "year." The following table shows in
days and years the periods taken by each of the other planets to make a
complete revolution round the sun:--
Mercury about 88 days.
Venus " 226 "
Mars " 1 year and 321 days.
Jupiter " 11 years and 313 days.
Saturn " 29 years and 167 days.
Uranus " 84 years and 7 days.
Neptune " 164 years and 284 days.
From these periods we gather an important fact, namely, that the nearer
a planet is to the sun the faster it revolves.
Compared with one of our years what a long time does an Uranian, or
Neptunian, "year" seem? For instance, if a "year" had commenced in
Neptune about the middle of the reign of George II., that "year" would
be only just coming to a close; for the planet is but now arriving back
to the position, with regard to the sun, which it then occupied. Uranus,
too, has only completed a little more than 1-1/2 of its "years" since
Herschel discovered it.
Having accepted the fact that the planets are revolving around the sun,
the next point to be inquired into is:--What are the positions of their
orbits, or paths, relatively to each other?
Suppose, for instance, the various planetary orbits to be represented by
a set of hoops of different sizes, placed one within the other, and the
sun by a small ball in the middle of the whole; in what positions will
these hoops have to be arranged so as to imitate exactly the true
condition of things?
First of all let us suppose the entire arrangement, ball and hoops, to
be on one level, so to speak. This may be easily compassed by imagining
the hoops as floating, one surrounding the other, with the ball in the
middle of all, upon the surface of still water. Such a set of objects
would be described in astronomical parlance as being _in the same
plane_. Suppose, on the other hand, that some of these floating hoops
are tilted with regard to the others, so that one half of a hoop rises
out of the water and the other half consequently sinks beneath the
surface. This indeed is the actual case with regard to the planetary
orbits. They do not by any means lie all exactly in the same plane. Each
one of them is tilted, or _inclined_, a little with respect to the plane
of the earth's orbit, which astronomers, for convenience, regard as the
_level_ of the solar system. This tilting, or "inclination," is, in the
larger planets, greatest for the orbit of Mercury, least for that of
Uranus. Mercury's orbit is inclined to that of the earth at an angle of
about 7°, that of Venus at a little over 3°, that of Saturn 2-1/2°;
while in those of Mars, Neptune, and Jupiter the inclination is less
than 2°. But greater than any of these is the inclination of the orbit
of the tiny planet Eros, viz. nearly 11°.
The systems of satellites revolving around their respective planets
being, as we have already pointed out, mere miniature editions of the
solar system, the considerations so far detailed, which regulate the
behaviour of the planets in their relations to the sun, will of
necessity apply to the satellites very closely. In one respect, however,
a system of satellites differs materially from a system of planets. The
central body around which planets are in motion is self-luminous,
whereas the planetary body around which a satellite revolves is not.
True, planets shine, and shine very brightly too; as, for instance,
Venus and Jupiter. But they do not give forth any light of their own, as
the sun does; they merely reflect the sunlight which they receive from
him. Putting this one fact aside, the analogy between the planetary
system and a satellite system is remarkable. The satellites are
spherical in form, and differ markedly in size; they rotate, so far as
we know, upon their axes in varying times; they revolve around their
governing planets in orbits, not circular, but elliptic; and these
orbits, furthermore, do not of necessity lie in the same plane. Last of
all the satellites revolve around their primaries at rates which are
directly comparable with those at which the planets revolve around the
sun, the rule in fact holding good that the nearer a satellite is to its
primary the faster it revolves.
[3] As there seems to be much difference of opinion concerning the
diameters of Uranus and Neptune, it should here be mentioned that the
above figures are taken from Professor F.R. Moulton's _Introduction to
Astronomy_ (1906). They are there stated to be given on the authority of
"Barnard's many measures at the Lick Observatory."
CHAPTER IV
CELESTIAL MECHANISM
As soon as we begin to inquire closely into the actual condition of the
various members of the solar system we are struck with a certain
distinction. We find that there are two quite different points of view
from which these bodies can be regarded. For instance, we may make our
estimates of them either as regards _volume_--that is to say, the mere
room which they take up; or as regards _mass_--that is to say, the
amount of matter which they contain.
Let us imagine two globes of equal volume; in other words, which take up
an equal amount of space. One of these globes, however, may be composed
of material much more tightly put together than in the other; or of
greater _density_, as the term goes. That globe is said to be the
greater of the two in mass. Were such a pair of globes to be weighed in
scales, one globe in each pan, we should see at once, by its weighing
down the other, which of the two was composed of the more tightly packed
materials; and we should, in astronomical parlance, say of this one that
it had the greater mass.
Volume being merely another word for size, the order of the members of
the solar system, with regard to their volumes, will be as follows,
beginning with the greatest:--the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune, the Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury.
With regard to mass the same order strangely enough holds good. The
actual densities of the bodies in question are, however, very different.
The densest or closest packed body of all is the Earth, which is about
five and a half times as dense as if it were composed entirely of water.
Venus follows next, then Mars, and then Mercury. The remaining bodies,
on the other hand, are relatively loose in structure. Saturn is the
least dense of all, less so than water. The density of the Sun is a
little greater than that of water.
This method of estimating is, however, subject to a qualification. It
must be remembered that in speaking of the Sun, for instance, as being
only a little denser than water, we are merely treating the question
from the point of view of an average. Certain parts of it in fact will
be ever so much denser than water: those are the parts in the centre.
Other portions, for instance, the outside portions, will be very much
less dense. It will easily be understood that in all such bodies the
densest or most compressed portions are to be found towards the centre;
while the portions towards the exterior being less pressed upon, will be
less dense.
We now reach a very important point, the question of Gravitation.
_Gravitation_, or _gravity_, as it is often called, is the attractive
force which, for instance, causes objects to fall to the earth. Now it
seems rather strange that one should say that it is owing to a certain
force that things fall towards the earth. All things seem to us to fall
so of their own accord, as if it were quite natural, or rather most
unnatural if they did not. Why then require a "force" to make them fall?
The story goes that the great Sir Isaac Newton was set a-thinking on
this subject by seeing an apple fall from a tree to the earth. He then
carried the train of thought further; and, by studying the movements of
the moon, he reached the conclusion that a body even so far off as our
satellite would be drawn towards the earth in the same manner. This
being the case, one will naturally ask why the moon herself does not
fall in upon the earth. The answer is indeed found to be that the moon
is travelling round and round the earth at a certain rapid pace, and it
is this very same rapid pace which keeps her from falling in upon us.
Any one can test this simple fact for himself. If we tie a stone to the
end of a string, and keep whirling it round and round fast enough, there
will be a strong pull from the stone in an outward direction, and the
string will remain tight all the time that the stone is being whirled.
If, however, we gradually slacken the speed at which we are making the
stone whirl, a moment will come at length when the string will become
limp, and the stone will fall back towards our hand.
It seems, therefore, that there are two causes which maintain the stone
at a regular distance all the time it is being steadily whirled. One of
these is the continual pull inward towards our hand by means of the
string. The other is the continual pull away from us caused by the rate
at which the stone is travelling. When the rate of whirling is so
regulated that these pulls exactly balance each other, the stone travels
comfortably round and round, and shows no tendency either to fall back
upon our hand or to break the string and fly away into the air. It is
indeed precisely similar with regard to the moon. The continual pull of
the earth's gravitation takes the place of the string. If the moon were
to go round and round slower than it does, it would tend to fall in
towards the earth; if, on the other hand, it were to go faster, it would
tend to rush away into space.
The same kind of pull which the earth exerts upon the objects at its
surface, or upon its satellite, the moon, exists through space so far as
we know. Every particle of matter in the universe is found in fact to
attract every other particle. The moon, for instance, attracts the earth
also, but the controlling force is on the side of the much greater mass
of the earth. This force of gravity or attraction of gravitation, as it
is also called, is perfectly regular in its action. Its power depends
first of all exactly upon the mass of the body which exerts it. The
gravitational pull of the sun, for instance, reaches out to an enormous
distance, controlling perhaps, in their courses, unseen planets circling
far beyond the orbit of Neptune. Again, the strength with which the
force of gravity acts depends upon distance in a regularly diminishing
proportion. Thus, the nearer an object is to the earth, for instance,
the stronger is the gravitational pull which it gets from it; the
farther off it is, the weaker is this pull. If then the moon were to be
brought nearer to the earth, the gravitational pull of the latter would
become so much stronger that the moon's rate of motion would have also
to increase in due proportion to prevent her from being drawn into the
earth. Last of all, the point in a body from which the attraction of
gravitation acts, is not necessarily the centre of the body, but rather
what is known as its _centre of gravity_, that is to say, the balancing
point of all the matter which the body contains.
It should here be noted that the moon does not actually revolve around
the centre of gravity of the earth. What really happens is that both
orbs revolve around their _common_ centre of gravity, which is a point
within the body of the earth, and situated about three thousand miles
from its centre. In the same manner the planets and the sun revolve
around the centre of gravity of the solar system, which is a point
within the body of the sun.
The neatly poised movements of the planets around the sun, and of the
satellites around their respective planets, will therefore be readily
understood to result from a nice balance between gravitation and speed
of motion.
The mass of the earth is ascertained to be about eighty times that of
the moon. Our knowledge of the mass of a planet is learned from
comparing the revolutions of its satellite or satellites around it, with
those of the moon around the earth. We are thus enabled to deduce what
the mass of such a planet would be compared to the earth's mass; that is
to say, a study, for instance, of Jupiter's satellite system shows that
Jupiter must have a mass nearly three hundred and eighteen times that of
our earth. In the same manner we can argue out the mass of the sun from
the movements of the planets and other bodies of the system around it.
With regard, however, to Venus and Mercury, the problem is by no means
such an easy one, as these bodies have no satellites. For information in
this latter case we have to rely upon such uncertain evidence as, for
instance, the slight disturbances caused in the motion of the earth by
the attraction of these planets when they pass closest to us, or their
observed effect upon the motions of such comets as may happen to pass
near to them.
Mass and weight, though often spoken of as one and the same thing, are
by no means so. Mass, as we have seen, merely means the amount of matter
which a body contains. The weight of a body, on the other hand, depends
entirely upon the gravitational pull which it receives. The force of
gravity at the surface of the earth is, for instance, about six times as
great as that at the surface of the moon. All bodies, therefore, weigh
about six times as much on the earth as they would upon the moon; or,
rather, a body transferred to the moon's surface would weigh only about
one-sixth of what it did on the terrestrial surface. It will therefore
be seen that if a body of given _mass_ were to be placed upon planet
after planet in turn, its _weight_ would regularly alter according to
the force of gravity at each planet's surface.
Gravitation is indeed one of the greatest mysteries of nature. What it
is, the means by which it acts, or why such a force should exist at all,
are questions to which so far we have not had even the merest hint of an
answer. Its action across space appears to be instantaneous.
The intensity of gravitation is said in mathematical parlance "to vary
inversely with the square of the distance." This means that at _twice_
the distance the pull will become only _one-quarter_ as strong, and not
one-half as otherwise might be expected. At _four_ times the distance,
therefore, it will be _one-sixteenth_ as strong. At the earth's surface
a body is pulled by the earth's gravitation, or "falls," as we
ordinarily term it, through 16 feet in one _second_ of time; whereas at
the distance of the moon the attraction of the earth is so very much
weakened that a body would take as long as one _minute_ to fall through
the same space.
Newton's investigations showed that if a body were to be placed _at
rest_ in space entirely away from the attraction of any other body it
would remain always in a motionless condition, because there would
plainly be no reason why it should move in any one direction rather than
in another. And, similarly, if a body were to be projected in a certain
direction and at a certain speed, it would move always in the same
direction and at the same speed so long as it did not come within the
gravitational attraction of any other body.
The possibility of an interaction between the celestial orbs had
occurred to astronomers before the time of Newton; for instance, in the
ninth century to the Arabian Musa-ben-Shakir, to Camillus Agrippa in
1553, and to Kepler, who suspected its existence from observation of the
tides. Horrox also, writing in 1635, spoke of the moon as moved by an
_emanation_ from the earth. But no one prior to Newton attempted to
examine the question from a mathematical standpoint.
Notwithstanding the acknowledged truth and far-reaching scope of the law
of gravitation--for we find its effects exemplified in every portion of
the universe--there are yet some minor movements which it does not
account for. For instance, there are small irregularities in the
movement of Mercury which cannot be explained by the influence of
possible intra-Mercurial planets, and similarly there are slight
unaccountable deviations in the motions of our neighbour the Moon.
CHAPTER V
CELESTIAL DISTANCES
Up to this we have merely taken a general view of the solar system--a
bird's-eye view, so to speak, from space.
In the course of our inquiry we noted in a rough way the _relative_
distances at which the various planets move around the sun. But we have
not yet stated what these distances _actually_ are, and it were
therefore well now to turn our attention to this important matter.
Each of us has a fair idea of what a mile is. It is a quarter of an
hour's sharp walk, for instance; or yonder village or building, we know,
lies such and such a number of miles away.
The measurements which have already been given of the diameters of the
various bodies of the solar system appear very great to us, who find
that a walk of a few miles at a time taxes our strength; but they are a
mere nothing when we consider the distances from the sun at which the
various planets revolve in their orbits.
The following table gives these distances in round numbers. As here
stated they are what are called "mean" distances; for, as the orbits are
oval, the planets vary in their distances from the sun, and we are
therefore obliged to strike a kind of average for each case:--
Mercury about 36,000,000 miles.
Venus " 67,200,000 "
Earth " 92,900,000 "
Mars " 141,500,000 "
Jupiter " 483,300,000 "
Saturn " 886,000,000 "
Uranus " 1,781,900,000 "
Neptune " 2,791,600,000 "
From the above it will be seen at a glance that we have entered upon a
still greater scale of distance than in dealing with the diameters of
the various bodies of the system. In that case the distances were
limited to thousands of miles; in this, however, we have to deal with
millions. A million being ten hundred thousand, it will be noticed that
even the diameter of the huge sun is well under a million miles.
How indeed are we to get a grasp of such distances, when those to which
we are ordinarily accustomed--the few miles' walk, the little stretch of
sea or land which we gaze upon around us--are so utterly minute in
comparison? The fact is, that though men may think that they can picture
in their minds such immense distances, they actually can not. In matters
like these we unconsciously employ a kind of convention, and we estimate
a thing as being two or three or more times the size of another. More
than this we are unable to do. For instance, our ordinary experience of
a mile enables us to judge, in a way, of a stretch of several miles,
such as one can take in with a glance; but in our estimation of a
thousand miles, or even of one hundred, we are driven back upon a mental
trick, so to speak.
In our attempts to realise such immense distances as those in the solar
system we are obliged to have recourse to analogies; to comparisons with
other and simpler facts, though this is at the best a mere self-cheating
device. The analogy which seems most suited to our purpose here, and one
which has often been employed by writers, is borrowed from the rate at
which an express train travels.
Let us imagine, for instance, that we possess an express train which is
capable of running anywhere, never stops, never requires fuel, and
always goes along at sixty miles an hour. Suppose we commence by
employing it to gauge the size of our own planet, the earth. Let us send
it on a trip around the equator, the span of which is about 24,000
miles. At its sixty-miles-an-hour rate of going, this journey will take
nearly 17 days. Next let us send it from the earth to the moon. This
distance, 240,000 miles, being ten times as great as the last, will of
course take ten times as long to cover, namely, 170 days; that is to
say, nearly half a year. Again, let us send it still further afield, to
the sun, for example. Here, however, it enters upon a journey which is
not to be measured in thousands of miles, as the others were, but in
millions. The distance from the earth to the sun, as we have seen in the
foregoing table, is about 93 millions of miles. Our express train would
take about 178 _years_ to traverse this.
Having arrived at the sun, let us suppose that our train makes a tour
right round it. This will take more than five years.
Supposing, finally, that our train were started from the sun, and made
to run straight out to the known boundaries of the solar system, that is
to say, as far as the orbit of Neptune, it would take over 5000 years to
traverse the distance.
That sixty miles an hour is a very great speed any one, I think, will
admit who has stood upon the platform of a country station while one of
the great mail trains has dashed past. But are not the immensities of
space appalling to contemplate, when one realises that a body moving
incessantly at such a rate would take so long as 10,000 years to
traverse merely the breadth of our solar system? Ten thousand years!
Just try to conceive it. Why, it is only a little more than half that
time since the Pyramids were built, and they mark for us the Dawn of
History. And since then half-a-dozen mighty empires have come and gone!
Having thus concluded our general survey of the appearance and
dimensions of the solar system, let us next inquire into its position
and size in relation to what we call the Universe.
A mere glance at the night sky, when it is free from clouds, shows us
that in every direction there are stars; and this holds good, no matter
what portion of the globe we visit. The same is really true of the sky
by day, though in that case we cannot actually see the stars, for their
light is quite overpowered by the dazzling light of the sun.
We thus reach the conclusion that our earth, that our solar system in
fact, lies plunged within the midst of a great tangle of stars. What
position, by the way, do we occupy in this mighty maze? Are we at the
centre, or anywhere near the centre, or where?
It has been indeed amply proved by astronomical research that the stars
are bodies giving off a light of their own, just as our sun does; that
they are in fact suns, and that our sun is merely one, perhaps indeed a
very unimportant member, of this great universe of stars. Each of these
stars, or suns, besides, may be the centre of a system similar to what
we call our solar system, comprising planets and satellites, comets and
meteors;--or perchance indeed some further variety of attendant bodies
of which we have no example in our tiny corner of space. But as to
whether one is right in a conjecture of this kind, there is up to the
present no proof whatever. No telescope has yet shown a planet in
attendance upon one of these distant suns; for such bodies, even if they
do exist, are entirely out of the range of our mightiest instruments. On
what then can we ground such an assumption? Merely upon analogy; upon
the common-sense deduction that as the stars have characteristics
similar to our particular star, the sun, it would seem unlikely that
ours should be the only such body in the whole of space which is
attended by a planetary system.
"The Stars," using that expression in its most general sense, do not lie
at one fixed distance from us, set here and there upon a background of
sky. There is in fact no background at all. The brilliant orbs are all
around us in space, at different distances from us and from each other;
and we can gaze between them out into the blackness of the void which,
perhaps, continues to extend unceasingly long after the very outposts of
the stellar universe has been left behind. Shall we then start our
imaginary express train once more, and send it
|
claimed that it leaped to light suddenly
perfect, like Minerva from Jupiter's skull, is "Sumer is icumen in," and
almost as many authors have been found for it as there are historians.
The bones of John of Fornsete (or another) have long since mouldered,
and it need not disturb their dust to say that in all certainty there
were many canons--hundreds, perhaps thousands--before "Sumer is icumen
in" had the good fortune to be put in a safe place for posterity to
stare and wonder at. This is platitudinous, but it needs to be borne in
mind. And, bearing it in mind, we can see in Haydn's early attempts much
in a style that had been used before or was being used at the time, much
that is simply copied from the younger Bachs, from Domenico Scarlatti,
Dittersdorf, Wagenseil, perhaps even his Parisian contemporary Gossec.
But we see the character of the themes becoming more and more his own.
There are no--or few--contrapuntal formulas, hardly any mere chord
progressions broken into arpeggios and figurated designs. By going to
the native dances and folk-tunes of his childhood Haydn took one of the
most momentous, decisive steps in his own history and in the history of
music. That too much quoted opening of the first quartet (B-flat) really
marks the opening of an era. It was not a subject to be worked out
contrapuntally; it was not sufficiently striking harmonically to tempt
Haydn, as themes of an allied sort had constantly tempted Emanuel Bach,
to make music and gain effects by repeating it at intervals above or
below. It is an arpeggio of the chord of B-flat; it leaps up merrily,
and has a characteristic delightful little twist at the end, and in the
leap and in the twist lay possibilities of a kind that he made full use
of only in his maturer style. All composers up till then, if they
ventured to use bits of popular melody at all, gave them the scholastic
turn, either because they liked it, or because the habit was strong.
The fact that Haydn gave it in its naïve form, invented themes which in
their deliberate naïveté suggest folk-song and dance, hints at what his
later music proves conclusively, that he found his inspiration as well
as his raw material in folk-music.
The business of the creative artist is to turn chaos into cosmos. He has
the welter of raw material around him; the shaping instinct crystallizes
it into coherent forms. For that intellect is indispensable, and almost
from the beginning Haydn's intellect was at work slowly building his
folk-music into definite forms easily to be grasped. Gradually the
second subject differentiates itself from the first while maintaining
the flow of the tide of music; and gradually we get the "working-out"
section, in which the unbroken flow is kept up by fragments of the two
subjects being woven into perpetually new melodic outlines, leading up
to the return of the first theme; and the second theme is repeated in
the key of the first, with a few bars of coda to make a wind-up
satisfactory to the ear.
Here let us observe the value of key relationships. The first subject
was given out in the key (say) of C. A momentary pause was made, and the
second subject introduced in the dominant key G, and in this key the
first section of a piece of music in symphony-form ends. That ending
could not satisfy the ear, which demanded something more in the first
key. Until recent times that desire was gratified with a repetition of
the whole first section. The repetition of the first theme in the first
key satisfied the ear for the moment, though at the end of the section
the want was again felt. So when the end of the first section was again
reached a modulation was made, gradually or suddenly, to another key;
and in the course of this, the development or "working-out" section,
many keys might be touched on, but without ever giving the ear the
satisfaction of feeling itself at rest in the first key again. That was
only done by the reintroduction of the first theme in the first key. The
first theme is played and leads on to the pause, after which the second
theme is given in the key of the first, so that after a few bars of
coda, always in the same key, the movement terminates in a perfectly
satisfactory manner. This is a crude description in which much is left
out, but it will serve to enable the reader to understand how passages
widely different in character are bound together into a coherent whole
by the composer continuously leading the ear to expect something--that
something being the original key-chord, and, while offering many things,
only finally satisfying the ear's craving when the movement is coming to
a finish. If the second theme, let us say, were in the same key as the
first, it would sound like the beginning of a new movement, and at once
we should have the continuity broken. As a passage between two passages
in the original key it sounds perfectly in its place, and, no matter how
contrasted in character, is a kind of continuation of the first passage.
At the same time it creates a strong desire, that must be restrained
till the time comes, for what follows. We listen to the second theme and
to the "working-out" section, knowing we are far from home, but
perfectly aware that we shall get there, and that a certain feeling of
suspense will be relieved. Thus the music is like a great arch that
supports itself. The unity got in the fugue by continuous motion is got
here by one key perpetually leading the ear to ask for another key. It
seems simplicity itself; its underlying idea--that of making the ear
always expect something, and gratifying it by bits, and only fully
towards the close of the movement--is that by which unity is combined
with variety in modern music, though we have long since got rid of the
"legitimate" series of keys.
The grouping of the movements need not detain us long. Many groupings
had been tried; but it seems natural to open with an allegro--preceded
or not preceded by a few bars of slow introduction--to follow this with
a slow movement of some sort; then to insert or not to insert a movement
of medium rapidity as a change from the bustle of the first and the
quiet of the second; and finally to end with a merry dancing movement.
This, again, is in the merest outline the plan adopted by Haydn.
Whether he used three or four movements, the principle was the same--a
quick beginning, a slow middle, and a quick ending; afterwards, each
movement grew longer, but the way in which he lengthened them can better
be treated later when we come to his bigger works.
From the first he used counterpoint, canon, imitation, and all the
devices of the contrapuntal style. But the difference between his newer
style and that of Wagenseil and the rest is that he neither uses
counterpoint of any sort nor chord figures to make up the true substance
of the music, but merely as devices to help him in maintaining a
continuous flow of melody. That melody, as has already been said, might
be in the top or bottom part, or one of the middle parts; but though it
may, and, indeed, always did pause at times, as the melody of a song
pauses at the end of each line, it is unbroken from beginning to end.
The first part of a movement might be compared to the first line of a
song: there is a pause, but we expect and get the second line; there is
another pause, and we get a line which is analogous to the "working-out"
section, and the last line, ending in the original key if not on the
same note, corresponds to the final section of the movement, after which
we expect nothing more, the ear being quite satisfied.
Werner, his musical chief in his next station, had the sense to see
that this continuous melody was the thing aimed at, and because Haydn
placed counterpoint in a subsidiary condition he called him a
"charlatan." Poor man, had his sense pierced a little deeper! For Haydn
was--after Bach and Handel and Mozart--one of the finest masters of
counterpoint who have lived. When the time came to write fugues he could
write them with a certain degree of power. But his aim was not writing
fugues any more than an architect's aim is painting in water-colours.
Water-colours are very useful to architects, and they make use of them;
but because they do not rival Turner or David Cox it does not follow
that they are not masters of the art of architecture. Haydn aimed at--or
rather, at this epoch, groped after--a kind of music in which continuous
melody expressive of genuine human feeling was the beginning and the
end, and his mastery of counterpoint, harmony, and all technical devices
were more than sufficient for the purpose.
To my mind he wrote as well for the strings at this time as ever he did.
He could play the violin himself, as the violin was then played, and all
his life, even in quartets, he had to write for players who would be
considered tenth-rate to-day. As for orchestration, that was an art
neither he nor Mozart was to hit upon for some time. The wind
instruments had one principal function, and that was to fill in the
music, enrich it, and make it louder, and another minor
one--occasionally to put in solos. In writing suitably for them, and, in
fact, in every other part of writing music for courts, Haydn was now the
equal, if not the superior, of every man living in 1761 (Gluck did not
write for the courts), and he was getting a better and better grip of
his new idea.
CHAPTER IV
1761-1790
Haydn went to Eisenstadt, in Hungary, in 1761 to take up the duties of
his new post--that of second Kapellmeister to Prince Anton of Esterhazy.
In that year feudal Europe had not been shaken to the foundations by the
French Revolution; few in Europe, indeed, and none in sleeping German
Austria, dreamed that such a shaking was at hand, and that royal and
ducal and lesser aristocratic heads, before the century was out, would
be dear at two a penny. Those drowsy old courts--how charming they seem
on paper, how fascinating as depicted by Watteau! Yet one wonders how in
such an atmosphere any new plants of art managed to shoot at all. The
punctilious etiquette, the wigs, the powder, the patches, the
grandiloquent speechifyings, the stately bows and graceful curtsies, the
prevalence--nay, the domination--of taste, what a business it all was!
The small electors, seigneurs, dukes and what not imitated the archducal
courts; the archdukes mimicked the imperial courts: all was stiff,
stilted, unnatural to a degree that seems to us nowadays positively
soul-killing, devilish. But some surprising plants grew up, some
wondrous fruits ripened in them. A peasant-mind, imbued with
peasant-songs, was set in one; the peasant-mind in all outward matters
conformed to all the rules, and was loved by the petty princes to whom
it was never other than highly, utterly respectful, and lo! the
peasant-songs blew and blossomed into gigantic art forms, useful to the
composers who came in a time when feudalism was as clean swept away as
the wigs and patches that were its insignia. To change this rather too
eloquent trope, Haydn, living a life of deadly routine and dulness, duly
subservient to his divinely appointed betters, took the songs of the
people (who paid to keep the whole apparatus in working order), and out
of them built up what is the basis of all the music written since. If
Providence in very deed ordained that millions of men and women should
toil that a few small electors, dukes and princes should lead lives of
unhappy artificial luxury, then Providence did well at the same time to
arrange for a few counts such as Morzin, and princes like those of
Esterhazy.
Haydn's chief in musical affairs was old Werner. His salary was at first
£40, and he was passing rich on it; and it was soon raised to £79. We
need trouble no further as to whether on such wages he was poor or rich:
he evidently considered himself well-to-do. In fact, even in those
days, when copyright practically did not exist, he continually made
respectable sums by his compositions, and after he had been twice to
England, ever the Hesperides' Garden of the German musician, he was a
wealthy man, and was thankful for it. He was as keen at driving a
bargain as Handel, or as the mighty Beethoven himself, and we, too,
ought to be glad that he had a talent for getting money and keeping it.
The date of his appointment was May 1, 1761; but he had been at work
less than a year when Prince Anton died, March 18, 1762. Anton was
succeeded by his brother Nicolaus, surnamed or nicknamed the
Magnificent, and in truth a most lordly creature. Almost immediately
changes began. Eisenstadt did not content Nicolaus; Versailles was the
admiration of all Europe, and he determined to rival Versailles. The
building was begun at Süttör, a place at the southern end of
Neusiedler-See, of the palace of Esterház, and it was here that Haydn
was destined to write the bulk of his music, though not that on which
his fame depends to-day. Meanwhile, at Eisenstadt he was kept busy
enough. It is true he was second to Werner, but Werner was both old and
old-fashioned, and devoted himself entirely to the chapel services and
music, leaving Haydn to look after the incessant concerts--each of them
interminable, as was the fashion then--the cantatas, instrumental
pieces, operas and operettas. Werner thought little of Haydn: he
regarded him as an adventurer and musical frivol; but Haydn, as became
the bigger man, esteemed Werner. There does not seem to have been any
friction; Haydn was always shrewd enough to avoid friction, which means
wasted energy, and the problem, if problem it was, of double mastership
was solved by Werner's death on March 5, 1766. Henceforth Haydn was
alone and supreme.
Haydn's magnificent patron and master played the baryton, and it was one
of his duties to write pieces for it. Of these there remain many, mostly
uninteresting. It was always his avowed aim to please his patron--that
done he was satisfied; but in an evil hour he thought to please him
better by learning to play the baryton--a singular bit of
short-sightedness on Haydn's part. He quickly discovered his error:
Prince Nicolaus liked the instrument best when played by princely hands
in the princely manner. Haydn limited himself for the future to writing
for it. With his band, we are told, he got on excellently, and what with
rehearsing them and conducting them and composing, every hour of the day
brought its task. The band consisted at the beginning of sixteen chosen
players, but the number was increased afterwards. The only events in his
life were the smaller or larger fêtes for which he prepared the music.
For instance, in 1763 Anton, the son of Nicolaus, was married, and
Haydn composed a pastoral, _Acis and Galatea_, which was duly performed.
Again, in 1764 Prince Nicolaus attended the coronation of the Archduke
Joseph; his return was one of these events, and to celebrate it Haydn
wrote a grand cantata. A Life of him at this period would be a list of
his compositions, with a few notes about the occasions that prompted
them. Such a list I am not minded to prepare. The publishers' catalogues
exist, and as for the various fêtes, one was very much like another; and
those folk who do not find accounts of them insufferably tedious can
find out about them in one of the larger biographies.
In 1767 the Prince, Haydn, band and all, took up their residence at the
palace of Esterház. A few singers and players were left at Eisenstadt to
keep up the chapel services, and doubtless had an easy time; the rest
were worked almost to death. Esterház was a gorgeous, if solitary,
residence. Built on a morass far from the busy world, it was the scene
of constant hospitality and great functions. There were two
theatres--one, as I understand the matter, entirely for marionette
shows; the scenery was regarded at the time as excellent. Most of the
operas were sung in Italian by Italian singers; even books of the words
were printed. In short, the opera at the Palace of Esterház seems to
have been in no respect very different from the fashionable opera of
to-day. Singers were engaged for a year or a longer period; casual
artists called, and were engaged for one performance or more, and having
been rewarded according to their deserts, passed on their way. Great
personages visited the Prince in state, and were regally entertained,
Haydn everlastingly writing special music. Maria Theresa stayed for
three days in 1773, and thus we get the Empress Theresa symphony in C,
also two operas of sorts, _L'Infideltà Delusa_ and _Philemon and
Baucis_, specially composed for the occasion. What with retinues of
servants bustling about, banquets, balls, hunting-parties, dramas,
operas, concerts, the scene must have always been lively enough--there
can have been nothing of stagnation. When the Prince went on visits he
also travelled in state, and took his band and singers with him. When at
home, we read, the artists spent their spare time at the café; but I
cannot think that Haydn ever had much leisure.
It was not until 1769 that Prince, conductor, band, singers and all
visited Vienna. Nothing remarkable occurred. To celebrate the great and
joyful event Haydn wrote one opera, _La Spezziata_, which was given at
the house of von Sommerau--then they went back to Esterház, and saw no
more of Vienna for eight years. Of this eight years there is nothing to
set down save a list of compositions. How the man, such a man--for in
his quiet methodical way he loved pleasure--stood it at all, I don't
know, but stand it he did. However, in 1776-1777 there was a little
diversion. Haydn composed an opera, _La Vera Constanza,_ for the Court
theatre in Vienna, and intrigues for some rival composer--his name does
not matter--began. A rival won the first round in the contest; his opera
was produced. In disgust Haydn had his score taken away, and it was soon
sung at Esterház. I suppose Haydn would have considered it a sin to
waste good material. Moreover, it was given at a suburban theatre of
Vienna, and it proved so far successful that Artaria, the publisher,
thought it worth while to engrave half a dozen songs and a duet from it.
The opera which beat his at the Court theatre is utterly forgotten; we
know of the other because of the composer's name. Some years later, in
1784, he had another touch of the ways of men in the busy world, sent,
perhaps, to reconcile him to his habitual seclusion. As far back as 1771
he had written his first oratorio--which I am not ashamed to say I have
never looked at--_Il Ritorno di Tobia_. It was performed, apparently
with éclat, by the Vienna Tonkünstler Societät, of which body Haydn
wished to become a member. He put down his name, and paid his
subscription, and was not a little surprised to learn that the condition
on which alone he would be elected was that he should compose works for
the society whenever he was asked. Now, those works would have become
the society's property, if only because they alone would have the
scores, and Haydn was a busy man, a man of European reputation, whose
music was worth money, and a shrewd business man, who saw no fun in
throwing money away. His annoyance may be conceived. He withdrew his
subscription--it is a wonder they would let him have it--and would have
nothing to do with the society until after his return from England in
1791, when the feud was ended, and he was triumphantly elected senior
assessor--whatever that may be. What the society was thinking in the
first instance I cannot guess, unless it was that a mere professional
composer and Kapellmeister should pay double, or considerably more than
double, for the honour of belonging to so distinguished a body of
amateurs. Anyhow, in the long run Haydn was so well pleased with them
that he seems to have made over to them _The Creation_ and _The
Seasons_, from which they derived profits that enabled them to keep
their heads above water when darker days came. Long before this date,
however, honours were being thrown at him. His opera, _L'Isolu
Disabilite_, to Metastasio's words, was sung in concert form at Vienna
in 1779, and the Accademia Filarmonica of Modena made him a member;
Haydn sent the score to the King of Spain, who repaid the compliment
with a gold snuff-box. In the same year he got a little relief from the
unbroken routine of his duties, for the theatre at Esterház was burnt
to the ground, and Prince Nicolaus, seeing no means of passing his
evenings, took a trip to Paris. Whether, from Haydn's point of view, he
did well or not is open to question; for a fiddler named Polzelli had
come to Esterház, and Haydn could find nothing better to do than flirt
with his wife Luigia. He did more than flirt--he went a trifle further,
and the lady took full advantage of his infatuation. She everlastingly
importuned him for money, and made him sign a promise to marry her if
ever he should be free to do so. Finally, the trouble came to an end
somehow; but in his will Haydn left the lady an allowance for life.
The new theatre was built, and reopened in 1780 with a representation of
_La Fideltà Premiare_. This pleased every one so much that it was given
once at a concert under Haydn's direction, that the Emperor Joseph might
hear it, and it led to Artaria, who was a very great gun in the
publishing line of business, taking him up in serious earnest. Life went
on much as it had done before the fire, or, if it was not quite so
monotonous, it was still dull enough. Honours came to him from abroad,
and when in Vienna he made the acquaintance of many more or less
celebrated men. Michael Kelly is well worth reading on the subject, for
Michael was no fool, and very much more than an ordinary
celebrity-hunter. Haydn's friendship with Mozart is the most
interesting feature of this period, and a very beautiful incident in the
lives of two men of genius. Mozart, said Haydn, was the greatest
composer then living; Mozart regarded Haydn as a father, and dedicated
some quartets to him in phrases revealing the deepest affection. The
intimacy ended when Haydn left, towards the end of 1790, on his first
trip to England; in 1791 Mozart perished miserably, and was laid in a
pauper's grave--the man whom Haydn called the greatest composer of the
time was buried by the parish, and in 1792 Haydn returned triumphantly
from England, his brow wreathed with laurel, figuratively, and his
pockets crammed with English notes and gold, literally. There are a few
other odds and ends worth mentioning. His opera, _Orlando Paladino,_
written in 1782, made a great hit, and under its German name of _Ritter
Roland_ was the last of his stage works to ride off the stage. In 1781
the Grand Duke Paul and his wife had heard some of his quartets, and the
Duchess was so pleased with them that she took lessons from the
composer, and made him a present. London, too, had heard of him, and was
thinking of him; and William Forster, the publisher, made arrangements
with him which resulted in the publication in England of eighty-two
symphonies and twenty-four quartets, not to mention other works. In 1785
he produced one of the most beautiful of his works, _The Seven Words_.
This, I must own, I have never heard in its original form. It was
commissioned by some priests of a church at Cadiz: seven slow movements
to be played between meditations to be spoken on the words of Christ on
the Cross. In this shape it became well known, and, later, Haydn himself
conducted it in London as a _Passione Instrumentale_. The theme inspired
him, and it was a further inspiration to add words and arrange the music
for chorus. Nothing he had composed up to this, whether for church or
theatre or concert, matched it for a strange blend of the pathetic and
the sublime. Had he died in 1790 his name might have lived by this work
alone. In a style as different from Bach's and Handel's as their styles
were different from Palestrina's and Byrde's, he proved himself one of
the mighty brotherhood who knew how to write sacred music. It was first
given with the words at Eisenstadt in 1797, and it is noteworthy that
the last time he directed his own music in public, in 1807, it was _The
Seven Words_, and not _The Creation_ nor _The Seasons_, that was
rendered.
This long chapter of Haydn's life, so uneventful outwardly, was now
about to close. Negotiations had been opened before by Cramer with a
view of inducing him to come to London, but nothing came of them. In
1787 Salomon, an enterprising fiddler, got Bland, a music publisher, to
try what could be done. Bland was unsuccessful, but he got a quartet
from Haydn in this wise. Contrary to his custom of receiving no one
until he was completely dressed, wig and all, in the ceremonious
eighteenth-century fashion, Haydn was trying to shave when Bland was
shown in. He was also, it would seem, using the Rohrau equivalent for
very bad language, for the razor was taking away his serenity of mind
and bits of his skin. "I would give my last quartet for a decent razor!"
he exclaimed wrathfully. Bland ran out and brought back a razor, and it
seemed to be a good one, for history, which never lies, says he got the
quartet. In 1790 Salomon made another attempt, this time in person, and
was repulsed. He had got as far as Cologne on his way back to England,
when he heard news that sent him flying again to Vienna as fast as
wheels and horses' legs could carry him.
The Esterhazy chapter of Haydn's life had closed with something of a
snap. On September 28 Prince Nicolaus died. He had started by being
Haydn's patron and master, but long before the end he had become his
friend. Haydn never dreamed of leaving, never even of going to England
on a short visit, without his permission and full approval. He was put
in his grave, and his magnificence would be all unremembered to-day but
for his connexion with a great composer. Haydn had been in the service
of him and his predecessor, Prince Anton, just on thirty years. Haydn
himself was now close on sixty years old. He might have retired now, as
a good Kapellmeister should, and lived in obscure comfort for the rest
of his days. The next Prince, another Anton, dismissed the band and
singers, but to the annuity of 1,000 florins which Nicolaus had left
Haydn he added 400 florins.
The story of these thirty years is soon told. What a fantastic mode of
life it seems, how farcical, grotesque, in its dull routine, for a
genius who was at work steadily building up new art-forms. Haydn, we are
told, rose every morning at six, carefully shaved and dressed, drank a
cup of black coffee, and worked till noon. Then he ate, and in the
afternoon he worked again, and ate and worked until it was time to go to
bed. He was a little man, very dark of skin, and deeply pock-marked, and
he had a large and ugly nose. His lower jaw and under lip projected, and
he had very kindly eyes. He was far from being vain about his personal
appearance, but he took an immense amount of pains with it, for all
that. Ladies ran much after him, too. But he cannot have spared them
much of his time. All who knew him were agreed about his methodical
habits, and we have only to look at a catalogue of his achievements, and
to consider that on every day of the week he had both rehearsals and
concerts, to realize that his entire time must have been eaten up by the
writing of music and the preparation and direction of musical
performances. Undoubtedly he wearied of it at times, though he said
that on the whole it had been good for him, and that by being so much
thrown upon his own resources he had been forced to become original. As
to this, I beg leave to be sceptical; and at any rate his finest work
was done when he was free of his bondage, and actively engaged in the
busy world. There is a note of regret for the irremediable in that
remark of his. It is as if he had said: "True, it was dull, insufferably
tedious, but, after all, it had its compensations." How his band and
singers tolerated the life I cannot tell. They lived together in a sort
of family, but their café meetings at Esterház were a poor substitute
for the distractions of the capital. One might assume that they took
their holidays in turns--for many had wives and children whom they were
obliged to leave behind--but a well-authenticated story destroys that
fond belief. It is the story of the Farewell Symphony. The artists,
wearying of so long a sojourn so far away from home, asked Haydn to
intercede for them with the Prince. Haydn and his folk were always on
the very best of terms, and he did intercede for them, in his own canny
way. He composed a symphony in which, towards the end, player after
player finishes his part, blows out his candle, packs up his instrument,
and leaves the room, until at last one solitary violin is left
industriously playing on. The Prince took the hint. "Since they are all
gone," he remarked, "we might as well go too." And he gave orders for
the return to Vienna, which he detested.
The eighteenth century lies behind us like a fruitful land, with the
touch of the old-world distinction on it, the old-world aroma clinging
to it. On paper, on canvas, on wooden panels, it is very picturesque in
its queer stately way, if very artificial. The sunlight seems always to
bask on it. It reminds one of a perpetual summer Sunday afternoon in a
small provincial town. But its voice speaks in its music, often bitterly
sad and sweetly regretful, and there is little hint of sunshine or
careless merrymaking there. Bach is steeped in cloister gloom, with
frequent moments of religious ecstasy. Haydn is generally cheerful in a
humdrum sort of way, but when his real feelings begin to speak, not even
Mozart is sadder. They were human beings with greedy, desiring souls in
them, these men and women of the dead eighteenth century, not delicate
painted figures on screens and panels, and none but actors would be
consoled by their undoubted picturesqueness when they are being tortured
or ennuied. They saw their youth slipping away uneventfully, and dark
old age coming steadily upon them. The gay bustle and hurry-skurry of
arriving and departing parties, the great dames and languid gentlemen
lounging on the terraces, the feasts and dignified dances--these are
very pleasant for us to look back on, but what did they seem to the
human beings, the players, actors and singers, who watched the show go
on? The great ones were in their element: at Esterház or elsewhere
_their_ world and mode of life were the same--but the poor artists?...
The single café was a poor compensation for a rollicking life of change.
The exile from Paris--the _avocat_, or _notaire_, or _docteur_ in the
provinces--how he hankers after the electrically lit boulevards, and
wonders whether he dare run up for a day or two, and what will happen,
there and here, if he does. And Haydn--we can fancy him, after brilliant
evenings at Esterház standing, looking Viennawards on still nights, the
starry immensity above him and the quiet black woods and waters around
him--the gay lights of Vienna must have danced before his inner vision,
and his soul must have risen in revolt, full of angry desire to be once
again in the midst of the happy chattering tide of life in the great
town. No other great composer could have stuck to his task as he did.
Mozart would have forgotten his duties; Beethoven would purposely have
neglected them. But Haydn's Prince willed the thing to be done, and
Haydn acquiesced. The patient blood of generations of industrious,
persevering, plodding peasant labourers was in him; and perhaps his
early training under Frankh and Reutter counted for something. He went
on unflinchingly, outwardly calm--calm even in the eyes of languid
eighteenth-century people--inwardly living strenuously as he battled
with and conquered his art-problems.
CHAPTER V
MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD
This must have occurred to every one whilst reading the biographies of
great artists: After all, is it the function of high genius to discover
means of expression only that they may be used afterwards by numberless
mediocrities who have nothing whatever to express? It is gravely set
down about Haydn, for instance, that he "stereotyped" the symphony form,
and "handed it on" to future generations. Now, I have observed that the
men who do this kind of work are always the second-rate men: first come
the inventors, the pioneers, and then the perfecters; it is always at
the close of a school that the tip-top men arise. They claw in their
material from everywhere around, and use it up so thoroughly as to leave
nothing for the later comers to do with it that was not done before, and
done better, done when the stuff was fresh and the impulse full of its
first vigour. Haydn did a lot of spade-work for Mozart and Beethoven,
especially Mozart; but that was early, more than twenty years before
his death, and it is significant that the portion of his life-work which
most influenced and directed Mozart and Beethoven is chiefly second-rate
music. When he was writing the music that forces us to place him near
the noblest composers, he obeyed the invariable rule, and was in turn
being influenced by Mozart. The case is remarkable, but it is only what
anyone with a seeing eye might have predicted, and to us to-day it is
quite plain.
It is the constructive part of his work--the work of his middle
period--we must now briefly examine. In the list of his principal
compositions for the period 1761-1790 are included nearly one hundred
symphonies and other orchestral works, innumerable trios, quartets,
operas, songs, and clavier or piano pieces, one oratorio, _The Seven
Words_, and other sacred pieces. How many of them are heard to-day? How
many could be heard with pleasure? Very, very few. If anyone
|
ridiculous to suppose that the exertions of any one person (however great
his talents, his zeal, and his assiduity,) are sufficient to discharge the
duties of so complicated an office. Such a supposition implies the
expectation of a moral impossibility; and so long as such a Herculean task
is allotted him, so long will the Museum continue, with little alteration,
in its present state. Where we have _one_ Zoologist, the museums of Paris,
Berlin, and Vienna have many; each is charged with the care of one
particular branch; and, by their united efforts, the whole is displayed to
the examination of the scientific, and to the view of the public. Each
professor has thus leisure to prosecute the most important objects of his
duty; _i. e._ to examine, compare, and describe, to detect analogies, to
investigate affinities, and to give to the world the fruits of his studies.
To France more particularly this honour is due. And what has been the
result? Why, that Paris has become the Zoological university of Europe; and
that the principles which have emanated from it, are now considered the
only true ones by which Nature is to be studied.
It is not my object to attach reproach to any body of men collectively, or
to any one individually; but truth is not to be concealed. Every writer who
has the advancement of his favourite study at heart, is bound (however
feebly) to advocate its cause. The truth of the preceding remarks cannot be
questioned; and it remains with those in power, to consider well, whether
such a state of things is consistent with the honour and reputation of the
country; with the justice due to those great men who founded the
institution; and to the expectations of the public, by whom it is
supported.
Warwick, October, 1823.
* * * * *
Pl. 120
[Illustration]
AMPULLARIA corrugata,
_Wrinkled Apple Snail._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 103.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_A. testâ globosâ, corrugatâ, olivaceâ; spiræ prominentis, acutæ,
anfractibus ventricosis; aperturæ margine crasso, fulvo, sulcato;
umbilico parvo, juxta labii interioris mediam posito; operculo
testaceo._
Shell globose, wrinkled, olive; spire prominent, acute, the whorls
ventricose; margin of the aperture thick, fulvous, grooved; umbilicus
small, linear, near the middle of the inner lip; operculum shelly.
Helix Ampullacea. _Linn. Gmelin_, _p._ 3626.
Ampullaria rugosa. _Sowerby, Genera of Shells_, _fas._ 4. _fig._ 1. 2.
* * * * *
The annexed figures of this hitherto undefined species will clearly show
its distinction from _Amp. globosa_, (pl. 119); and the specific characters
now framed for these two shells, will, I think, sufficiently distinguish
them from each other.
In comparison with _A. globosa_, this (even in the young state) is a
wrinkled, not a smooth shell, having the umbilicus placed near the middle,
not towards the base, of the inner lip: the spiral whorls are elevated and
ventricose, not depressed, and slightly convex; and the basal volution,
instead of being very wide on the upper part, (near the suture,) is widest
only in the middle. In young shells, the wrinkles and the marginated
aperture are less defined. When divested of its epidermis, the colour is
blueish white, with a few narrow bands of obscure purple. A specimen in my
own collection has the epidermis so thin, that the colours beneath it are
very conspicuous. The mouth inside is dark chesnut, with blackish bands;
the margin being pale yellow and slightly reflected. The umbilicus, both in
this and in _A. globosa_, is small and contracted, while in the real _A.
rugosa Lam._ (_Helix urceus Lin._) it is very large, round, and deep. This
latter shell, also, differs from both of the former, by having a thin, and
not a margined aperture.
Mr. Sowerby appears the only writer who has figured this shell, which he
has mistaken for the _A. rugosa_ of Lamarck. I am informed by Mr. Humphreys
it is a native of India.
* * * * *
Pl. 121
[Illustration]
CINNYRIS Javanica,
_Javanese Creeper._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 95.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_C. supra nitidè purpureo-ærata, subtus olivaceo-crocea; scapulis,
uropygio, strigâque laterali a rostro ad pectus descendente nitidè
violaceis; jugulo castaneo; caudâ nigra._
Above glossy metallic purple; beneath olive yellow; scapulars, rump,
and lateral stripe from the bill to the breast, shining violet; throat
chesnut; tail black.
Nectarinia Javanica. _Horsfield in Linn. Tran._ _vol._ 13. i. _p._ 167.
* * * * *
Under the full conviction that nature has defined, in the most complete
manner, the geographic limits of the various tribes of birds subsisting on
vegetable juices, I am particularly anxious to rectify any mistakes that
may shake this hypothesis, in which I find myself supported, in the fullest
manner, by the opinion of Professor Temminck, in the last edition of his
_Manuel_.
Dr. Horsfield, in his account of the birds of Java, describes two species
under the names of _Nectarinia Javanica_ and _Pectoralis_. It happens,
however, that specimens of both these birds are in my own cabinet, and have
enabled me to ascertain that they are both decided species of _Cinnyris_,
perfectly agreeing with the characters laid down by Cuvier, Temminck, and
myself, for this group. It is difficult to say how this oversight has
occurred, because Dr. H., just before, introduces the genus _Cinnyris_, and
describes under it two new species. In short, no doubt remains in my own
mind, that _Cinnyris_ is a genus as strictly confined to the tropical
latitudes of the _old_, as _Nectarinia_ is to the _new_ world.
The figure is the size of life; the outline of the bill will illustrate the
generic characters, of which one of the most important is the nostrils.
Nothing can exceed the richness and variety of tints with which this
splendid little creature is ornamented; particularly on the head, which is
glossed alternately with lilac, sea-green, and violet, and appears as if
covered with some metallic substance; the blue on the wings, back, and
edges of the tail is very deep, shining, and glossed with purple; all the
wing-feathers are edged with olive, and some of the lesser quills with
chesnut.
* * * * *
Pl. 122
[Illustration]
ACHATINA virginea, _var._
_Common Striped Achatina,_ _var. 2 and 3_.
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 30.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_A. testâ elongatâ, fasciis numerosis nigris, viridibus et flavis
ornatâ; anfractûs basalis latitudine altitudinem superante; aperturâ
rotundatâ; labio exteriore integro; basi profundè emarginatâ._
_Var._ 2. _testâ fasciis fuscis ornatâ; labio interiore albo._
_Var._ 3. _testâ fasciis rufis ornatâ; labio interiore roseo._
Shell elongated, with crowded bands of black, green, and yellow; basal
volution broader than high; aperture rounded; outer lip entire; base
deeply notched.
Bulla virginea. _Gm._ 3429. _Chemnitz_, 9. _t._ 117. _f._ 1000, 1.
_Dill._ 491.
Bulimus virgineus. _Brug._ _p._ 363.--_Lister_, 15. 10. _Seba_, _t._
40. _f._ 38. _Ferrusac_, _pl._ 120. _f._ 3, 4, 5.
Var. 2. Shell banded with brown; inner lip white. _Ferrusac_, _t._
120. _f._ 2.
Var. 3. Shell banded with rufous; inner lip rosy. _Chemnitz_, 10.
173. _f._ 1682, 1683, (_reversed_.)
* * * * *
The shell generally known as the _Ach. virginea_ (_Bulla virginea Lin._) is
so common, that few collectors do not possess it. The varieties, however,
of this species are rare, and differ so remarkably in their colouring, as
to require illustration. Several kindred species of this family I have
already described; and on the same principle of establishing specific
distinctions from formation instead of colour, I shall now endeavour to
point out those characters which are common, more or less, to all the
varieties of this species, and which distinguish it from its allies. _A.
virginea_ may be known by the comparative shortness of the basal whorl,
which in general is broader than high; the margin of the outer lip is
entire, and sloping in an oblique direction; the aperture is wide, and
nearly round; the lower part of the columella takes a concave direction,
and between its base and that of the outer lip is a very deep notch. The
basal whorl is so broad that the shell, if placed on a table with its mouth
downwards, will remain erect.
Both these and the two next varieties are in Mr. Dubois' cabinet. Their
locality is unknown; but my young friend, Mr. Frederick Parkes, has
recently sent me shells of the common variety, found by himself near
Kingston, Jamaica.
* * * * *
Pl. 123
[Illustration]
ACHATINA virginea, _var._ 3 _and_ 4.
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 30.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 122.
_A. virginea, var._ 3. _testâ ampliore, albescente, fasciis rufis
nigrisque ornatâ; aperturâ purpureâ; labio interiore albo._
_Var._ 4. _testâ ampliore, albâ, fasciis 3 angustis, fuscis ornatâ;
aperturâ labioque interiore albis; anfractu basali medio
subcarinato._
A. virginea, var. 3. Shell larger, whitish, with rufous and black
bands, aperture purple; inner lip white. _Middle figures._
Var. 4. Shell larger, white, with three narrow brown bands;
aperture and inner lip white; basal whorl in the middle slightly
carinated. _Upper and lower figures._
* * * * *
The two varieties of _A. virginea_ on this plate, are still more removed
from the type of the species than those last figured; they are both much
larger in size, and var. 4 presents a slight difference of formation, in
having the basal volution somewhat carinated round the middle; but as in
every other essential character it agrees with the rest, I have refrained
from separating it as a distinct species.
The four varieties I have now illustrated of _Ach. virginea_, tend to
establish, in a very complete manner, the correctness of the principles on
which I have framed the specific characters of this genus; here are four
shells, with a total difference in the colouring of each, yet all agreeing
in the same formation. It should be observed likewise, that _A. pallida_,
figured at pl. 41 of this work, and _A. virginea_, var. 4, are nearly the
same in colour, while in formation they are completely at variance. I do
not think it has been hitherto remarked, that the elegant green lines which
ornament the common variety, are only _external_; they resemble, in this
respect, the epidermis of other shells, for they may be taken off by a
knife without any injury to the enamel. M. Ferrusac has figured several
other varieties in his beautiful work on Land Shells.
* * * * *
Pl. 124
[Illustration]
LICINIA Crisia.
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 15.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_A. mas. Alis anticis falcato-acuminatis, fuscis, fasciâ mediâ
margineque postico flavo; posticis infra flavescentibus colore griseo
variis, basi maculis 4 fulvis._
_Fem. Alis infra albentibus colore griseo variis; anticis integris,
supra fuscis, fasciâ mediâ margineque postico albentibus; posticarum
basi maculis 4 fulvis._
_Male._ Anterior wings angulated, brown, with a central band and hind
margin yellow; posterior beneath yellowish marbled with grey, base with
4 fulvous spots.
_Female._ Anterior wings entire, above brown, with a central band and
hind margin whitish; all the wings beneath whitish marbled with grey;
base of the posterior with 4 fulvous spots.
Pieris Crisia. _Godart. En. Méth._ _p._ 197. _Male._ _Drury_, _v._ 3.
_pl._ 37. _f._ 1. 2?
* * * * *
The extraordinary difference existing between the sexes of exotic
Lepidoptera, and particularly among the Butterflies, (_Papilionidæ_ Lin.)
is a subject which hitherto has received but little attention; nor am I
aware of any entomological writer who has described those characters which
absolutely distinguish the sexes: characters which, I am persuaded, will
hereafter be found of the first importance in a natural arrangement of
these insects. But in the prosecution of this desirable object, the
naturalist, as far as regards foreign Lepidoptera, will have to encounter
serious obstacles; many individuals must be examined of each species, and
some of these dissected. It falls to the lot of few to pursue their
inquiries in the native regions of these insects. Collections in this
country are very few, and some of these are not always open to the
scientific labourer; neither can specimens be sacrificed for dissection,
where there are not more than two or three individuals of a species.
This is in general a very rare insect; observed for the first time by Dr.
Langsdorff and myself early in June (the tropical autumn), in a wood
adjoining the Organ Mountains at Rio de Janeiro. From its local abundance,
we were able to ascertain the sexes. The two upper figures are of the
female, and the lower of the male insect.
* * * * *
Pl. 125
[Illustration]
PAPILIO Nerius.
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 92.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_P. (Gr. Ecaud.) Alis nigris, fasciâ communi maculisque viridibus;
posticis dentatis breviter caudatis; his subtùs fasciâ subargenteâ,
marginali, nervis divisâ._ Godart.
P. (Gr. Ecaud.) Wings black, with spots and a common band of green;
posterior wings dentated, obsoletely tailed, beneath with a silvery
marginal band, divided by the nerves.
P. Nireus. _Fab. Sys. Ent._ 3. _p._ 36. _Godart Ency. Méth._ 9. 1. _p._
48. _Drury_ 2. _pl._ 4. _fig._ 1. 2. _Cramer_, _p._ 187. A. B. (_mas._)
_pl._ 378. F. G. (_fem._)
* * * * *
I have figured this insect, principally because it will fully illustrate
the first section (_a._) in the arrangement of this beautiful family
proposed at plate 92. The two divisions there adopted, after the manner of
Linnæus, (_Græci_ et _Trojani_) I am fully aware, are purely artificial;
but the facility this distribution will give to the student, in searching
after a particular species, is so obvious, that it need hardly be pointed
out.
I have only had the opportunity of examining the individual from which the
figure was taken. It is a male, having the anal valves rather lengthened
and obtuse, with a small hook between them, which projects from the last
segment of the abdomen. This circumstance proves the error of Cramer, in
having mistaken the sexes of this species, both of which he seems to have
figured. That which I apprehend is the female (Cramer, pl. 378, fig. F. G.)
I have not myself seen. The blue-green on the upper surface of the wings is
very resplendent and changeable, and the palpi and thorax beneath are
covered with numerous whitish spots.
On the under side of the inferior wings, near their base, is a paler band,
rayed with the nerves, and in some lights shining with a pale silvery
reflection.
Mr. Smeathman sent this species from Sierra Leone, in Africa, to Mr. Drury.
The locality, therefore, of India, given by Linnæus and Fabricius, must be
incorrect.
* * * * *
Pl. 126
[Illustration]
CONUS vitulinus, _var._
_Orange Fox Cone_,_Brown-tipp'd variety._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 65.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_C. testâ fulvâ seu fuscâ, fasciis 2 interruptis ornatâ; spiræ brevis,
levatæ, conicæ, maculatæ anfractibus concavis, subgranosè striatis;
basi granosâ, albâ._
_Var. testâ flavescente, fasciis obscuris, subalbidis ornatâ; basi
rufâ. (Fig. nos.)_
Shell fulvous or brown, with 2 interrupted white bands; spire short,
elevated, conic, spotted, volutions concave with subgranulated striæ;
base granulated, white.
Conus vitulinus. _Brug._ _p._ 648. _Lamarck. Ann._ 15. _p._ 265.
_Knorr._ _vol._ 5. _tab._ 1. _fig._ 4 (_optimè_). _Dillwyn_ 377.
_Lam. Syst._ 7. _p._ 467. 55.
Var. Shell yellowish, with obscure whitish bands; the base rufous.
* * * * *
I received this very uncommon shell from the Island of Amboyna; and
although in size and colour it is widely different from the usual
appearance of _C. vitulinus_, I have no hesitation in considering it as a
remarkable variety only of that species.
_C. vitulinus_ in general is a small shell. The best representation of it I
have seen is given by Knorr; an author not in general very accurate in his
figures. It varies considerably in colour, and approaches very near to _C.
vulpinus Lam._ from which it principally differs in having an elevated,
though short, spire, instead of one nearly flat: the base is granulated,
and generally white; _C. vulpinus_ also has the body whorl carinated and
thickest round the upper margin, whereas, in _Vitulinus_, it is gently
swelled in the middle.
M. Lamarck is, I think, mistaken in the synonyms of this shell, which is
represented in the _Ency. Méth._ plate 326, fig. 2 and 4.. The shell at
fig. 8. appears to me as the granulated variety of _C. vulpinus_.
Inhabits the Asiatic Ocean.
* * * * *
Pl. 127
[Illustration]
CONUS Maldivus,
_Spanish Admiral Cone._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 65.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_C. testâ lævi, posticè gracili ferrugineâ, maculis albis subtrigonis,
cingulisque numerosis fuscis, albo punctatis, ornatâ; basi nigrâ; spiræ
brevis apice acuto, anfractibus lævibus, planis._
Shell smooth, posterior end slender, ferruginous, with angular white
spots, and white bands dotted with brown; base black; spire short, tip
acute, the whorls smooth and flat.
C. Maldivus. _Brug._ (1789.) _p._ 644. _Lam. Ann._ _v._ 15. _p._ 264.
C. Jaspideus. _Humphreys in Mus. Cal._ (1797) _p._ 12. _No._ 185.
Conus Generalis. _Var._ B. _Dillwyn._ 539. 11.
_Lam. Syst._ 7. _p._ 465. 50.
Var. 1. Band in the middle narrow; _upper figure_. _Ency. Méth._
pl. 325. fig. 6.
Var. 2. Band broader; _lower figure_.
Var. 3. Band very broad, with dotted transverse lines; _middle
figure_.
_Seba._ _pl._ 54. _fig._ 11. 12. _Ency. Méth._ _pl._ 325. _fig._ 5. 7.
* * * * *
The general similarity existing between the Spanish Admiral, and two other
cones, figured in this work, I have before alluded to; it has been placed
by the Linnæan writers as a variety of _C. Generalis_, from which, however,
it invariably differs, in being a much thicker shell, with a shorter spire,
and the whorls without any concavity. The colour of the two species varies
considerably in different individuals, but _C. Maldivus_ is always
destitute of the dark brown longitudinal stripes at the top of the body
whorl, peculiar to _C. Generalis_; the white bands are either broken into
somewhat triangular spots, or are banded with minute dots; these triangular
white spots are sometimes scattered in other parts of the shell, and the
white band in the middle varies much in breadth; of all the varieties I
have yet seen, the middle figure is that which makes the nearest approach
to _C. Generalis_.
The very applicable name given to this shell by Mr. Humphreys, in the
_Museum Calonnianum_, I should have adopted, had not Bruguiere previously
affixed to it that of _Maldivus_, as being a native of the Maldivian
Islands.
* * * * *
Pl. 128
[Illustration]
CONUS Maldivus, _var._
_Spanish Admiral Cone_,_Chesnut variety._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 65.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 127.
Conus Maldivus. Var. B. _testâ castaneâ, fasciâ albescente mediâ
angustâ ornatâ; anfractûs basalis basi et margine albis._
_Var. B._ Chesnut, with a narrow whitish band in the middle; base and
margin of the body whorl white.
* * * * *
As a further illustration of the last plate, I have been induced to figure
this very rare variety, from a specimen I met with at Mrs. Mawe's. In the
disposition of its markings, it approaches near to the shell represented in
the _Ency. Méth._ _plate_ 325, _f._ 6, but the white band in the middle is
narrower, and quite destitute of the circular dotted lines there expressed.
No shells require a greater accuracy of delineation than the Cones,
particularly in expressing the peculiarity in the form and sculpture of
their spires. I am well persuaded that a great number of the mistakes
committed by authors have originated in the wretched figures contained in
Favanne's work, and in the early volumes of Martini. Those of Favanne are
generally so loose and inaccurate, (although remarkably well engraved,)
that I do not wish, by quoting, to make them any authority; and most of the
Cones figured by Martini are equally bad.
Bruguiere and Lamarck have both given the character of _spirâ canaliculatâ_
to this species, which is altogether a mistake. The spiral whorls are all
_but_ perfectly flat, and the suture is quite closed up, although sometimes
uneven; originating, as in many other shells, either from the inequalities
of growth, or from an accidental sea-break, which the animal may have
repaired.
* * * * *
Pl. 129
[Illustration]
MELLIPHAGA torquata,
_White-collared Honeysucker._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 43.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_M. olivaceo-fulvâ, infra albâ; capite auribusque nigris; torque
nuchali lunato, albo; superciliorum cute rubrâ._
Fulvous olive, beneath white; head and ears black; nape with a white
crescent, skin of the eyebrows red.
Black-crowned Honeysucker. _Lewin's Birds of N. Holland_, _pl._ 24.
* * * * *
An elegant, though not a richly coloured bird; remarkable for the bright
red of the skin above the eyes, and the milk-white collar at the back of
the head. It is from New Holland, and, like others of its tribe, derives
its nourishment chiefly from the nectar of flowers; as more particularly
mentioned in my first observations on this genus at pl. 43.
The figure is of the natural size: excepting the crown and sides of the
head (which are deep black), the whole upper plumage is olive yellow: the
shoulders, quills, and tail brown; the two latter margined with olive, but
the exterior quills with white: the throat, breast, and collar round the
nape pure white; skin of the eyebrows red.
The Lunated Creeper of Dr. Shaw (_Le Fuscalben of Vieillot, Certh._ _pl._
61. _p._ 122.) is, I apprehend, a distinct species. It is described as
being _cinnamon brown_ above, with a bright red spot of _feathers behind_
the eye. In the temperate climate of New Holland, that variation from the
usual colouring of particular species, so frequent in tropical birds, is
seldom met with; neither can these two birds be sexes of one species,
because Lewin, who wrote on the spot, particularly remarks that the female
of this is like the male; he further adds, it is found near Paramatta, and
the Hawkesbury river, in thick bushy woods.
Lewin's figure is so excellent, that I should not again have represented
this bird, had not the plate been prepared previous to the publication of
his work. The outline figure of the bill will show more clearly the
uncommon length of the nostrils, a character which is peculiar to this
genus.
Pl. 130
[Illustration]
Pl. 131
[Illustration]
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_T. viridi-aureus, subtus canus; remigum primorum (in maribus) scapis
dilatato-incurvatis; rectricium pennis 4 mediis viridibus apice nigro,
lateralibus albis basi nigrâ; rostro vix recto._
Golden green, beneath grey; greater quills (in the male) with the
shafts dilated and incurved. Four middle tail-feathers green tipped
with black, lateral feathers white with a black base; bill nearly
straight.
T. latipennis. _Lath. In. Orn._ 1. _p._ 310. _Gen. Zool._ 8. 1. 318.
T. campylopterus. _Gm. Sys. Nat._ 499. _n._ 65.
L'O. mouche à larges tuyaux. _Vieillot Ois. D'or._ _p._ 21. _p._ 59.
Broad-shafted H. Bird. _Lath. Syn._ _v._ 2. _p._ 765. _Gen. Zool._ 8.
318.
* * * * *
The opinion I expressed on the unusual formation of the wings in two
species of Humming-birds, figured at pl. 83 and 107, appears to receive the
fullest confirmation from the birds here represented. One of these (pl.
131) is clearly the _T. latipennis_, or Broad-shafted Humming-bird of
authors; while the other presents not the slightest difference except in
the shafts of the quills, which, instead of being thickened and dilated,
are of the ordinary size.
Not having myself dissected these birds, I cannot decidedly say they are
male and female; but I think no reasonable doubt can remain that such is
the fact, and that these singular quill-feathers are characteristic only of
the male sex.
Both the birds are represented the size of life, and may be included in one
description: the upper plumage obscure blueish green, glossed with a
coppery or golden tinge and shaded with brown, the plumage beneath entirely
grey; ears and sides of the neck the same, the latter with some spots of
greenish. Tail large, even, and broad; the two middle feathers green, tipt
(in the male) with blackish; the next pair black, with the base green, and
the extreme points whitish; the remainder black, with their ends more or
less white. Wings violet brown, the shafts of the three outer quills, in
the male, dilated and compressed, but simple in the female. Said to inhabit
Cayenne. Although the bill of this species is all but straight, it belongs
naturally to the curved-bill division.
* * * * *
Pl. 132
[Illustration]
MACROGLOSSUM annulosum,
_Upper figure_
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 64.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_M. alis nigris, anticis fasciis 2 hyalinè maculatis ornatis; abdominis
nigri, segmento tertio niveo._
Wings black, anterior with two bands of hyaline spots; abdomen black,
the third segment snowy.
* * * * *
An elegant insect; so closely allied to _Sphinx Tantalus, Lin._ (_Drury_,
_v._ 1. _pl._ 26. _f._ 5.) as to excite a doubt if it should be considered
as a separate species. Drury's figure and description, however, of that
insect, induce me to think they are most probably distinct. _S. Tantalus_
is without the two bands of hyaline spots, and is much smaller in size.
In this insect are three small, white, snowy dots, on the sides of the
lower segments of the abdomen, and the same beneath: the anal segment is
grey; with the margin, and spot in the middle, black. Inhabits Brazil, but
is a rare insect.
* * * * *
MACROGLOSSUM fasciatum,
_Lower figure._
* * * * *
_M. alis nigricantibus, anticis fusco variis, posticis strigâ
aurantiacâ centrali ornatis; thorace griseâ; corporis lateribus,
maculis aurantiacis, nigris et pallidè fulvis insignibus; antennis
gracilibus; unco producto._
Wings blackish, anterior variegated with brown, posterior with a
central orange stripe; thorax grey, sides of the body with orange,
black, and pale yellow spots; antennæ slender, hook lengthened.
Sphinx ceculus. _Cramer_, _pl._ 146. _f._ G.
* * * * *
This is another Brazilian species, much more frequent than the last. In
Cramer, at pl. 146, g. is figured an insect under the name of _Ceculus_,
which no author appears to have quoted; but which (miserably inaccurate as
it is), I have no doubt the artist intended as a representation of this
insect; particularly as Cramer's description, though short, is very
applicable. The colours beneath are uniform dark brown; the thorax, legs,
and base of the wings, whitish; near the exterior margin of the superior
wings is a small white dot, and two others on each side of the middle
segments of the body.
* * * * *
Pl. 133
[Illustration]
THECLA Macaria,
_Chesnut-spotted Hair-Streak._
* * * * *
GENERIC CHARACTER.--See Pl. 69.
* * * * *
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
_T. alis supra fuscis; anticis ad basin cæruleis, infra ferrugineis,
punctis 2 mediis nigris ornatis; posticis infra castaneis, anticè
pallidioribus, maculo nigro ad basin ornatis._
Wings above brown; anterior blue at the base, beneath ferruginous, with
two central black spots; posterior beneath chesnut, paler on the fore
part, with a black spot near the base.
* * * * *
I have selected this insect as one of the rarest among a vast number of
species of this elegant tribe, collected during my travels in Brazil. Two
specimens of the male, and one of the female insect, were captured in the
woods near
|
his toys
about him, died absolutely neglected by his mother in his
extremity, died without the slightest sane endeavor to save his
life.
And so it is everywhere in Christian Science families throughout
the length and breadth of this land. Nothing but the employment
of a fool-man or a fool-woman, called a Christian Science healer,
to administer a Christian Science treatment, which consists only
of the inaudible repetition of Mrs. Eddy’s meaningless jargon,
can be done by a Christian Science parent to save the life of his
child without repudiating Mrs. Eddy’s fundamental teaching that
sickness is unreal and giving the lie to her “inspired” insanity
that there are no such things as pain and death.
Who has not, for years past, read such items as these in the
daily papers? “Christian Science parent arrested. Mr. and Mrs.
Goodwin’s twelve years’ old child died without medical
attendance.”
Again: “Jail term for Christian Scientist Brine, who let his
six-year-old child die without medical attendance.”
Again: “No medicine for dying boy. Public prosecutor to take up
case of year-old son of Frank A. Black, who died on Saturday
without medical attendance.”
Again: “Mr. and Mrs. Edwin M. Watson, Christian Scientists,
convicted of voluntary manslaughter for failure to provide
medical attendance for their seven-year-old child, Granville.”
Again: “Little Esther Quimby, the seven-year-old daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. Quimby, Christian Scientists, allowed to die of
malignant diphtheria without attendance of a doctor.”
There was in this country in the neighborhood of 5,000
advertising Christian Science healers, so called, and their
patients are largely women and children. If each of them has but
one patient a day, there are over a million and a half lives
annually placed under their senseless and impotent ministrations.
As they doubtless average many more than one a day, their
patients are in the aggregate many millions a year, largely
women, still more largely children. There are no statistics
showing the mortality of such patients, for it is the practice of
these healers to conceal their operations by calling in a
physician at the last moment to qualify him to give the necessary
death certificate, in order that there may be no investigation of
their criminal practices. It cannot be doubted, however, that the
sacrifice of child life to this stupid and cruel monster runs up
into the hundreds, if not the thousands, annually. Could anything
be more hideous?
But what, may I ask, does Mary Baker G. Eddy care about the
sacrifice of children, so only that her bank account continue to
grow and grow and grow?
Her concern for children generally may be somewhat judged by her
regard for the only child she ever brought into the world. Mrs.
Eddy, when she was Mrs. Glover, in September, 1844, gave birth to
her only child, a son, whom she named after his father, George
Washington Glover. As a young infant, George lived at his aunt’s
house with his mother, who, however, frequently sent him on long
visits to the family of John Varney, the hired man (in whose lap
it was her custom, when a young widow, to be rocked to sleep at
night), and also to Mahala Sanborn, who had attended her at the
boy’s birth.
When he was seven years old, Miss Sanborn, who had become Mrs.
Cheeney, took him, at his mother’s request, permanently to live
with her in North Groton, New Hampshire, where he was from 1851
to 1857, when the Cheeneys moved to Enterprise, Minnesota, taking
George with them. During the larger part of his life in North
Groton, Mrs. Eddy lived in the same town, but she seldom saw him,
and did nothing for him. She abandoned him, in other words, to an
entirely illiterate person who had lived as a servant in her
father’s family. As her father said, she acted “just like an old
ewe sheep that would not own its lamb.”
Mrs. Eddy now pretends that she was obliged to give up her child
because her second husband, Patterson, would not have him in the
house. This seems to me a poor reason for a woman to abandon her
infant child, but it is not true in Mrs. Eddy’s case, because she
did not acquire Mr. Patterson until years after she had
permanently abandoned her child. So complete was her neglect, so
utter her abandonment of him that at the age of sixty-five this
man, born of New England parents, can neither read nor write! A
mother who is so unmotherly as Mrs. Eddy was toward her only
child when it was little more than a baby, cannot be expected to
give herself great concern over the sacrifice of the children of
strangers that is incidental to the accumulation of her fortune.
If the adult prefer foolishness to wisdom, if he prefer suicide
to life, by the Christian Science or any other method, he may
enjoy his preference. It is no business of mine to come between
him and the grave; but no man and no woman has any right,
whatever be the motive or the relation, to stand silently by and
permit a child needlessly to suffer and needlessly to die. The
laws of the land should provide, as they do in some States, for
the punishment of such cruel offences; and to the extent that my
opposition and my protest may avail, no man and no woman shall be
permitted to murder little children by a wilful neglect that is
based upon an insane belief in the wicked teachings of a wicked
woman, in her cruel, greedy fraud, in her brazen, murderous lies.
If any one be disposed to feel that my language sounds
extravagant thus early in the narrative, I beg that judgment may
be suspended until I have concluded, when the moderation of my
speech will, I think, be cause for wonder.
Chapter II
The Detached Heart
Mary Baker Glover Eddy was born in the town of Bow, New
Hampshire, on July 16, 1821, of good New England parentage; but
never received anything but the most rudimentary education. The
stories of her higher education are all fables. She pretends to
have studied the classic languages, and to have been familiar
with Hebrew. She has never known anything of any of these
languages, and any one who has been compelled, as I have, to
peruse her unedited personal correspondence knows that she has
never been on any, but the most distant of speaking terms, with
her mother tongue. She was graduated, she says, from Dyer H.
Sanborn’s Academy at Tilton, New Hampshire; but her old
schoolmates, still living, say there was no such academy,
although Sanborn did teach a few children each year in a room
over the district school. There was no regular course of study
and were no graduations. According to these same schoolmates,
Mary Baker completed her education upon reaching long division in
arithmetic, and her culture, in advanced years, may be somewhat
gauged by her written attribution in her seventieth year, when,
if ever, one’s education may be assumed to have made some little
progress, of the authorship of Irving to the Pickwick Papers of
Charles Dickens. “The language is decaying as fast,” she says,
“as that of Irving’s Pickwick Papers.”
One may be moved, by this reflection upon our poor speech, to
something like commiseration for the language that has been so
useful to us for centuries past. But it is consoling to reflect
that the race may have access, throughout coming ages, to Mrs.
Eddy’s exhaustless well of English undefiled as it appears in her
various immortal publications. Her private correspondence, it
must be admitted, however, does not exhibit any considerable
degree of excellence in the matter of spelling, punctuation,
grammar and capitalization; but an inspired person may be excused
for a little carelessness in the use of words.
Mrs. Eddy accounts for her amazing deficiency of education and
entire lack of culture by an ingenious fairy tale. “After my
discovery of Christian Science,” she says, “most of the knowledge
I had gleaned from school books vanished like a dream. Learning
was so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed.” If any scraps of
knowledge were ever possessed by this peculiar creature,
vanished, dreamlike or otherwise, they surely did; and without
quite assenting to the illumination of learning hypothesis, I
find no ground for dissenting from the view that, at some time or
other, grammar underwent total eclipse.
The first fifty years of her life were lived in great poverty and
complete obscurity. Before her alleged discovery of Christian
Science, Mrs. Eddy at one time eked out a precarious existence in
and about Boston as a Spiritualist medium, giving public seances
for money. Sweet converse with the illustrious dead could be had
of Mrs. Eddy at any time by any one who had the price. Her
interest in the dead seems to have been strictly confined to the
illustrious departed.
In December, 1843, when twenty-two years of age, she married
George W. Glover, a young bricklayer by trade, and with him,
shortly after the marriage, went to Wilmington, North Carolina,
where wages were somewhat higher than in New Hampshire. There
Glover, three months after the marriage and six months before the
birth of her only child, died of yellow fever. He was buried in
Wilmington, but the spot is, to this day, unknown even to his
widow.
Mrs. Eddy has for many years been exceeding rich in this world’s
goods. In her personal conversation, and in her published works,
she has spoken in terms of the highest praise of this her first
husband, “whose tender devotion to his young wife was remarked,”
she says, “by all observers.” He was the father of her only
child, yet all that is mortal of him has for nearly seventy years
lain with the unclaimed, forgotten and abandoned dead at
Wilmington, North Carolina.
Some years ago, friends of Mrs. Eddy at Wilmington erected a
stone to the memory of Mr. Glover over a grave supposed to be
his; but a descendant of the person really buried there
ruthlessly tore the stone from the place he believed it to
desecrate, and poor Glover’s final resting place remains unknown
and unnoticed.
After reaching the dignity of leader of a great religious
movement, Mrs. Eddy elevated the poor bricklayer husband to the
proud position of Colonel of Volunteers, and she thus glorified
him for approximately forty years. Sad to relate, however, he is
“Colonel” no longer. In the recent litigation, instituted by Mrs.
Eddy’s sons, one of the witnesses I was examining produced in
evidence a letter from Mrs. Eddy in which she said, “I called my
late husband” (she should have said late first husband, as a
second, a third and perhaps a fourth had then intervened), “I
called my late husband Colonel, because he was connected with the
militia, and I had got mixed on his rank.” She might just as well
have called him General for the same reason.
As a matter of fact, if Glover ever belonged to the militia, he
never arose beyond the dignity of high private and having been a
man of simple life and honest purpose would, no doubt, if he
could know of it, be a little uncomfortable in his narrow bed at
the undreamed military distinction thrust upon him by his famous
widow; but it would sadden him a little to know that, after
having elevated him to the exalted rank of Colonel, she should in
later years have reduced him to the less imposing position of
Major, by which military title he now is distinguished in Mrs.
Eddy’s conversation.
As a second matrimonial venture, Mrs. Eddy in 1853 allied herself
with one Daniel Patterson, who in her autobiographical sketches
has been completely ignored, although he shared twenty years of
connubial life with her. He does not seem to have left behind him
the sweet aroma of the more chivalrous Glover, who survived the
marriage only three months. Patterson was an itinerant dentist of
little or no practice, and life with him does not appear to have
been a pathway strewn with flowers.
It profits not to dwell upon the Patterson episode. When he was
not pursuing the elusive dollar that perpetually fled away, he
appears to have been chasing the festive bullfrog whose dismal
croak jarred upon his wife’s sensitive nerves. Suffice it to say
that Daniel and Mary endured one another, with what serenity and
fortitude they might, for twenty long, weary years, when, in
1873, a divorce was granted her for his desertion. Mrs. Eddy says
the divorce was granted for a different cause, but the record
contradicts her. The record always contradicts her. She has
declared herself to be opposed to divorce for any but the single
Biblical cause; but the record of the Superior Court at Salem
shows her to have obtained a divorce from Patterson for desertion
seven years after the time God, as she says, had revealed to her
the final religion.
Mrs. Eddy does not believe in marriage—for others. She was
inspired of God to teach that it is not good—for others—to marry
and she has inspired into the minds of her faithful followers the
belief that marriage is of the earth very earthy indeed, and that
life in the realm of spirit is impossible to those in the holy
estate of matrimony. But so far as she herself was concerned, it
cannot be denied that she seems to have had a distinct fancy for
marriage, and I may go so far as to say something approaching
fondness for variety in the marriage state.
In any event, after the termination by operation of law of the
second marriage, that is to say on January 1, 1877, Mrs. Eddy
made another and third venture into marriage and conferred upon
one Gilbert Asa Eddy the proud and happy distinction of successor
to the deceased Glover and the departed Patterson. The record of
this marriage (another record, be it noted) discloses the amusing
fact that Mrs. Eddy’s age was given as forty years, the marriage
having been celebrated fifty-six years from the date of her
birth; so that instead of blossoming and blooming in garlands gay
for a fair, young, winsome thing of forty summers, the roads were
decked with garlands somewhat somber for the third glad nuptials
of the blushing bride of fifty-six. But what is a little matter
of sixteen years in the life of a person who is superior to time
and of whose life here in the flesh there shall be no end?
After years of toil and trouble, of conflict and disharmony, of
stress and strain, in which some of Mrs. Eddy’s early friends
strongly sympathized with Mr. Eddy, who complained that neither
he nor God Almighty could please his exacting spouse, this
husband, too, was gathered to his fathers and Mrs. Eddy was for a
third time a widow.
In her efforts to impose upon the credulity of simple-minded
people, Mrs. Eddy has not hesitated to claim the power to triumph
over death, and to have actually restored the dead to life. To
her intimates she has claimed to have thus twice restored to life
this lamented third husband, Asa G. Eddy.
If Mrs. Eddy has, or had, this power, the mind of the incredulous
will wonder why the poor man is now dead, why his potent helpmate
did not restore him to life the third time he died. Presumably,
Mrs. Eddy reasoned with herself that it was really expecting too
much of a woman, even a woman Messiah, that she should recall
from death the third husband three times, and as husbands had
become, to some extent, a matter of habit with her, it is not,
perhaps, remarkable that she consented finally to part with this
one after such unmistakable evidence of his persistent desire to
be separated from her even by death.
Mrs. Eddy has in her book, “Miscellaneous Writings,” modestly
given us this husband’s estimate of her in these words: “Perhaps
the following words of her husband, the late Dr. Asa G. Eddy,
afford the most concise, yet complete, summary of the matter,
‘Mrs. Eddy’s works are the outgrowth of her life. I never knew so
unselfish an individual.’” So, perhaps, she let Eddy go, finally,
out of pure unselfishness. Sweet as was his companionship, she
could not keep him by her side when repeatedly assured of his
unalterable wish to go hence.
The first husband, Glover, survived the marriage but a few
months; the second husband, Patterson, unappreciative wretch that
he was, ran away, and, as Mrs. Eddy tells us, found consolation
in the affection of the “wealthy lady” who ran away with him
(although it must be said that no corroboration whatever of the
“wealthy lady” feature of Mrs. Eddy’s story exists); and the
third husband, Eddy, after having been twice recaptured, finally
escaped by death’s door.
There is another singular, grewsome incident connected with the
death of Mr. Eddy, husband number three. He died of heart
disease. There was no manner of doubt about that; but Mrs. Eddy
had professed to have the power to cure heart disease in the most
advanced stage, and she must find an explanation of her husband’s
death consistent with the possession, by her, of such power. So
she said that Eddy did not die of heart disease after all. He
died of poison, of arsenical poison, that’s what he died of; and
he didn’t die of arsenical poison mixed with his food or drink or
otherwise in chemical form smuggled into his organism. He died of
arsenical poison mentally administered, _thought_ into him by her
enemies.
Now even a woman Messiah could not be on the lookout all the time
against these malicious thoughts directed at her third husband
and, in a moment of inadvertence, one of them got by and killed
Eddy, and killed him _dead_.
To confirm her singular notion and prove the presence of the
symptoms of arsenical poison in the body, Mrs. Eddy procured the
performance of an autopsy upon her late husband’s remains.
Dr. Rufus K. Noyes of Boston, who performed the autopsy, tells me
that, having removed the diseased organ from Mr. Eddy’s breast,
he exhibited it upon a platter to the sorrowing widow, who craved
the ocular demonstration, and pointed out to her curious and
eager inspection the precise cause of death in its diseased
condition. And it was after, and notwithstanding, her close
scrutiny of the physical heart that had so robustly throbbed with
love of her, that, much to Dr. Noyes’ amusement, Mrs. Eddy gave
out the statement, to the extent of a column or more in the
newspapers, that arsenical poison mentally administered by absent
treatment had in fact torn her loved one a third time, and
finally, from her clinging grasp.
How sweet, how _charming_, is the wifely devotion, that, kissing
the lips of death, speedily and forever loses track of the sacred
ashes of the beloved _first_ husband, rushes into the divorce
court for freedom from the truant _second_, and, having twice
restored the adored _third_ to life, when a third time he thus
eludes her refuses, positively and coldly refuses, to bring him
back and looks with calm and critical eyes upon the formerly
attached, but now, alas, detached heart!
To the soft impeachment of these three several marriages, this
pronounced opponent of marriage pleads a bashful guilty, but many
are they who believe there was yet a fourth marriage, and that
the widow Eddy in course of time became, and is today, the wife
of one, Calvin A. Frye.
Frye is, ostensibly, at least, Mrs. Eddy’s servant, her man of
all work. He is her footman, and in the livery of a footman rides
upon the driver’s seat of her carriage when she goeth forth for
her daily drives. He is also her private secretary, who handles
her mail, and, at his pleasure, permits her to peruse, or throws
into the waste-paper basket, communications addressed to Mrs.
Eddy. He is her major-domo, master of ceremonies in her
pretentious establishment and director of her large retinue of
assistant secretaries, literary experts, personal healers, mental
protectors and domestic servants. These positions Mr. Frye has
adorned, as a resident member of Mrs. Eddy’s family, occupying an
adjoining room, for upwards of thirty years. But not only is Mr.
Frye Mrs. Eddy’s servant, her footman, her secretary, her
man-of-all work, he, strangely it would seem, has for years at a
time held the legal title to the capacious residence in which she
has lived at Concord, New Hampshire, and to all the highly
cultivated grounds about it, and to all the personal property
upon the place. And not only has Mr. Frye been Mrs. Eddy’s
servant and secretary, her footman and the owner of her lands and
houses, her horses and carriages, the furniture within the
houses, and the crops upon the extensive acres, he was for years
the legal owner of her costly jewels, of the diamond cross which
she wore at her throat. Her footman, owner of the house in which
she lived, of the carriage in which he took her to drive and of
the jewels she wore! This condition of affairs was not changed
until I called attention to it a few years ago, when Mr. Frye
reconveyed to, shall I say Mrs. Frye? all the property standing
in his name.
All of these circumstances, taken with the confident opinion of
one long a member of her household that, if Mrs. Eddy isn’t the
wife of Frye, she ought to be, are to my mind strong indication
that Mrs. Eddy ought to be called Mrs. Frye and her credulous
followers not Eddyites, but Fryeites or Frytes; and I predict
that, if Frye survive Mrs. Eddy and be not amply provided for by
her will or settled with by her executors, he will go into the
Probate Court and proclaim himself to be her surviving husband,
entitled to one-third of her estate.
I do not state this fourth marriage as a fact, but offer it as
the only possible and creditable explanation of the facts.
As has been said, Mrs. Eddy has one son born to her who was
totally and unfeelingly abandoned by her in his early infancy,
who lives in a western State, and seldom or never visits his
famous mother. No member of her family ever believed in her, ever
placed the slightest credence in her preposterous pretentions.
Mrs. Eddy also has an adopted son. Some years ago she legally
adopted a male child, a medical man named Foster, then forty
years old, who, to acquire a mother by adoption, took the name of
E. J. Foster-Eddy, and became a member of Mrs. Eddy’s family;
but, after a too brief period of harmonious cohabitation, the
sweet domestic relation was, for reasons not made public,
interrupted, and now he also finds it agreeable to live elsewhere
than with his adopted mother and is heard of no more in
Christian-Science-dom.
From a humble position of dependence, Mrs. Eddy has arisen to a
proud position of great opulence, and from complete obscurity,
devoid of influence and power, has placed herself at the head of
the most phenomenal “religious” movement of this or any other
time, and made herself believed to be the God-anointed successor
to Jesus Christ, and His equal in attributes and power; and this
she has accomplished through a _lie_, a deliberate, wilful,
wicked lie.
Chapter III
Pretence of Equality with Jesus
Coming now to what makes it worth our while to consider the
career of this remarkable woman, let me present the facts
regarding her relation to the life and to the activities of the
world of today, and how and by what very devious means she has
reached and maintains the position she now holds.
What does Mrs. Eddy claim to be, and what is she believed to be
by many thousands of people who have made her their religious
leader and guide, and reverence her as the devout Christian
reverences Christ?
Mrs. Eddy claims that she is the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy,
that she and her book are specifically referred to and prophesied
in the Book of Revelation.
She says, “My attention is especially called to the twelfth
chapter of the Apocalypse or Revelation of Saint John, on account
of its suggestiveness in connection with this nineteenth century.
In this opening of the sixth seal, there is one distinctive
feature which has _special reference_ to the _present age_, and
the _establishment of Christian Science in this period_. ‘And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars.’”
With eyes downcast, with “bated breath and whispering
humbleness,” bashfully pointing to herself, in low tones that
inspire awe, she says, “The woman clothed with the sun, Mary
Baker G. Eddy.”
Again, she says: “Saint John writes in the tenth chapter of the
Book of Revelation: ‘And I saw another mighty angel come down
from Heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his
head, and his face was, as it were, the sun, and his feet as
pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book, open, and
he set his right foot upon the earth.’ Is this angel, or message
from God, Divine Science that comes in a cloud? This angel had in
his hand a little book open for all to read and understand. Then
will a voice from harmony cry, Go and take the little book. Take
up Divine Science. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed sweet
at its first taste when it heals you, but murmur not over Truth
if you find its digestion bitter.”
The “little book,” “Science and Health,” of God’s authorship, but
copyrighted by Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and to be had of her
publisher in Boston by any one who has three dollars or more,
according to binding, to pay for it!
Intentionally vague as are these oracular utterances, we cannot
but catch her evident meaning: In me behold the woman clothed
with the sun; in my book, the “little book” sent down from
Heaven, and in Christian Science the message from God contained
in the little book held in the hand of the angel!
Christian Scientists get this down without so much as a murmur!
This is one of the easy things she has given them to swallow.
Besides this, Mrs. Eddy has distinctly authorized the claim in
her behalf that she herself is the chosen successor to and equal
of Jesus, that her mission is to complete the religion of Christ.
In the earlier days she placed her mission above that of Jesus,
inasmuch as the idea of God given by her was, she said, “higher,
clearer and more permanent than before.” But, later, she seems to
have been satisfied with equality only, and says, “The second
appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the second advent of the
advancing idea of God as in Christian Science.”
She, however, patronizingly points out the short-comings of
Jesus. “Our Master healed the sick, practiced Christian healing,
and taught the generalities of this divine principle to his
students, but he left no definite word for demonstrating his
principle of healing and preventing disease. This remained to be
discovered through Christian Science,” and “Had wisdom
characterized all his sayings, he would not have prophesied his
own death and thereby hastened or caused it.” While in speaking
of herself she said, “The works I have written on Christian
Science contain absolute truth and my necessity was to tell it. I
was a scribe under orders, and who can refrain from transcribing
what God indites?” So wisdom did not characterize all of the
sayings of Jesus; but Mrs. Eddy speaks absolute truth!
In the _Christian Science Journal_ for April, 1889, when it was
her property and published by her, and upwards of twenty years
after the time she says God had selected her to complete the
religion of Jesus, it was claimed for her, and with her sanction,
that she was equal with Jesus, and elaborate effort was made to
establish the claim. “Now a word about the horror many good
people have of our making the author of ‘Science and Health’
equal with Jesus!” says the writer, and in the first paragraph of
the article, the question is asked, “Do we, then, say that the
author of ‘Science and Health’ is equal with Jesus?” A little
further on appears the statement, “Jesus demonstrated over all
the beliefs of this false sense of life, even over the belief of
death, the last enemy to be overcome.” And further, “Mrs. M. B.
G. Eddy has worked out for us, as on a blackboard, every point in
the demonstrations, or so-called miracles of Jesus, showing us
how to meet and overcome the one, and perform the other” and,
throughout the article, its whole clearly apparent purpose is to
carry the conviction that in attributes and power Mrs. Eddy is
the entire equal of Jesus.
In an illustrated “poem” entitled “Christ and Christmas,” written
by Mrs. Eddy, and published and copyrighted by her in 1894, there
is a picture labeled “Christian Unity,” in which Jesus is
represented as seated upon a stone holding the right hand of Mary
—Mary Baker G. Eddy. In the left hand of the woman is a scroll
bearing the legend “Christian Science,” and about the head of
each figure, that of Jesus and that of the Christian Science
woman, there is a halo. The picture is illustrative of these
lines on the opposite page:
“As in blessed Palestine’s hour, so in our age
’Tis the same hand unfolds His Power and writes the page.”
At the time this book was announced by Mrs. Eddy, in December,
1893, she publicly said of it, “‘Christ and Christmas’ voices God
through song and object lesson.” The price of the book was three
dollars. How convenient to be able to command a market by voicing
God! How kind God has been to Mrs. Eddy’s business ventures!
At the time of this publication, Mrs. Eddy, who claimed to have
shared in making the illustrations (which her man Hanna called
“exquisite bits of art,” but which are, doubtless, the vulgarest
products of the art of book-making of many years), at this time,
I say, Mrs. Eddy unquestionably wished this “Christian Unity”
illustration to signify the unity of Christianity and Christian
Science, as represented by the founder of Christianity and the
founder of Christian Science, and about her own head, as about
the head of Christ, she hangs a halo! The two Messiahs, masculine
and feminine, and representing “Our Father and our Mother God,”
hand in hand, absolute equality. Christian Unity!
Her private correspondence has been full of pretensions to direct
meditation with God, and her followers have been induced
unquestioningly to comply with her wishes regarding the most
trivial things because she but voiced a wish communicated to them
through her by God.
“God, our God has just told me,” she says, “who to recommend to
you for editor of the _Christian Science Journal_,” And, “No man
or woman has told me of this obnoxious feature, but my Father
has, and it shall be stopped by His servant who has given His
word to the world.” And, “God’s law ‘to feed my sheep,’ to give
Science and Health at once to those hungering for it, must be
obeyed.” (To those hungering three dollars worth!) And, “I ought
not to have consulted with man on the copyright of God’s Book.”
And, “Come to see me next Saturday, a.m., on nine o’clock train,
and God will settle this matter.” And, “Now what can I do, only
to spread His word of warning and wait for all students to grow
up to understand _His_ ways, and _mine_ when God directed.” And,
“God will not let me be silent relative to your business here
yesterday, but demands me to answer, reminding you of your
feelings toward me.” And, “Push the Book to as fast as possible
completion. It is _God’s Book_, and he says give it at once to
the people.” (At three dollars per copy!) And, “You know they
cannot be made sick for printing and binding _God’s Book_.”
But Jove nods; Mrs. Eddy stumbles. Sometimes it is the Christian
Science devil that, impersonating God, whispers to her. “I
regret,” she says, “having named the one I did to you for editor.
It was a mistake, he is not fit. It was not God evidently that
suggested that thought, but the person who suggests many things
mentally; but I have before been able to discriminate.” This
incident suggests the importance of one, who is the channel of
wireless telegraphy from God, being able to discriminate between
messages from Heaven and messages from Hell, and having the power
to prevent satanic interference with the medium of communication.
In a late edition of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy speaks of
Jesus as “the masculine representative of the spiritual idea,”
and says, “the impersonation of the spiritual idea had a brief
history in the earthly life of our Master, but of His Kingdom
there shall be no end, for Christ’s, God’s idea, will eventually
rule all nations and people, imperatively, absolutely, finally,—
with Divine Science. This immaculate idea, represented first by
man and last by woman, will baptize with fire,” etc.
By “Divine Science,” Mrs. Eddy, of course, means Christian
Science, as the terms are used interchangably with her, and with
characteristic modesty she places herself by the side of the
Master—He being the first and masculine, and she the last and
feminine, representative of the “immaculate idea.”
What marvelous presumption! What ineffable audacity!
The Mary Baker G. Eddy, who in speaking of a woman she disliked
savagely exclaimed, “I’d like to tear her heart out and trample
it under my feet!” who, at Lynn, because of her abuse of her
husband and violent outbursts of temper, was known as the “she
devil”; who, four years after the time of her pretended selection
by God for a divine mission, being denied hospitality she had
abused in the Wentworth household at Stoughton, left in a fury of
passion after having, with obvious intent, put live coals from
her stove upon a heap of newspapers in the closet; who figured
first as a spiritualist medium, giving public séances for money,
and later as the president of a bogus medical college issuing
illegal degrees; who unfeelingly abandoned the only child born to
her, and looked with unflinching eyes upon the detached heart of
her deceased husband; who has become the champion fraud and
impostor of the age; who in the livery of heaven has for forty
years wrought in the direct interest of hell,—this Mrs. Eddy, the
self-constituted representative with Jesus of the immaculate
idea! this woman and the immaculate Jesus mentioned in the same
breath!
Chapter IV
The Faked Revelation
Back in 1877 Mrs. Eddy placed her mission, as I have said, above
that of Jesus. In a personal letter to a friend, she said, “I
know the crucifixion of one who presents Truth in its higher
aspect will be _this_ time through a _bigger error_, through
mortal mind instead of its lower strata or matter, showing that
the _idea given of God this time is higher, clearer, and more
permanent than before_.” But of late years she has contented
herself with claiming only equality, in all respects, with Jesus,
and has not hesitated boldly and in so many words to declare her
teachings to have been expressly “authorized by Christ.”
We must go into this matter with some particularity, and I crave
indulgence while I present certain essential details. I want to
leave no doubt in any orderly mind as to just what Mrs. Eddy
claims to be, and shall then show, with an abundance of
|
é, Italian................................. 66
Vermouth Rickey.......................................... 98
Violet Fizz.............................................. 61
Wassail Bowl............................................ 109
West Indian Punch........................................ 96
Widow’s Kiss............................................ 110
Whiskey Cobbler.......................................... 28
Whiskey Cocktail......................................... 43
Whiskey Cocktail, Fancy.................................. 43
Whiskey Cocktail, Old Fashion............................ 43
Whiskey Crusta........................................... 47
Whiskey Daisy............................................ 54
Whiskey Fix.............................................. 57
Whiskey Fizz............................................. 61
Whiskey Flip............................................. 63
Whiskey Julep............................................ 74
Whiskey Rickey........................................... 99
Whiskey Skin............................................ 101
Whiskey Sling, Cold..................................... 102
Whiskey Sling, Hot....................................... 72
Whiskey Smash........................................... 103
Whiskey Sour............................................ 104
Whiskey Toddy (Cold)................................... 108
Whiskey Punch, Plain..................................... 96
Whiskey Punch, Hot....................................... 73
Whiskey Punch, Frappé.................................... 66
Whiskey Punch, Strained.................................. 97
White Lion............................................... 77
White Plush............................................. 109
Wilson Cocktail.......................................... 43
Yale Cocktail............................................ 44
Yale Punch............................................... 97
Yankee Flip.............................................. 63
York Cocktail............................................ 44
FROZEN BEVERAGES.
Blackberry Sherbet...................................... 119
Bonanza Punch........................................... 113
Cherry Sherbet.......................................... 119
Cafe Royal, Frappé...................................... 120
Currant Sherbet, No. 1.................................. 119
Currant Sherbet, No. 2.................................. 120
Egg-Nogg, Frappé........................................ 114
Grape Sherbet........................................... 114
Kirsch Punch............................................ 114
Lemon Ice............................................... 111
Lemon Sherbet........................................... 114
Lemon Ginger Sherbet.................................... 115
Macedoine, No. 1........................................ 117
Macedoine, No. 2........................................ 117
Macedoine, No. 3........................................ 117
Macedoine, No. 4........................................ 117
Orange Ice.............................................. 112
Orange Sherbet, No. 1................................... 117
Orange Sherbet, No. 2................................... 118
Pineapple Ice........................................... 112
Pineapple Sherbet....................................... 118
Pomegranate Sherbet..................................... 115
Punch à la Vatican...................................... 116
Raspberry Water Ice..................................... 113
Raspberry Sherbet....................................... 116
Roman Punch............................................. 118
Russian Punch........................................... 119
Shaddock Sherbet........................................ 116
Strawberry Sherbet...................................... 117
Strawberry Water Ice.................................... 112
Tea Punch, Frappé....................................... 114
Water Ice............................................... 113
MODERN AMERICAN DRINKS.
Absinthe.
Absinthe is composed of the tops and leaves of the herb artemisia
absinthium, or wormwood, which contains a volatile oil, absinthol,
and a yellow, crystalline, resinous compound, called absinthin,
which is the bitter principle. The alcohol with which this is mixed
holds these volatile oils in solution.
The free use of absinthe is injurious. Never serve it in any kind
of drink unless called for by the customer.
California Style Absinthe.
A mixing-glass* half full fine ice, one jigger absinthe. Shake
until very cold, strain into thin bar-glass, fill with siphon
seltzer or carbonic.
* By a mixing-glass is meant a large soda-glass, holding twelve
ounces; it is handier and gives better satisfaction than a goblet.
A jigger is a measure used for measuring liquors when mixing
drinks; it holds two ounces. A pony holds half a jigger.
Dripped Absinthe.
(Use Absinthe Drip-glass.)
Pour one pony of absinthe into the bottom glass, fill the upper
(drip) glass full of ice-water. When two-thirds of the water has
dripped into the absinthe it is ready to be drunk. A few drops of
anisette will improve this drink.
Absinthe, Italian Style.
Put into a thin eight-ounce glass containing a few lumps of clear
ice one pony of absinthe, two dashes maraschino, four dashes
anisette. Slowly fill the glass with ice-water, stir well with long
bar-spoon. Serve.
Absinthe, Swiss Style.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full of fine ice, pour into it one pony of
absinthe, one pony of water, one dash of gum-syrup. Shake with
shaker until very cold, strain into champagne-tumbler, fill up with
siphon seltzer.
Ammonia and Seltzer.
This is a good remedy for the relief of the depression following
alcoholic excesses. Dose: Twenty drops of spirit. ammon. aromat. in
a medium-sized glass of seltzer or plain water.
Ammonia, Soda, and Seltzer.
Same as ammonia and seltzer, mixing a small bar-spoonful of
bicarbonate of soda in the drink before imbibing.
Archbishop.
Dissolve in a mixing-glass one-half tablespoonful fine sugar in a
little water, the juice of quarter of a lemon, fill glass half-full
fine ice, add one jigger port wine, two dashes Jamaica rum. Shake
well. Serve in long thin punch-glass on ice with straws. Trim with
fruit in season.
Arrack.
Arrack is made from the juice obtained from the cocoanut-tree.
There is another kind made from rice. That which is imported from
Japan is considered the best.
Appetizer.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice; add three dashes absinthe, three
dashes pepsin bitters, one jigger French vermouth. Shake well,
strain, and serve.
Barley Water.
One tablespoonful pearl barley to two quarts water. Put on fire and
boil two minutes; strain through cheesecloth. This makes an
excellent drink if made into lemonade.
Bicarbonate of Soda.
One small bar-spoonful of bicarbonate of soda in a medium-sized
glassful of plain water or seltzer (this is an excellent
stomach-settler).
Black Stripe.
One teaspoonful molasses, one small lump ice, one jigger Jamaica,
Medford, or St. Croix rum. Mix well in small bar-glass. Serve.
Bishop.
A long thin punch-glass half-full fine ice, the juice of quarter of
a lemon, the juice of half an orange, one dash Jamaica rum, two
jiggers Burgundy, one tablespoonful fine sugar. Mix well, fill the
glass with seltzer, ornament with fruit. Serve straws.
Blue Blazer.
One lump of sugar dissolved with a little hot water in a mug; add
one jigger of Scotch whiskey. Ignite this mixture. Take another mug
and pour from one to the other several times, giving it the
appearance of a streak of blue fire. Serve in hot-drink glass. Add
a piece twisted lemon-peel and a little grated nutmeg.
Bosom Caresser.
Fill a mixing-glass one-third full of fine ice; add a teaspoonful
raspberry syrup, one fresh egg, one jigger brandy; fill with milk,
shake well, and strain.
Bracer.
One pony brandy, one-half pony yellow chartreuse, one-half pony
maraschino, five drops absinthe, the yolk of one egg whipped, one
tablespoonful fine sugar. Mix well with ice, strain, and serve in
small fancy glasses.
Brain-Duster.
A mixing-glass half-full of fine ice, two dashes gum syrup, one
pony absinthe, one-half pony Italian vermouth, one-half pony
whiskey. Mix well, strain into thin glass, fill with seltzer.
Brandy and Ginger Ale.
Place a lump of ice in a long thin punch-glass, add one jigger
brandy and a cold bottle of imported ginger ale.
Brandy Champerelle.
Fill a sherry-glass one-fourth full maraschino, one-fourth full
orange curaçoa, one-fourth full yellow chartreuse, and one-fourth
full brandy. Add a few drops of Angostura bitters carefully. Be
sure to keep the different liqueurs from running into one another.
Brandy and Gum.
A few dashes gum-syrup in a whiskey-glass, one lump ice, a small
bar-spoon. Place, with a decanter of brandy, before customer, to
help himself.
Brandy and Soda.
One lump of ice in long punch-glass, one jigger brandy, one bottle
cold soda.
Brandy and Sugar.
One lump of sugar dissolved with a little water in a whiskey-glass,
one lump ice, a small bar-spoon. Place, with a decanter of brandy,
before customer.
Burned Brandy.
(GOOD IN A CASE OF DIARRHŒA.)
Put two lumps of cut-loaf sugar in a dish; add one jigger good
brandy, and ignite. When sufficiently burnt, serve in a
whiskey-glass.
Burned Brandy and Peach.
Prepare same as Burned Brandy. Place two or three slices of dried
peaches in the glass, pour the burned liquid over them, grate a
little nutmeg on top. Serve.
Cincinnati.
A glass half-full of lemon soda; then fill with draught beer.
Cherry Brandy.
Ten pounds of ripe wild cherries are freed from their pits, the
pits are pulverized, and, with the cherries and one gallon brandy,
placed in a demijohn or a covered stone jar for eight weeks. Add
two pounds refined sugar, filter through filtering-paper, bottle;
but use only after it has been bottled at least six weeks.
[TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The seeds of some stone fruits such as cherry
contain ‘amygdalin’ which may be toxic.]
Claret Lemonade.
Make a plain, sweet lemonade, add a jigger of claret before
shaking; decorate with fruit. Serve straws.
Mulled Claret.
Put in a dish four lumps sugar, two jiggers claret, the juice of a
quarter of a lemon, a little powdered allspice, three cloves, a
small stick cinnamon. Bring the above to the boiling point, then
strain into a hot-drink glass, and add a slice of lemon.
Mulled Claret and Egg.
Prepare same as Mulled Claret, leaving out the lump sugar. Boil the
mixture one minute. Beat up the yolk of one egg with a small
spoonful of fine sugar. Place the beaten egg in a hot-drink glass
and pour the boiling claret over it, mixing well with spoon; grate
a little nutmeg on top.
Brandy Cobbler.
Fill a thin fizz-glass three-fourths full of fine ice, add three
dashes gum-syrup, three dashes maraschino, one jigger brandy. Mix
well. Trim with fruit in season. Serve with straws.
California Brandy Cobbler.
Prepare same as Brandy Cobbler, using California brandy.
California Sherry Cobbler.
Two tablespoonfuls fine sugar in a mixing-glass with a little
water, the juice of one orange, two jiggers California sherry; fill
the glass with fine ice, shake well, put all into a long thin
glass, trim with fruit. Serve straws.
California Wine Cobbler.
Dissolve two tablespoonfuls fine sugar with a little water in a
mixing-glass. Add the juice of one orange, two jiggers California
wine; fill the glass three-fourths with fine ice, shake well. Serve
in a long thin glass with straws. Ornament with fruit in season.
Catawba Cobbler.
One tablespoonful fine sugar, the juice of half a lemon, two
jiggers of Catawba wine in half a glass (mixing) full fine ice;
shake well. Trim with fruit. Sip with straws.
Champagne Cobbler.
Dissolve one lump sugar in a long thin glass with a little water,
add a piece of lemon-peel, a slice of orange, a few lumps ice, then
fill with champagne; stir. Sip with straws.
Claret Cobbler.
One-half tablespoonful fine sugar in a mixing-glass three-fourths
full of fine ice, two jiggers claret; shake well. Trim with fruit.
Serve with straws in a long thin glass.
Port Wine Cobbler.
A thin eight-ounce glassful fine ice, one tablespoonful gum-syrup,
one jigger port wine. Mix well. Ornament with fruit. Serve straws.
Rhine Wine Cobbler.
Dissolve one tablespoonful fine sugar with one jigger water in a
long thin glass. Add two jiggers Rhine wine; fill the glass with
fine ice; mix well. Trim with fruit. Serve straws.
Sauterne Cobbler.
One tablespoonful fine sugar dissolved in a long thin glass with a
little water; fill the glass with fine ice, add two jiggers
sauterne. Mix. Ornament with fruits in season. Sip with straws.
Sherry Cobbler No. 1.
Fill an eight-ounce glass full of fine ice, add one teaspoonful
gum-syrup, two jiggers sherry. Mix well. Trim with fruit. Serve
with straws.
Sherry Cobbler No. 2.
Half a mixing-glass full fine ice, one tablespoonful fine sugar,
one and a half jigger sherry wine. Shake well. Serve in a long thin
glass with straws. Trim with fruit.
Whiskey Cobbler.
Prepare the same as Brandy Cobbler, substituting whiskey for brandy.
Absinthe Cocktail.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full of fine ice, add one dash gum-syrup,
one dash Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, one pony absinthe, one
pony water. Mix well. Strain into cocktail glass; add a piece
twisted lemon-peel.
Amaranth Cocktail.
Fine ice in a mixing-glass, two dashes Angostura bitters, one
jigger whiskey. Mix, strain into a whiskey-glass, and fill up
with seltzer; then take a very little fine sugar in a small
bar-spoon and stir into the cocktail. Drink during effervescence.
Apple Brandy Cocktail.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Peyschaud or
Angostura bitters, one jigger apple brandy. Mix and strain into a
cocktail-glass. Add a piece of twisted lemon-peel.
Armour Cocktail.
Fine ice in mixing-glass, three dashes orange bitters, half a
jigger sherry, half a jigger Italian vermouth. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass. Add a piece of orange-peel or a maraschino cherry.
Bottled Brandy Cocktail.
Take two-thirds of a quart brandy, one-third quart water, one pony
Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, two ponies gum-syrup. Mix well and
bottle.
Bottled Holland Gin Cocktail.
Prepare same as Bottled Brandy Cocktail, substituting Holland gin
for brandy.
Bottled Tom Gin Cocktail.
Two-thirds of a quart Tom gin, one-third quart water, one jigger
orange bitters. Mix well and bottle.
Bottled Whiskey Cocktail.
Prepare same as Brandy Bottled Cocktail, using whiskey in place of
brandy.
Bottled Martini Cocktail.
Take one-third quart Tom gin, one-third quart Italian vermouth,
one-third quart water. Add one jigger orange bitters. Mix well and
bottle.
Bottled Manhattan Cocktail.
One-third of a quart of whiskey, one-third Italian vermouth,
one-third water. Add one and a half pony Peyschaud or Angostura
bitters, one pony gum-syrup. Mix well and bottle.
Bottled Vermouth Cocktail.
Three-fourths vermouth, one-fourth water, one and a half pony
bitters. Mix and bottle. If desired sweet, add gum-syrup to taste.
Country Cocktail.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes of orange bitters,
two dashes Boker bitters, one piece lemon-peel, one jigger rye
whiskey—no sweetening. Mix and strain into a cocktail-glass.
Coffee Cocktail.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add two dashes Angostura
bitters, half a tablespoonful fine sugar, one fresh egg, half a
jigger port wine, half a jigger brandy. Shake well. Strain into a
large cocktail-glass. Add a piece of twisted lemon-peel.
Double-Barrel Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Angostura bitters, two
dashes orange bitters, one-third jigger French vermouth, one-third
jigger Italian vermouth, one-third jigger whiskey. Mix and strain
into cocktail-glass.
Dundorado Cocktail.
One-half jigger Tom gin, one-half jigger Italian vermouth, a
mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes calasaya. Mix and
strain into cocktail-glass.
Ford Cocktail.
Three dashes benedictine, three dashes orange bitters, half
a jigger Tom gin, half a jigger French vermouth. Mix in a
mixing-glass half-full fine ice. Strain into a cocktail-glass. Add
a piece twisted orange-peel.
George Cocktail.
A GOOD APPETIZER.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes pepsin bitters, one
jigger Tom gin. Mix and strain into cocktail-glass. Add a piece of
twisted lemon-peel.
Holland Gin Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Angostura bitters or
Peyschaud bitters, two dashes gum-syrup, one jigger Holland gin.
Mix; strain into a cocktail-glass. Add a piece of twisted
lemon-peel or a maraschino cherry.
Old-Fashioned Holland Gin Cocktail.
Crush a small lump of sugar in a whiskey-glass containing a little
water, add a lump of ice, two dashes of Angostura bitters, a small
piece of lemon peel, one jigger Holland gin. Mix with small
bar-spoon. Serve.
Holland House Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Peyschaud bitters,
one-half pony Eau de Vie d’Oranges, one and a half pony old
rye whiskey, a piece lemon-peel. Mix. Moisten the edge of
cocktail-glass with lemon, dip in sugar. Strain the cocktail into
the prepared glass.
Brandy Cocktail.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes gum-syrup, two dashes
Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, one jigger brandy. Mix and strain
into cocktail-glass. Add a piece twisted lemon-peel or a maraschino
cherry.
Fancy Brandy Cocktail.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add three dashes
maraschino, two dashes Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, one
jigger brandy, one dash orange bitters. Mix. Strain into fancy
cocktail-glass, the rim of which has been moistened with a piece of
lemon and dipped in powdered sugar, which gives it the appearance
of being frosted.
Old-Fashioned Brandy Cocktail.
Crush a small lump of sugar in a whiskey-glass with a very little
water, add one lump ice, two dashes bitters, a small piece-lemon
peel, one jigger brandy. Stir with small bar-spoon. Serve.
Brant Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Angostura bitters,
one-third of a jigger white creme de menthe, two-thirds of a jigger
brandy.. Mix well. Strain into cocktail-glass; twist a piece of
lemon-peel over the top.
Calasaya Cocktail.
Half a jigger calasaya, half a jigger whiskey, one small piece
lemon-peel, half a mixing-glass full fine ice. Mix well and strain
into a cocktail-glass.
Canadian Cocktail.
Prepare same as Whiskey Cocktail, using Canadian whiskey.
Champagne Cocktail.
Put into a long thin glass one lump cut-loaf sugar saturated with
Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, add one lump of ice, a small piece
of lemon-peel; fill the glass three-fourths full cold champagne.
Stir with spoon and serve.
Chocolate Cocktail.
Break a fresh egg into a mixing-glass, half full fine ice, add one
dash bitters, one jigger port wine, one teaspoonful fine sugar.
Shake well and strain into a cocktail-glass.
Cider Cocktail.
Saturate a lump of cut-loaf sugar with Angostura bitters. Place it,
with one lump of ice and a small piece of lemon peel, in a thin
cider-glass, then fill up with cold cider. Stir with spoon and serve.
Clam Cocktail.
Put into a large cocktail-glass a half-dozen little-neck clams with
all their liquor, season with pepper and salt to taste; add two
dashes lemon-juice, one dash Tobasco sauce, and a very little
cayenne pepper.
Clam Juice Cocktail.
Two jiggers clam juice in a thin bar-glass, season same as Clam
Cocktail.
Plymouth Gin Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes Peyschaud or
orange bitters, one jigger Plymouth gin. Mix well, strain into
cocktail-glass. Add a small piece lemon-peel or a maraschino cherry.
Schiedam Gin Cocktail.
Mix same as Holland Gin Cocktail, using Schiedam gin in place of
Holland.
Tom Gin Cocktail.
Prepare same as Plymouth Gin Cocktail, substituting Old Tom gin for
Plymouth.
Old-Fashioned Tom Gin Cocktail.
Mix same as Holland Gin Old-Fashioned Cocktail, using Old Tom gin
in place of Holland.
Grenadine Cocktail.
Use Grenadine in place of gum-syrup in any kind of cocktail.
Harvard Cocktail.
One dash gum-syrup, three dashes Angostura bitters, half-jigger
Italian vermouth, half-jigger brandy in half a mixing-glass of fine
ice. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass, fill up with seltzer.
Hiram Cocktail.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Peyschaud bitters,
one-half jigger Italian vermouth, one-half jigger Walker Canadian
whiskey. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass; add a maraschino cherry.
Inimitable Cocktail.
Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a
whiskey-glass, add one lump of ice, one dash lemon-juice, two
dashes Peyschaud bitters, one jigger Tom gin. Mix with small
bar-spoon. Serve.
Irish Cocktail Ho. 1.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes orange bitters, two
dashes acid phosphate, one-half jigger whiskey, one-half jigger
Italian vermouth. Mix well, strain into cocktail-glass.
Irish Cocktail No. 2.
Two dashes gum-syrup, three dashes Angostura bitters in a
mixing-glass with fine ice, one jigger Irish whiskey. Mix, strain,
and add a piece twisted lemon-peel.
Jamaica Rum Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes gum-syrup, two dashes
orange bitters, two dashes Angostura bitters, one jigger Jamaica
rum. Mix and strain into cocktail-glass. Add a small piece twisted
lemon-peel.
Jersey Cocktail.
One-half tablespoonful fine sugar in a thin cider-glass, add one
lump of ice, two dashes Angostura bitters, one piece lemon-peel,
fill up with cider. Stir well. Drink while effervescent.
Liberal Cocktail.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add one dash syrup, half a
jigger Amer Picon bitters, half a jigger whiskey. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass. A small piece of lemon peel on top. Serve.
Long-Range Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes gum-syrup, two dashes
Peyschaud bitters, one pony Italian vermouth, half a pony absinthe,
half a pony brandy. Mix and strain into cocktail-glass. Twist a
piece lemon-peel over top.
Manhattan Cocktail.
Fill mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add two dashes gum-syrup,
dashes Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, one half-jigger Italian
two vermouth, one-half jigger whiskey. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass. Add a piece of lemon-peel or a cherry.
Manhattan Cocktail, Dry.
Prepare same as Manhattan Cocktail, leaving out syrup and cherry.
Manhattan Cocktail, Extra Dry.
Mix same as Manhattan cocktail. Leave out syrup and cherry, and use
French vermouth in place of Italian.
Martini Cocktail.
Half a mixing-glass full fine ice, three dashes orange bitters,
one-half jigger Tom gin, one-half jigger Italian vermouth, a piece
lemon-peel. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass. Add a maraschino
cherry, if desired by customer.
Medford Rum Cocktail.
Prepare same as Brandy Cocktail, using Medford rum in place of
brandy.
Metropole Cocktail.
Two dashes gum-syrup, two dashes Peyschaud bitters, one dash orange
bitters, half a jigger brandy, half a jigger French vermouth, a
mixing-glass half-full fine ice. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass,
add a maraschino cherry.
Metropolitan Cocktail.
Two lumps of ice in a small wine-glass, add three dashes gum-syrup,
two dashes Angostura bitters, one pony brandy, one pony French
vermouth. Mix, take out the ice, add a small piece twisted
lemon-peel.
Mountain Cocktail.
A cocktail-glass half-full hard cider, one fresh egg; season with
pepper and salt. Serve.
Oyster Cocktail.
A few dashes lemon-juice in a tumbler, add a dash of Tobasco sauce,
a teaspoonful of vinegar, a few dashes tomato catchup, six Blue
Point oysters, with all their liquor; season to taste with pepper
and salt. Mix and serve with spoon in the glass.
Pepsin Cocktail.
Fill mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes gum-syrup, five
dashes pepsin bitters, one jigger whiskey. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass, add piece twisted lemon-peel.
Princeton Cocktail.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes orange bitters, one
and a half pony Tom gin. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass; add half
a pony port wine carefully and let it settle in bottom of cocktail
before serving.
Racquet Club Cocktail.
Three dashes orange bitters, half a jigger Tom gin, half a jigger
French vermouth, in a mixing-glass half-full fine ice. Mix, strain
into cocktail-glass, add piece twisted lemon-peel.
Riding Club Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, one dash Angostura bitters, a
small bar-spoonful Horsford acid phosphate, one jigger calasaya.
Mix and strain into cocktail-glass.
Robinson Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes Peyschaud bitters,
one piece lemon-peel, one jigger Bourbon whiskey; shake until very
cold. Strain into cocktail-glass. Never use sweetening in this drink.
Saratoga Cocktail.
Prepare in the same manner as a Fancy Brandy cocktail. Before
serving add a squirt of champagne.
Smith Cocktail.
Fill mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add three dashes Angostura
bitters, one-half jigger Holland gin, one-half jigger French
vermouth; shake until cold. Strain into cocktail-glass; twist a
small piece lemon-peel on top.
Soda Cocktail.
One teaspoonful fine sugar in a large bar-glass, one lump of ice,
three dashes Angostura bitters, one piece lemon-peel; add one
bottle of plain or lemon soda. Mix and drink during effervescence.
Star Cocktail.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add two dashes gum-syrup,
three dashes Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, one-half jigger apple
brandy, one-half jigger Italian vermouth. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass, twist small piece lemon-peel on top.
Turf Cocktail.
One dash Angostura bitters, three dashes orange bitters, one jigger
Tom gin in a mixing-glass half-full fine ice. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass; add a piece twisted lemon-peel.
Union Cocktail.
One lump ice in a whiskey-glass; add one dash Peyschaud bitters,
two dashes orange bitters, one small piece lemon-peel, one jigger
Tom gin. Mix with small bar-spoon. Serve.
Vermouth Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes Angostura or Peyschaud
bitters, one jigger Italian vermouth. Mix well, strain into
cocktail-glass; add a piece lemon-peel or cherry.
Vermouth Cocktail, Dry.
Prepare same as Vermouth Cocktail, using French vermouth in place
of Italian; twist a piece lemon-peel over top. Leave out the cherry.
Fancy Vermouth Cocktail.
Mix same as Fancy Brandy Cocktail, substituting vermouth for brandy.
French. Vermouth Cocktail.
Three dashes orange bitters in mixing-glass half full fine ice; add
one jigger French vermouth. Mix well, strain into cocktail-glass;
add a piece twisted lemon-peel on top.
Whiskey Cocktail.
Mixing-glass half-full fine ice, two dashes gum-syrup, two dashes
Angostura or Peyschaud bitters, one jigger whiskey. Mix, strain
into cocktail-glass; add a small piece of twisted lemon-peel or a
cherry.
Fancy Whiskey Cocktail.
Prepare in the same manner as Fancy Brandy Cocktail, substituting
whiskey for brandy.
Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail.
Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a
whiskey-glass; add two dashes Angostura bitters, a small piece ice,
a piece lemon-peel, one jigger whiskey. Mix with small bar-spoon
and serve, leaving spoon in the glass.
Wilson Cocktail.
Mix same as Whiskey Cocktail, using Wilson whiskey.
Yale Cocktail.
Fill a mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes orange
bitters, one dash Peyschaud bitters, a piece lemon-peel, one jigger
Tom gin. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass; add a squirt of siphon
seltzer.
York Cocktail.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, three dashes orange bitters,
one-half jigger whiskey, one-half jigger vermouth. Mix, strain into
cocktail-glass, squeeze piece of lemon-peel over the top. Serve.
Brandy Collins.
Cut a lemon in half, place it in a mixing-glass, add one
tablespoonful fine sugar, crush with muddler so as to extract both
the juice of the lemon and part of the oil of the rind, fill the
glass half full of fine ice, add one jigger brandy. Mix well,
strain into a Collins-glass containing a piece of ice, pour in a
bottle of plain soda. Stir with a long bar-spoon and serve.
John Collins.
Prepare same as Brandy Collins, substituting Holland gin for brandy.
Tom Collins.
Is prepared in the same manner as John Collins, using Tom gin in
place of Holland gin.
Catawba Cooler.
Pare a lemon so as to leave the rind in one spiral-shaped piece.
Place a piece of ice inside the rind, put both into a long
Collins-glass, add one and a half jigger Catawba wine and a cold
bottle of plain soda. Stir and serve.
Brunswick Cooler.
The juice of one lemon, the rind of a lemon, same as for Catawba
Cooler, half a tablespoonful fine sugar in a long glass. Mix, add a
bottle of imported ginger ale. Stir and serve.
Claret Cooler.
Prepare same as Catawba Cooler, using claret in place of catawba.
Ginger Ale Cooler.
Is prepared in the same manner as Brunswick Cooler, but you can use
domestic ginger ale if you wish.
Lincoln Club Cooler.
Take a long thin Collins-glass, put into it one lump of ice, one
pony St. Croix rum, fill up with a cold bottle imported ginger ale.
Serve.
Ramsay Cooler.
Prepare in the same manner as Catawba Cooler, using one jigger of
Scotch whiskey in place of Catawba wine.
Remmsen Cooler.
Mix and serve same as Ramsay Cooler, substituting Old Tom gin for
Scotch whiskey.
Renwick Cooler.
The peel of a lemon, same as for Ramsay Cooler, one piece of ice,
put into a Collins-glass; add one jigger whiskey and one bottle of
imported ginger ale. Stir and serve.
Rocky Mountain Cooler.
Beat up one egg with one tablespoonful fine sugar and the juice of
half a lemon, fill up with cider; stir well. Serve in a long thin
glass. Grate nutmeg on top.
Southern Cooler.
The rind of a whole lemon, a piece of ice in a Collins-glass; add
half a jigger Jamaica rum, half a jigger Bourbon whiskey, one
teaspoonful fine sugar, one bottle cold plain soda. Stir with long
bar-spoon. Drink during effervescence.
Brandy Crusta.
Fill a mixing-glass half full of fine ice; add three dashes of
gum-syrup, two dashes maraschino, the juice of a quarter of a
lemon, two dashes Peyschaud or Angostura bitters, and one jigger
brandy; mix. Take a lemon the size of a fancy sauterne or claret
glass; peel the rind from three-fourths of it all in one piece; fit
it into the glass; moisten the edge of the glass with a piece of
lemon, and dip it into fine sugar, which gives it a frosted
appearance. Strain your mixture into this glass, trim with fruit,
and serve.
Gin Crusta.
Prepare same as Brandy Crusta, substituting gin for brandy.
St. Croix Crusta.
Mix and serve same as Brandy Crusta, using St. Croix rum in place
of brandy.
Whiskey Crusta.
Is prepared in the same manner as Brandy Crusta, substituting the
desired kind of whiskey for brandy.
Cooper.
London porter and Dublin stout mixed, half of each.
Ale Cup.
In a glass pitcher put the juice of half a lemon, one jigger of
brandy, one heaping tablespoonful of fine sugar, one quart old ale;
mix. When serving, grate a little nutmeg on top of each glass.
Badminton Cup.
Put a few lumps of ice into a glass pitcher, add two jiggers of
sherry wine, one jigger maraschino, one tablespoonful fine sugar,
one bottle claret, one slice of cucumber-rind, a few sprigs of
borage, and a cold bottle of plain soda. Mix well and serve.
Balaklava Cup.
Cut the peel from a lemon in one long piece, put it with a few
lumps of ice in a glass pitcher, add one tablespoonful fine sugar,
the juice of the lemon, a slice of cucumber-rind, one pint claret;
mix well, add a pint of cold champagne, and serve.
Cupid.
A mixing-glass half-full fine ice, one jigger sherry, one fresh
egg, a little cayenne pepper. Shake well, strain, and serve.
Burgundy Cup (Red).
Mix one tablespoonful fine sugar with a little water in a glass
pitcher, add the juice of half a lemon, one pony brandy, one pony
orange curaçoa, a few lumps of ice, two slices lemon, two slices
orange, one slice cucumber-peel, one pint red Burgundy, one bottle
of cold plain soda; mix. Place a few sprigs of mint on top.
Burgundy Cup (White).
Mix in the same manner as Red Burgundy, substituting white Burgundy
for red, and white curaçoa for orange.
Champagne Cup No. 1.
Put into a glass pitcher two or three lumps of clear ice, the juice
of half a lemon, one-half tablespoonful fine sugar, one pony
maraschino, one pony white curaçoa, one pony pale brandy, a few
slices of orange, two slices of
|
thee
go to sea; but stay at home and die on dry land. Why see how happy I am!
and I'll be hong'd if measter within would'nt take thee with all love,
to tend customers and draw the beer: ay, and 'twould be worth his while
too, for thy song would bring custom, let me tell thee. As to being a
play-actor, confound it, I hate the very word; you need not think
anything about your size. Thou'rt very tall and hast a better face to
look at than any on 'un I see; and though thou be'est knock-kneed a bit,
its the way with all growing boys. Lord love thee, Jack, if wert to see
some of them fellows, for all they look so on the stage with paint and
tinsel and silk, when they stop to take a pint of beer, I think they be
the ugliest, conceitedest, foolishest talken fellows I ever ze'ed. Why
there's one feller was here for three days all time quite drunk--went
yesterday to Bath to get place there among them. He's a player, and as
ugly as an old mangy carthorse. But he's an Irishman to be sure, and
they say he won't do at Bath because he wants an eye."
"You have players here at times then," said H. interrogatively.
"Yes! sometimes they comes for their baggage, that is, their trunks and
boxes and women and children. Sometimes the poor souls on 'un come in
the wagon themselves. Sometimes when it's a holliday we 'un, they walk
out to Stapleton and other parts to kill time, being very idle people;
then they stop to take beer here, and they talk such nonsense that I
can't abide the tuoads. Lauk! thee why Jack, thee know'st I would not
flatter thee now--thee art a king to some on 'un that talks ten times as
big as king George could for the life o' him."
This intelligence given by the honest simpleton, in all likelihood for
the purpose of disgusting our adventurer with the stage, communicated
to him the first proud presentiment he felt of what afterwards occurred.
The thought instantly struck him, "If performers, so very despicable as
this man describes, are endured upon a public stage, thought he, why may
not I?--cannot I be as useful as them? besides I can--but these men
sing, I suppose--do not they sing John, much better than me?" "Noa, I
tell thee they doan't: sing better than thee! they can't sing at all. A
tinker's jackass is as good at it as any of them I see here. When they
are on the stage (I went three or four times with our Sall to the play)
od rot 'un--they make a noise by way of a song, and the musicianers sing
for them on their fiddles." The man to whom honest John alluded, arrived
from Bath that very day, execrating the injustice of the Bath and
Bristol managers, who though they could not but be convinced of his
talents, refused to give him even a trial. Our adventurer surveyed him
from head to foot, and from the information of the man's face, voice,
deportment, language, and person, concluded with himself that he had
little to fear; "If, said he, this man has ever been received as an
actor by any audience in this world, I'll offer myself to the first
company I meet." He was precisely such as the ostler had described
him--he wanted an eye, and was frightfully seamed by the small-pox,
which not only had deprived him of that organ, but given him a snuffling
stoppage of the nose. Such as this, was the whole man in every point,
who actually boasted that he was allowed by all judges to play Jaffier
better than any man that ever lived, but Barry, and who, disgusted with
the British managers for their want of taste, took shipping that very
evening for Cork.[A]
Without imparting a hint of his intention to the ostler who vowed, "as
he hoped to be saved" that he would never betray him (a vow which he
religiously fulfilled) Hodgkinson resolved to introduce himself in some
shape or other, to the company of the theatre as soon as they should
return from Bath to Bristol; an event which was to take place according
to the course of their custom, in two days. Meantime he walked
frequently to the theatre, in order to indulge himself with looking at
the outside of it; and he made the fine square before it, his promenade,
where he gave a loose to his imagination, and anticipating his future
success, built castles in the air from morning till night.
He was at this work when the players returned from Bath. He saw the
gates laid open, and having taken his post at the passage to the
stage-door, resolved first to reconnoitre those who entered, and collect
from circumstances as they might occur, some clue to guide him in his
projected enterprise. As this was one of the eras in his life on which
he loved to ruminate and converse, he was more than commonly
circumstantial in his account of it. "There is a long passage," said he,
"that goes up to the stage-door at Bristol. For the first two days I
stood at the outside, but becoming more impatient, and impatience making
me bold, I took my station in the passage, with my hat under my left arm
stood up with my back to the wall, and as the actors and people of the
theatre passed by to rehearsal, I made a bow of my head to those whose
countenances and manners seemed most promising. For several days not one
of them took the least notice of me. There was one of them who looked so
unpromising that I should hardly have given him the honour of my bow, if
it were not for his superior age and venerable aspect; and I believe
when I did give it to him, it was but a mutilated affair. There was a
starched pompous man, too, whose aspect was, to my mind, so forbidding
and repulsive that I never _condescended_ to take much notice of him.
From a loquacious, good-natured and communicative old Irish woman who
sold fruit at the door I gained the intelligence that the former of
these was Mr. Keasberry the manager--the other Mr. Dimond. That Mr. D.
said I to her, seems to be a proud man. "Och, God help your poor head!"
said my informant; "it's little you know about them; by Christ, my dear,
there's more pride in one of these make-games that live by the shilling
of you and me, and the likes of us, than in all the lords in the
parliament house of Dublin, aye and the lord-lieutenant along with them,
though he is an Englishman, and of course you know as proud as the devil
can make him:--not but the old fellow is good enough, and can be very
agreeable to poor people," My first act of extravagance in Bristol was
giving this poor woman three half-pence for an orange, and making her
eat a piece of it; a favour which many years after she had not
forgotten."
"I believe it was on the fourth day of my standing sentinel," continued
H. "that the old gentleman passing by me, I made him a bow of more than
ordinary reverence. The Irishwoman's character of him had great weight
with me, and my opinions and feelings were transferred to my salute. He
walked on a few steps, halted, looked back, muttered something to
himself and went on. I thought he was going to speak, and was so dashed,
I wished myself away; yet when he did not speak, I was more than ever
unhappy. He returned again with two or three people about him in
conversation; his eye glanced upon me, but he went on without speaking
to me, and I left the place--for, said I to myself, if this man does not
notice me, none of them will. Discouraged and chop fallen I returned to
Broad-mead, and on my way began, for the first time, to reflect with
uneasiness upon my situation.
"Next day, however, I returned to the charge, and assumed my wonted post
in the way to the stage-door of the theatre. Instinctively I took my
stand further up the passage, and just at the spot where the old
gentleman had the day before stopped and turned to look at me--after
some minutes I saw him coming--I was ashamed to look towards him as he
advanced, but I scanned his looks through the corner of my eye--my mind
misgiving me at the moment, that I had a mean and guilty look, so that
when he came up, I made my reverence with a very grave, I believe
indeed, a very sad face. The old gentleman stopped, and my heart beat so
with shame and trepidation that I thought I should have sunk. He saw my
confusion, yet addressed me in a manner which, though not unkind nor
positively harsh, was rather abrupt. "I have observed you, boy, for
several days," said he, "standing in this passage, and bow to me as I go
by; do you wish to say anything to me? or do you want anything?" I
hesitated, and was more confused than I remember to have ever been
before or since:--"Speak out, my boy, said he, do not be afraid!" These
words which he uttered in a softened, kinder tone, he accompanied with
an action which gave the most horrible alarm to my pride, and suggested
to my imagination a new and frightful idea. He passed his hand into his
pocket as if feeling for cash. Great God! said I to myself, have I
incurred the suspicion of beggary! the thought roused all of the man
that was within me, and I replied, "No, sir, I am not afraid; nor do I
_want_ anything." He afterwards owned that the words, and still more the
delivery of them, made a strong impression upon him. Well then, my good
boy, what is it you wish for? coming here successively for so many days,
and addressing yourself to me by a salute, you must surely either want
or wish for something. "Sir," replied I, "I wish to go upon the stage."
"Upon the stage," said he emphatically, "how do you mean? oh to look at
the scenery I suppose"--"No, sir--I wish to be an actor.""
Thus far the words of Hodgkinson himself are given. The name of the old
gentleman had entirely escaped the writer of this, who, when he heard
the relation from Hodgkinson, little thought that it would ever devolve
upon him to pay this posthumous tribute to his memory. Upon the facts
being since related, and the description of the person being given to
some gentlemen long and well acquainted with the affairs of the Bath and
Bristol theatres, they have cleared up the point to the writer, whose
recollection, though faint, perfectly coincides with their assurance
that it must have been Mr. Keasberry, who was at that time manager, and
with whose character this account is said to agree accurately.
"I wish to be an actor," said our adventurer. The confidence and
firmness with which the boy spoke, surprised and greatly diverted the
old manager, who after eyeing him attentively a minute or two,
exclaimed, "You an actor, you young rascal!" then laughed heartily, and
continued, "An actor indeed! and what the devil part would you think of
acting?" By this time some of those who attended the theatre,
doorkeepers or supernumeraries, came up, and Mr. K. said to them,
laughing, "Here's a gentleman proposes to be an actor." And again
addressing the boy he said to him with an affected solemnity, "Pray,
sir, what character have you yet thought of enacting?" The jibing manner
in which this was spoken by the manager, and the sneering, scornful
looks of the sycophants about him, who, to curry favour with him,
chuckled at his cleverness, had nearly disconcerted the poor boy;
however, he was naturally resolute, and replied, "If I can do nothing
else I can snuff candles, or deliver a message, or do anything that
young lads do." "You can indeed?" "Yes, sir, and I can do more, I can
play the fiddle and sing a good song." "A good song! I dare say--but
d----d badly I'll answer for it." "Won't you give me a fair trial, sir?"
"Fair trial indeed!" repeated the old man laughing, and walking on a
step--"fair trial! a pretty trial truly--however," said he, turning
round and beckoning to the boy, as he got to the stage-door, "Come this
way, and let's hear what further you have to say for yourself!"
Hodgkinson followed the manager, and for the first time in his life set
his foot on the stage of a public theatre. The actors were rehearsing;
and ensconced behind one of the side scenes he looked on, and "_with the
very comment of my soul I did observe them_," said he, "and not to
conceal anything from you, I thought I could have done a great part of
it much better myself! oh that I were but a little bigger and had a
beard! said I to myself twenty times while the actors were going through
the business." Had they thought of infant Rosciuses at the time, his
bread had been buttered on both sides, as the saying is. The rehearsal
being over, Mr. K. advanced to him and said, "You wish to be an actor,
eh!"--then turning to one of the actors, "Here is a person," continued
he, "who desires to go upon the stage, and is content by the way of a
beginning, to snuff the candles--humble enough you'll say. But he says
he can sing;" then ironically to H. "Now, pray sir, do us the favour to
say what song you _can_ sing--you perceive the gentlemen of the band are
in the orchestra--or perhaps you would rather accompany yourself, as you
say you play the fiddle." Then without giving him time to answer he said
to one of the band, "hand this gentleman a fiddle, as he calls it."
Hodgkinson took the fiddle, and pitching upon the beautiful _Finale_ at
the end of the first act of the farce of the Padlock, he played and sung
it not only to the astonishment of them all, but so much to their
satisfaction and delight, that Mr. K. after asking him whether he
thought he could sing accompanied by the band, and being answered in the
affirmative, spoke to the orchestra to go over the Finale with him, and
desired H. to sing it again. Emboldened by this mark of approbation,
John asked permission to sing another song: Mr. K. assented: the boy
then stepped forward to the orchestra and asked the leader whether it
would suit him to play one of the songs of Lionel? Certainly, he
replied, which of them? "Oh dry those Tears," said our juvenile hero: a
murmur escaped them all, as if they thought his vanity was carrying him
too far. "Try him, by all means try him," said Mr. K.--The boy
sung--their surprise was now raised to astonishment--and Mr. K. patting
him on the head, emphatically said to him, "My boy, you'll never be a
candle snuffer. For the present, however, you may carry a letter--or
something more perhaps." He then interrogated him--"have you ever been
about a theatre:--perhaps your parents are?"--"No sir, I never had the
sole of my foot on a stage till now." "Where then did you first learn
to sing?" "In our church sir." "Your church! where is your church?" Here
finding that he had got into a dilemma, he hesitated and blushed: "a
number of other boys and I practised music together, sir." "But
where?"--then perceiving the boy's distress, Mr. K. shifted the question
and said, "So much for your singing, but where, in God's name, did you
learn to accompany your singing with such action; which I declare, said
he, turning to the people on the stage, wants little to be what I should
call perfect for a singer?" "We boys, sir, acted plays together." "And
you played--" "Several parts, sir." "You surprise me, boy!" "Well," said
he, "call upon this gentleman tomorrow morning betimes, and he will
converse with you." He then turned to the person who was acting as
prompter, and whispered him, when Hodgkinson, after getting the
gentleman's direction, made his bow. As he was going down the passage a
lad followed him and told him the manager had sent to let him know that
if he pleased he might come on the stage that evening during the
performance.
Never before had our adventurer experienced such transporting
sensations. To use his own words, his head whirled and sung again with
delight. Instead of going straight back to Broad-mead, he walked about
the square plunged in a delicious reverie--perfectly insensible of
hunger or fatigue he continued on the stride, up the river side and
down, then about the square again--then here, then there, in short he
knew not whither nor why, wholly forgetful of home, dinner, and every
thing till some time after the playhouse opened, when going to the
stage-door he was admitted, and when he got behind the scenes, was
kindly accosted by some, questioned very impertinently, and curiously by
others, and stared at by all. The after-piece for the night was "the
Contrivances," which he had never seen or heard of before. He was vastly
taken with the song of "Make haste and away my only dear;" and as he
passed down from the stage, hummed it to himself; on which one of the
gentlemen of the band who was near him accosted him, "Hah, master
Henry, is it you?--you have practised every piece on the stage, one
would think--and the Contrivances has not escaped you." "My name is not
Henry, sir--my name is John." "Well, Master John then, I beg your
pardon, but you have been at Rover I see." "No, sir, I never saw or
heard of the Contrivances till this night's performance." "You can't say
so," said the other, "you have learned that song before, assuredly!"
"Upon my word it is a truth, sir; I never heard it before tonight." "Do
me the favour to hum it over again for me," said the musician.
Hodgkinson complied. "Why you have the words of the song as well as the
air." "Of one verse only, sir: but the next time, I shall catch the
whole of it." The musician expressed his astonishment, and asked the boy
where he lodged; to which John replied, "Off this way, sir," and ran
away as fast as he could to Broad-mead, where he was resolved it should
not be known, for sometime, at least, that he had any connexion with the
theatre.
When he reached his hospitable landlord and family, he found that they
had all been in great consternation at his absence. He had that morning
spoken to his friend John the ostler, about selling his silver buckles,
in order to pay his bill, and the generous souls were all afraid that he
was in distress. "Hast thee eat nothing since breakfast," said the good
man; "Lauk! why thee must be famished--what bewitched thee to stay away
from thy meals, child," cried the wife, "tis very bad for a young thing
like thee to fast," said another: and numberless other kind and tender
expostulations were uttered by the good people one and all, while ostler
John who was more frightened about him than any of them, and could not
get the naughty players out of his head, coming in said with
affectionate surliness, "Soh! thee'st come back, be thee?--Ecod thee
deservst to ha thee jacket trimmed, so thee dost--a young tuoad like
thee to stay out, God knows where, to this time o' night?" "Dont be
angry John," replied our adventurer, "dont be angry--and as to trimming,
John, it is not in thy jacket, to trim my jacket John--so go to your
hayloft and dont make a fool of thyself!" In saying this he mimicked
John's clownish lingo so nearly that the family burst out laughing, and
John went off, growling out that he believed the devil or his imps the
player fellers had got possession of the boy.
"John is thy friend," said the landlord, "he was quite down o' the mouth
about thee." "And I love and thank John," said Hodgkinson, "but I could
not help making fun of him for his talking of beating me. I accidentally
met with a friend who offered to bring me to the play, and I was so glad
I never thought of dinner." "Well come now," then said the good man,
"pay away upon that beef--lay in dinner and supper at once, my boy, and
thee shall have a cann of as good _yeal_ as any in Somersetshire, and
moreover than all that it shall cost thee nothing but the trouble of
drinking it--so here's to thee, my boy." The worthy man drank, and his
wife drank, and son and daughter, and all drank, and H. told them all
about the play, and sung, "Make haste and away my only dear," for them,
to their great delight. He was then too innocent and too young to direct
it to the young lady of the house, or it is more than probable that she
would have been more delighted with it, than any of them.
The next morning early he waited on Mr. ----,[B] the prompter, who told
him that Mr. K---- desired that he would keep about the theatre, and
make himself as useful as he could in anything that might occur, till
something could be done for him. He accordingly attended it diligently,
examining and watching every thing done and every body that did it, and
storing his young mind with useful knowledge of the profession. What his
pittance was, he never told this writer, who therefore concludes it must
have been very small, particularly as he sold his buckles, and plumed
himself upon not parting with the silver seal given him by his old
friend at Manchester.
(_To be continued._)
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Upon comparing notes with Hodgkinson, and considering his
description, I was convinced that this was no exaggerated picture.
Precisely such a man I remember to have seen, but not playing. He was in
a strolling company in Ireland, and was admired for his miraculous power
of making people merry with tragedy. He was a well-meaning, honest,
simple poor man, but even his performance of Jaffier was hardly as
comical as the compliments he himself lavished upon it.
_Biographer._
[B] The name is entirely forgotten by the biographer.
BARRY, THE PLAYER.
The following description of the person and acting of the
celebrated BARRY the player is introduced here, to accompany
the life of Hodgkinson, because a clear recollection of the
former in a multitude of characters, a long and scrutinous
investigation of the professional powers of the latter, and
an intimate knowledge of both of them, has long established
in our minds the unalterable opinion that of all the
performers who make up the feeble crowd that have followed
the men of Garrick's day in sad procession, not one so
nearly trod in the footsteps of Barry (_sed heu longo
intervallo_) as Hodgkinson. Whatever may have been said of
his comedy, we never could contemplate it with half the
satisfaction we received from some of his tragic
performances. His Osmond, his De Moor, and his Romeo were
infinitely superior to his Belcour, Ranger, and Ollapod. And
his Jaffier unquestionably stood next to Barry's. We know
nothing of Mr. Young, therefore do not mean to include him
in this position, though seeing and hearing what we every
day see and hear, of the present facility of pleasing in
England, we receive the encomiums of the other side of the
Atlantic on their passing favourites _cum grano salis_. In a
word, we are persuaded that Hodgkinson came nearer to Barry
in Barry's line, than any actor now living does to Garrick,
Barry, or Mossop in theirs. In Faulconbridge, and in it
alone he was perhaps equal to Barry.
Spranger Barry was in his person above five feet eleven inches high,
finely formed, and possessing a countenance in which manliness and
sweetness of feature were so happily blended, as formed one of the best
imitations of the Apollo Belvidere. With this fine commanding figure, he
was so much in the free and easy management of his limbs, as never to
look encumbered, or present an ungraceful attitude, in all his various
movements on the stage. Even his _exits_ and _entrances_ had peculiar
graces, from their characteristic ease and simplicity. What must have
greatly assisted Barry in the grace and ease of treading the stage, was
his skill in dancing and fencing; the first of which he was early in
life very fond of; and, on his coming to England, again instructed in,
under the care of the celebrated Denoyer, dancing-master to Frederick
Prince of Wales's family. This was done at the prince's request after he
had seen him play in lord Townley, in the Provoked Husband. In short
when he appeared in the scene, grouped with other actors of ordinary
size, he appeared as much above them in his various qualifications as in
the proud superiority of his figure.
"So, when a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
All eyes are idly bent on him who follows next."
To this figure he added a voice so peculiarly musical as very early in
life obtained him the character of "the silver-toned Barry," which, in
all his love scenes, lighted up by the smiles of such a countenance, was
persuasion itself. Indeed, so strongly did he communicate his feelings
on these occasions, that whoever observed the expressive countenances of
most of the female part of his audience, each seemed to say, in the
language of Desdemona,
"Would that Heaven had made me such a man."
Yet, with all this softness, it was capable of the fullest extent of
rage, which he often most powerfully exemplified, in several passages of
Alexander, Orestes, Othello, &c.
We are aware of Churchill's criticism in the Rosciad standing against
us, where he says, "his voice comes forth like Echo from her cell." But
however party might have cried up this writer as a poet and a satirist
of the first order, Goldsmith had the sense and manliness to tell them
what they called satires were but tawdry lampoons, whose turbulence aped
the quality of force, whose frenzy that or fire. Beside, Churchill had a
stronger motive than prejudice or whim: the great hero of his poem was
Garrick; and as Barry was his most formidable rival, he had little
scruple to sacrifice him on this occasion.
But to leave the criticisms of this literary drawcansir to that oblivion
to which they seem to be rapidly hastening, let us examine the merits
of Barry in some of those characters in which he was universally allowed
to excel; and on this scale we must give the preference to Othello. This
was the first character he ever appeared in, the first his inclination
prompted him to attempt--and the first without question, that exhibited
his genius in the full force and variety of its powers.
In the outset of Othello, when he speaks but a few short sentences,
there appears a calmness and dignity in his nature, as evidently show
"the noble qualities of the Moor." These sentences we have often heard
spoken (and by actors too who have had considerable reputation) as if
they had been almost totally overlooked; reserving themselves for the
more shining passages with which this tragedy so much abounds: but Barry
knew the value of these introductory traits of character, and in his
first speech, "_'Tis better as it is_," bespoke such a preeminence of
judgment, such a dignified and manly forbearance of temper, as roused
the attention of his audience, and led them to expect the fullest
gratification of their wishes.
His speech to the senate was a piece of oratory worthy the attention of
the critic and the senator. In the recital of his "feats of broils and
battles," the courage of the soldier was seen in all the charms of
gallantry and heroism; but when he came to those tender ejaculations of
Desdemona,
"In faith 'twas strange--'twas passing strange!
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wond'rous pitiful!"
his voice was so melodiously harmonized to the expression, that the sigh
of pity communicated itself to the whole house, and all were advocates
for the sufferings of the fair heroine.
In the second act, when he meets Desdemona at Cyprus, after being
separated in a storm, his rushing into her arms, and repeating that fine
speech,
----"Oh! my soul's joy!
If after every tempest come such calms," &c.
was the voice of love itself; describing that passion in so ecstatic a
manner as seemingly to justify his fears
"That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate."
Through the whole of the third act, where Iago is working him to
jealousy, his breaks of _love_ and _rage_ were masterpieces of nature,
and communicated its first sympathies; but in his conference with
Desdemona, in the fourth act, where he describes the agonizing state of
his mind, and then, looking tenderly on her, exclaims,
"But there, where I had garnered up my heart,
Where either I must live or bear no life,"
the extremes of love and misery were so powerfully painted in his face,
and so impressively given in his tones, that the audience seemed to lose
the _energies of their hands_, and could only thank him _with their
tears_.
We have to lament, that in many of the last acts of some of our best
dramatic writers, there wants that degree of finish and grouping equal
to the rest. Shakspeare sometimes has this want in common with others;
but in this play he has lost none of his force and propriety of
character--here all continue to speak the language of their
conformation, and lose none of their original importance. Barry was an
actor that, in this particular, kept pace with the great poet he
represented--he supported Othello throughout with unabating
splendor--his ravings over the dead body of the _innocent_ Desdemona,
his reconciliation with Cassio, and his dying soliloquy, were all in the
full play of varied excellence, and forced from the severest critic the
most unqualified applause.
That this our opinion is not exaggerated, we refer to that of Colley
Cibber, an unquestionable good judge of his art, and who, with all his
partialities to Betterton, yet gave Barry the preference in Othello. In
short, it was from first to last a gem of the noblest kind, which can be
no otherwise defined than leaving every one at liberty to attach as
much excellence to it as he can conceive, and then suppose Barry to have
reached that point of perfection.
His other favourite characters were, Jaffier, Orestes, Castalio,
Phocias, Varanes, Essex, Alexander, Romeo, &c. In all characters of this
stamp, where the lover or hero was to be exhibited, Barry was _unique_;
insomuch, that when Mrs. Cibber (whose reputation for love and plaintive
tenderness was well known) played with Garrick, she generally
represented his _daughter_ or _sister_--with Barry she was always his
_mistress_.
He likewise excelled in many parts of genteel comedy; such as lord
Townly, Young Belville, &c. &c. The Bastard in King John, was another
fine character of his, which Garrick attempted in vain--having neither
sufficiency of figure, or heroic jocularity. To that may be added Sir
Callaghan O'Brallaghan, in Macklin's farce of Love-a-la-Mode; a part in
which he gave such specimens of the gallant simplicity and integrity of
the _Irish gentleman_, as were sufficient to establish an independent
reputation.
Though his Hamlet, Richard, Lear, Macbeth, &c. were _star height_ above
what we see now, he lost by a comparison with Garrick. Here the latter
showed the _master_ in an uncommon degree; as he did in all the quick
animated parts of tragedy. In the spritely, light kind of gentlemen,
Garrick had likewise the advantage; and in the whole range of low comedy
he blended such a knowledge of his art with the simplicity of nature as
made all the minutiæ of the picture complete. Thus his _Abel Drugger_
was as perfect in design and colouring as the miseries and distresses of
_Royal Lear_.
In talking of these actors, it is impossible for the _amateurs_ of the
stage not to regret their loss with some degree of sensibility--not only
as men who contributed to the entertainment and refinement of their
youth, but whose death seem to threaten a decay of the profession
itself. There are periods when the arts and sciences seem to mourn in
sullen silence the departure of those original geniuses, who, for
years, improved, exalted and refined them; and, like widows, whose
hearts were sincerely pledged to their first lords, will not sacrifice
on the altar of affectation to _secondary wooers_. Painting and statuary
suffered such a loss in the deaths of Titian, Raphael, and Michael
Angelo, that more than two centuries have not been able to supply it;
and how long the _present stage_ may want the aid of such powerful
supporters as _Garrick_ and _Barry_, the experience of near thirty years
holds out but very little hopes of encouragement.
To this admirable description as true as it is eloquent, we subjoin the
following extracts from the old Dramatic Censor of England.
* * * * *
Speaking of Castalio in _The Orphan_, he says, "His circumstances give
great scope for the exertion of various capital powers, which were
amazingly well supplied in the elegant figure, bewitching voice, and
excellent acting of Mr. Barry; who, in this part, defied the severest
criticism, and justly claimed what he always obtained, the warmest
applause that enchanted feelings could bestow."
_Antony in Julius Cæsar._
Mr. Barry beyond doubt stands foremost in our approbation for this part,
as possessing an adequate figure, an harmonious voice, and all the
plausibility of insinuation that Shakspeare meant; however, we think
that critic an enthusiastic admirer, who, speaking of him in the
Rostrum, exclaimed that Paul never preached so well at Athens.[C] It is
certain, nature in this, as well as in all his dramatic undertakings,
furnished him with irresistible recommendations.
_Varanes in Theodosius, or the Force of Love._
Varanes, who was most the object of our author's attention, is an odd
medley of love and pride; now he will, then will not; tender, impatient;
in short a romantic madman; yet notwithstanding inconsistencies of a
glaring nature, he is a dramatic personage highly interesting. Mr. Barry
must, in imagination, to those who are at all acquainted with his
performance, fill up every idea of excellence in this character: his
love was enchanting, his rage alarming, his grief melting: even now,
though overtaken by time, and impaired in
|
ation, we shall deserve your benedictions?"
The same spirit appears in a letter found among some papers belonging to a lady of Philadelphia. It was addressed to a British officer in Boston, and written before the Declaration of Independence. The following extract will show its character:
"I will tell you what I have done. My only brother I have sent to the camp with my prayers and blessings. I hope he will not disgrace me; I am confident he will behave with honor and emulate the great examples he has before him; and had I twenty sons and brothers they should go. I have retrenched every superfluous expense in my table and family; tea I have not drunk since last Christmas, nor bought a new cap or gown since your defeat at Lexington; and what I never did before, have learned to knit, and am now making stockings of American wool for my servants; and this way do I throw in my mite to the public good. I know this--that as free I can die but once; but as a slave I shall not be worthy of life. I have the pleasure to assure you that these are the sentiments of all my sister Americans. They have sacrificed assemblies, parties of pleasure, tea drinking and finery, to that great spirit of patriotism that actuates all degrees of people throughout this extensive continent. If these are the sentiments of females, what must glow in the breasts of our husbands, brothers, and sons! They are as with one heart determined to die or be free. It is not a quibble in politics, a science which few understand, that we are contending for; it is this plain truth, which the most ignorant peasant knows, and is clear to the weakest capacity--that no man has a right to take their money without their consent. You say you are no politician. Oh, sir, it requires no Machiavelian head to discover this tyranny and oppression. It is written with a sunbeam. Everyone will see and know it, because it will make everyone feel; and we shall be unworthy of the blessings of Heaven if we ever submit to it....
...."Heaven seems to smile on us; for in the memory of man, never were known such quantities of flax and sheep without number. We are making powder fast, and do not want for ammunition."
From all portions of the country thus arose the expression of woman's ardent zeal. Under accumulated evils the manly spirit that alone could secure success, might have sunk but for the firmness and intrepidity of the weaker sex. It supplied every persuasion that could animate to perseverance, and secure fidelity.
The noble deeds in which this irrepressible spirit breathed itself, were not unrewarded by persecution. The case of the quakeress Deborah Franklin, who was banished from New York by the British commandant for her liberality in relieving the sufferings of the American prisoners, was one among many. In our days of tranquillity and luxury, imagination can scarcely compass the extent or severity of the trials endured; and it is proportionately difficult to estimate the magnanimity that bore all, not only with uncomplaining patience, but with a cheerful forgetfulness of suffering in view of the desired object. The alarms of war--the roar of the strife itself, could not silence the voice of woman, lifted in encouragement or in prayer. The horrors of battle or massacre could not drive her from the post of duty. The effect of this devotion cannot be questioned, though it may not now be traced in particular instances. These were, for the most part, known only to those who were themselves actors in the scenes, or who lived in the midst of them. The heroism of the Revolutionary women has passed from remembrance with the generation who witnessed it; or is seen only by faint and occasional glimpses, through the gathering obscurity of tradition.
To render a measure of justice--inadequate it must be--to a few of the American matrons, whose names deserve to live in remembrance--and to exhibit something of the domestic side of the Revolutionary picture--is the object of this work. As we recede from the realities of that struggle, it is regarded with increasing interest by those who enjoy its results; while the elements which were its lifegiving principle, too subtle to be retained by the grave historian, are fleeting fast from apprehension. Yet without some conception of them, the Revolution cannot be appreciated. We must enter into the spirit, as well as master the letter.
While attempting to pay a tribute but too long withheld, to the memory of women who did and endured so much in the cause of liberty, we should not be insensible to the virtues exhibited by another class, belonging equally to the history of the period. These had their share of reverse and suffering. Many saw their children and relatives espousing opposite sides; and with ardent feelings of loyalty in their hearts, were forced to weep over the miseries of their families and neighbors. Many were driven from their homes, despoiled of property, and finally compelled to cast their lot in desolate wilds and an ungenial climate. * And while their heroism, fortitude, and spirit of self-sacrifice were not less brightly displayed, their hard lot was unpitied, and they met with no reward.
* The ancient Acadia, comprising Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, was settled by many of the refugee loyalists from the United States.
In the library of William H. Prescott, at his residence in Boston, are two swords, crossed above the arch of an alcove. One belonged to his grandfather, Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the American troops in the redoubt at Bunker Hill. The other was the sword of Captain Linzee, of the royal navy, who commanded the British sloop of war--The Falcon, then lying in the Mystic; from which the American troops were fired upon as they crossed to Bunker Hill. Captain Linzee was the grandfather of Mrs. Prescott. The swords of those two gallant soldiers who fought on different sides upon that memorable day--now in the possession of their united descendants, and crossed--an emblem of peace, in the library of the great American historian--are emblematic of the spirit in which our history should be written. Such be the spirit in which we view the loyalists of those days.
I. MARY WASHINGTON.
[Illustration: 0042]
|The Mother of Washington! There needs no eulogy to awaken the associations which cling around that sacred name. Our hearts do willing homage to the venerated parent of the chief--=
```"Who'mid his elements of being wrought
```With no uncertain aim--nursing the germs
```Of godlike virtue in his infant mind."=
The contemplation of Washington's character naturally directs attention to her whose maternal care guided and guarded his early years. What she did, and the blessing of a world that follows her--teach impressively--while showing the power--the duty of those who mould the characters of the age to come. The principles and conduct of this illustrious matron were closely interwoven with the destinies of her son. Washington ever acknowledged that he owed everything to his mother--in the education and habits of his early life. His high moral principle, his perfect self-possession, his clear and sound judgment, his inflexible resolution and untiring application--were developed by her training and example. A believer in the truths of religion, she inculcated a strict obedience to its injunctions. She planted the seed, and cherished the growth, which bore such rich and glorious fruit. La Fayette observed that she belonged rather to the age of Sparta or Rome, than to modern times; she was a mother formed on the ancient model, and by her elevation of character and matchless discipline, fitted to lay the foundation of the greatness of him who towered "beyond all Greek--beyond all Roman fame."
The course of Mrs. Washington's life, exhibiting her qualities of mind and heart, proved her fitness for the high trust committed to her hands. She was remarkable for vigor of intellect, strength of resolution, and inflexible firmness wherever principle was concerned. Devoted to the education of her children, her parental government and guidance have been described by those who knew her as admirably adapted to train the youthful mind to wisdom and virtue. With her, affection was regulated by a calm and just judgment. She was distinguished, moreover, by that well marked quality of genius, a power of acquiring and maintaining influence over those with whom she associated. Without inquiring into the philosophy of this mysterious ascendancy, she was content to employ it for the noblest ends. It contributed, no doubt, to deepen the effect of her instructions.
The life of Mrs. Washington, so useful in the domestic sphere, did not abound in incident. She passed through the trials common to those who lived amid the scenes of the Revolutionary era. She saw the son whom she had taught to be _good_--whom she had reared in the principles of true honor, walking the perilous path of duty with firm step, leading his country to independence, and crowned with his reward--a nation's gratitude; yet in all these changes, her simple, earnest nature remained the same. She loved to speak, in her latter days, of her boy's merits in his early life, and of his filial affection and duty; but never dwelt on the glory he had won as the deliverer of his country, the chief magistrate of a great republic. This was because her ambition was too high for the pride that inspires and rewards common souls. The greatness she discerned and acknowledged in the object of her solicitous tenderness was beyond that which this world most esteems.
The only memoir of the mother of Washington extant, is the one written by George W. P. Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington, and published more than twenty years ago in his "Recollections" in the National Gazette. These reminiscences were collected by him in the course of many years; and to them we are indebted for all that is known of the life and actions of this matron. According to these, she was descended from the respectable family of
Ball, who came to this country and settled on the banks of the Potomac. In the old days of Virginia, women were taught habits of industry and self-reliance, and in these Mrs. Washington was nurtured. The early death of her husband involved her in the cares of a young family with limited resources, which rendered prudence and economy necessary to provide for and educate her children. Thus circumstanced, it was left to her unassisted efforts to form in her son's mind, those essential qualities which gave tone and character to his subsequent life. George was only twelve years old at his father's death, and retained merely the remembrance of his person, and his parental fondness. Two years after this event, he obtained a midshipman's warrant; but his mother opposed the plan, and the idea of entering the naval service was relinquished.
The home in which Mrs. Washington presided, was a sanctuary of the domestic virtues. The levity of youth was there tempered by a well regulated restraint, and the enjoyments rational and proper for that age were indulged in with moderation. The future chief was taught the duty of obedience, and was thus prepared to command. The mother's authority never departed from her, even when her son had attained the height of his renown; for she ruled by the affection which had controlled his spirit when he needed a guardian; and she claimed a reverence next to that due to his Creator. This claim he admitted, mingling the deepest respect with enthusiastic attachment, and yielding to her will the most implicit obedience, even to the latest hours of her life. One of the associates of his juvenile years, Lawrence Washington, of Chotank, thus speaks of his home:
"I was often therewith George, his playmate, schoolmate, and young man's companion. Of the mother I was ten times more afraid than I ever was of my own parents; she awed me in the midst of her kindness, for she was indeed truly kind. And even now, when time has whitened my locks, and I am the grandparent of a second generation, I could not behold that majestic woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that awe-inspiring air and manner, so characteristic of the Father of his country, will remember the matron as she appeared, the presiding genius of her well-ordered household, commanding and being obeyed." Educated under such influences, it is not to be wondered at that Washington's deportment towards his mother at all times, testified his appreciation of her elevated character, and the excellence of her lessons.
"On his appointment to the command-in-chief of the American armies," says Mr. Custis, "previously to his joining the forces at Cambridge, he removed his mother from her country residence, to the village of Fredericksburg, a situation remote from danger and contiguous to her friends and relatives. There she remained, during nearly the whole of the trying period of the Revolution. Directly in the way of the news, as it passed from north to south; one courier would bring intelligence of success to our arms; another, "swiftly coursing at his heels," the saddening reverse of disaster and defeat. While thus ebbed and flowed the fortunes of our cause, the mother, trusting to the wisdom and protection of Divine Providence, preserved the even tenor of her life; affording an example to those matrons whose sons were alike engaged in the arduous contest; and showing that unavailing anxieties, however belonging to nature, were unworthy of mothers whose sons were combating for the inestimable rights of man, and the freedom and happiness of the world."
When news arrived of the passage of the Delaware in December, 1776, the mother received calmly the patriots who came with congratulations; and while expressing pleasure at the intelligence, disclaimed for her son the praises in the letters from which extracts were read. When informed by express of the surrender of Cornwallis, she lifted her hands in gratitude towards heaven, and exclaimed, "Thank God! war will now be ended, and peace, independence and happiness bless our country!"
Her housewifery, industry, and care in the management of her domestic concerns, were not intermitted during the war. "She looketh well to the ways of her household," and "worketh willingly with her hands," said the wise man, in describing a virtuous woman; and it was the pride of the exemplary women of that day, to fill the station of mistress with usefulness as well as dignity. Mrs. Washington was remarkable for a simplicity which modern refinement might call severe, but which became her not less when her fortunes were clouded, than when the sun of glory arose upon her house. Some of the aged inhabitants of Fredericksburg long remembered the matron, "as seated in an old-fashioned open chaise she was in the habit of visiting, almost daily, her little farm in the vicinity of the town. When there, she would ride about her fields, giving her orders and seeing that they were obeyed." When on one occasion an agent departed from his instructions--she reproved him for exercising his own judgment in the matter; "I command you," she said; "there is nothing left for you but to obey."
Her charity to the poor was well known; and having not wealth to distribute, it was necessary that what her benevolence dispensed should be supplied by domestic economy and industry. How peculiar a grace does this impart to the benefits flowing from a sympathizing heart!
It is thus that she has been pictured in the imagination of one of our most gifted poets. *
* Mrs. Sigourney, in her poetical tribute on the occasion of laying the corner-stone for the monument,
```"Melhinks we see thee, as in olden time,
```Simple in garb, majestic and serene,--
```Unawed by 'pomp and circumstances'--in truth
```Inflexible--and with a Spartan zeal
```Repressing vice, and making folly grave.
```Thou didst not deem it woman's part to waste
```Life in inglorious sloth, to sport awhile
```Amid the flowers, or on the summer wave,
```Then fleet like the ephemeron away,
```Building no temple in her children's hearts,
```Save to the vanity and pride of life
```Which she had worshipped."=
Mr. Custis states that she was continually visited and solaced, in the retirement of her declining years, by her children and numerous grandchildren. Her daughter, Mrs. Lewis, repeatedly and earnestly solicited her to remove to her house, and there pass the remainder of her days. Her son pressingly entreated her that she would make Mount Vernon the home of her age. But the matron's answer was: "I thank you for your affectionate and dutiful offers, but my wants are few in this world, and I feel perfectly competent to take care of myself." To the proposition of her son-in-law, Colonel Lewis, to relieve her by taking the direction of her concerns, she replied: "Do you, Fielding, keep my books in order; for your eyesight is better than mine: but leave the executive management to me." Such were the energy and independence she preserved to an age beyond that usually allotted to mortals, and, till within three years other death, when the disease under which she suffered (cancer of the breast), prevented exertion.
Her meeting with Washington, after the victory which decided the fortune of America, illustrates her character too strikingly to be omitted. "After an absence of nearly seven years, it was, at length, on the return of the combined armies from Yorktown, permitted to the mother again to see and embrace her illustrious son. So soon as he had dismounted, in the midst of a numerous and brilliant suite, he sent to apprize her of his arrival, and to know when it would be her pleasure to receive him. And now, mark the force of early education and habits, and the superiority of the Spartan over the Persian schools, in this interview of the great Washington with his admirable parent and instructor. No pageantry of war proclaimed his coming--no trumpets sounded--no banners waved. Alone, and on foot, the marshal of France, the general-in-chief of the combined armies of France and America, the deliverer of his country, the hero of the age, repaired to pay his humble duty to her whom he venerated as the author of his being, the founder of his fortune and his fame. For full well he knew that the matron was made of sterner stuff than to be moved by all the pride that glory ever gave, or by all the 'pomp and circumstance' of power.
"The lady was alone--her aged hands employed in the works of domestic industry, when the good news was announced; and it was further told, that the victor-chief was in waiting at the threshold. She welcomed him with a warm embrace, and by the well-remembered and endearing names of his childhood. Inquiring as to his health, she remarked the lines which mighty cares, and many trials, had made on his manly countenance--spoke much of old times, and old friends; but of his glory, _not one word!_
"Meantime, in the village of Fredericksburg, all was joy and revelry. The town was crowded with the officers of the French and American armies, and with gentlemen from all the country around, who hastened to welcome the conquerors of Cornwallis. The citizens made arrangements for a splendid ball, to which the mother of Washington was specially invited. She observed, that although her dancing days were _pretty well over_, she should feel happy in contributing to the general festivity, and consented to attend.
"The foreign officers were anxious to see the mother of their chief. They had heard indistinct rumors respecting her remarkable life and character; but forming their judgment from European examples, they were prepared to expect in the mother, that glare and show which would have been attached to the parents of the great in the old world. How were they surprised when the matron, leaning on the arm of her son, entered the room! She was arrayed in the very plain, yet becoming garb worn by the Virginia lady of the olden time. Her address, always dignified and imposing, was courteous, though reserved. She received the complimentary attentions which were profusely paid her, without evincing the slightest elevation; and at an early hour, wishing the company much enjoyment of their pleasures, and observing that it was time for old people to be at home, retired, leaning as before, on the arm of her son.
To this picture may be added another:
"The Marquis de La Fayette repaired to Fredericksburg, previous to his departure for Europe, in the fall of 1784, to pay his parting respects to the mother, and to ask her blessing. Conducted by one of her grandsons, he approached the house, when the young gentleman observed: 'There, sir, is my grandmother.' La Fayette beheld--working in the garden, clad in domestic-made clothes, and her grey head covered with a plain straw hat--the mother of 'his hero, his friend and a country's preserver!' The lady saluted him kindly, observing, 'Ah, marquis! you see an old woman; but come, I can make you welcome to my poor dwelling, without the parade of changing my dress.'"
To the encomiums lavished by the marquis on his chief, the mother replied: "Iam not surprised at what George has done, for he was always a very good boy." So simple in her true greatness of soul, was this remarkable woman.
Her piety was ardent; and she associated devotion with the grand and beautiful in nature. She was in the habit of repairing every day for prayer to a secluded spot, formed by rocks and trees, near her dwelling.
After the organization of the government, Washington repaired to Fredericksburg, to announce to his mother his election to the chief magistracy, and bid her farewell, before assuming the duties of his office. Her aged frame was bowed down by disease; and she felt that they were parting to meet no more in this world. But she bade him go, with heaven's blessing and her own, to fulfil the high destinies to which he had been called. Washington was deeply affected, and wept at the parting.
The person of Mrs. Washington is described as being of the medium height, and well proportioned--her features pleasing, though strongly marked. There were few painters in the colonies in those days, and no portrait of her is in existence. Her biographer saw her but with infant eyes; but well remembers the sister of the chief. Of her we are told nothing, except that "she was a most majestic woman, and so strikingly like the brother, that it was a matter of frolic to throw a cloak around her, and place a military hat upon her head; and such was the perfect resemblance, that had she appeared on her brother's steed, battalions would have presented arms, and senates risen to do homage to the chief."
Mrs. Washington died at the age of eighty-five, rejoicing in the consciousness of a life well spent, and the hope of a blessed immortality. Her ashes repose at Fredericksburg, where a splendid monument has been erected to her memory.
II. ESTHER REED.
[Illustration: 0060]
|Esther De Berdt was born in the city of London, on the 22d of October, 1746, (N. S.,) and died at Philadelphia on the 18th of September, 1780. Her thirty-four years of life were adorned by no adventurous heroism; but were thickly studded with the brighter beauties of feminine endurance, uncomplaining self-sacrifice, and familiar virtue--under trials, too, of which civil war is so fruitful. She was an only daughter. Her father, Dennis De Berdt, was a British merchant, largely interested in colonial trade. He was a man of high character. Descended from the Huguenots, or French Flemings, who came to England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Mr. De Berdt's pure and rather austere religious sentiments and practice were worthy of the source whence they came. His family were educated according to the strictest rule of the evangelical piety of their day--the day when devotion, frozen out of high places, found refuge in humble dissenting chapels--the day of Wesley and of Whitfield. Miss De Berdt's youth was trained religiously; and she was to the end of life true to the principles of her education. The simple devotion she had learned from an aged father's lips, alleviated the trials of youth, and brightened around her early grave.
Mr. De Berdt's house in London, owing to his business relations with the Colonies, was the home of many young Americans who at that time were attracted by pleasure or duty to the imperial metropolis. Among these visitors, in or about the year 1763, was Joseph Reed, of New Jersey, who had come to London to finish his professional studies (such being the fashion of the times) at the Temple. Mr. Reed was in the twenty-third year of his age--a man of education, intelligence, and accomplishment. The intimacy, thus accidentally begun, soon produced its natural fruits; and an engagement, at first secret, and afterwards avowed, was formed between the young English girl and the American stranger. Parental discouragement, so wise that even youthful impetuosity could find no fault with it, was entirely inadequate to break a connection thus formed. They loved long and faithfully--how faithfully, the reader will best judge when he learns that a separation of five years of deferred hope, with the Atlantic between them, never gave rise to a wandering wish, or hope, or thought.
Mr. Reed, having finished his studies, returned to America, in the early part of 1765, and began the practice of the law in his native village of Trenton. His success was immediate and great. But there was a distracting element at work in his heart, which prevented him from looking on success with complacency; and one plan after another was suggested, by which he might be enabled to return and settle in Great Britain. That his young and gentle mistress should follow him to America, was a vision too wild even for a sanguine lover. Every hope was directed back to England; and the correspondence, the love letters of five long years, are filled with plans by which these cherished, but delusive wishes were to be consummated. How dimly was the future seen!
Miss De Berdt's engagement with her American lover, was coincident with that dreary period of British history, when a monarch and his ministers were laboring hard to tear from its socket, and cast away for ever, the brightest jewel of the imperial crown--American colonial power. It was the interval when Chatham's voice was powerless to arouse the Nation, and make Parliament pause--when penny-wise politicians, in the happy phrase of the day, "_teased America into resistance_;" and the varied vexations of stamp acts, and revenue bills, and tea duties, the congenial fruits of poor statesmanship, were the means by which a great catastrophe was hurried onward. Mr. De Berdt's relations with the Government were, in some respects, direct and intimate. His house was a place of counsel for those who sought, by moderate and constitutional means, to stay the hand of misgov-ernment and oppression. He was the Agent of the Stamp Act Congress first, and of the Colonies of Delaware and Massachusetts, afterwards. And most gallantly did the brave old man discharge the duty which his American constituents confided to him. His heart was in his trust; and we may well imagine the alternations of feeling which throbbed in the bosom of his daughter, as she shared in the consultations of this almost American household; and according to the fitful changes of time and opinion, counted the chances of discord that might be fatal to her peace, or of honorable pacification which should bring her lover home to her. Miss De Berdt's letters, now in the possession of her descendants, are full of allusions to this varying state of things, and are remarkable for the sagacious good sense which they develope. She is, from first to last, a stout American. Describing a visit to the House of Commons, in April, 1766, her enthusiasm for Mr. Pitt is unbounded, while she does not disguise her repugnance to George Grenville and Wed-derburn, whom she says she cannot bear, because "_they are such enemies to America_." So it is throughout, in every line she writes, in every word she utters; and thus was she, unconsciously, receiving that training which in the end was to fit her for an American patriot's wife.
Onward, however, step by step, the Monarch and his Ministry--he, if possible, more infatuated than they--advanced in the career of tyrannical folly. Remonstrance was vain. They could not be persuaded that it would ever become resistance. In 1769 and 1770, the crisis was almost reached. Five years of folly had done it all. In the former of these years, the lovers were re-united, Mr. Reed returning on an uncertain visit to England. He found everything, but her faithful affection, changed. Political disturbance had had its usual train of commercial disaster; and Mr. De Berdt had not only become bankrupt, but unable to rally on such a reverse in old age, had sunk into his grave. All was ruin and confusion; and on the 31st of May, 1770, Esther De Berdt became an American wife, the wedding being privately solemnized at St. Luke's Church, in the city of London.
In October, the young couple sailed for America, arriving at Philadelphia in November, 1770. Mr. Reed immediately changed his residence from Trenton to Philadelphia, where he continued to live. Mrs. Reed's correspondence with her brother and friends in England, during the next five years, has not been preserved. It would have been interesting, as showing the impressions made on an intelligent mind by the primitive state of society and modes of life in these wild Colonies, some eighty years ago, when Philadelphia was but a large village--when the best people lived in Front street, or on the water side, and an Indian frontier was within an hundred miles of the Schuylkill. They are, however, all lost. The influence of Mrs. Reed's foreign connection can be traced only in the interesting correspondence between her husband and Lord Dartmouth, during the years 1774 and 1775, which has been recently given to the public, and which narrates, in the most genuine and trustworthy form, the progress of colonial discontent in the period immediately anterior to actual revolution. In all the initiatory measures of peaceful resistance, Mr. Reed, as is well known, took a large and active share; and in all he did, he had his young wife's ardent sympathy. The English girl had grown at once into the American matron.
Philadelphia was then the heart of the nation. It beat generously and boldly when the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill startled the whole land. Volunteer troops were raised--money in large sums was remitted, much through Mr. Reed's direct agency, for the relief of the sufferers in New England. At last, a new and controlling incident here occurred. It was in Philadelphia that, walking in the State House yard, John Adams first suggested Washington as the National commander-in-chief; and from Philadelphia that in June, 1775, Washington set out, accompanied by the best citizens of the liberal party, to enter on his duties. *
* As this memoir was in preparation, the writer's eye was attracted by a notice of the Philadelphia obsequies of John Q. Adams, in March, 1848. It is from the New York Courier and Enquirer:
* "That part of the ceremonial which was most striking, more impressive than anything I have ever seen, was the approach through the old State House yard to Independence Hall. I have stood by Napoleon's dramatic mausoleum in the Invalides, and mused over the more simple tomb of Nelson, lying by the side of Collingwood, in the crypt of St. Paul's; but, no impression was made like that of yesterday. The multitude--for the crowd had grown into one--being strictly excluded from the square, filled the surrounding streets and houses, and gazed silently on the simple ceremonial before them. It was sunset, or nearly so--a calm, bright spring evening. There was no cheering, no disturbance, no display of banners, no rude sound of drum. The old trees were leafless; and no one's free vision was disappointed. The funeral escort proper, consisting of the clergy, comprising representatives of nearly all denominations, the committee of Congress, and the city authorities--in all, not exceeding a hundred, with the body and pall bearers, alone were admitted. They walked slowly up the middle path from the south gate, no sound being heard at the point from which I saw it, but the distant and gentle music of one military band near the Hall, and the deep tones of our ancient bell that rang when Independence was proclaimed. The military escort, the company of Washington Greys, whose duty it was to guard the body during the night, presented arms as the coffin went by; and as the procession approached the Hall, the clergy, and all others uncovered themselves, and, if awed by the genius of the place, approached reverently and solemnly. This simple and natural act of respect, or rather reverence, was most touching. It was a thing never to be forgotten. This part of the ceremonial was what I should like a foreigner to see. It was genuine and simple.
* "And throughout, remember, illusion had nothing to do with it. These were simple, actual realities, that thus stirred the heart. It was no empty memorial coffin; but here were the actual honored remains of one who was part of our history--the present, the recent, and remote past. And who could avoid thinking, if any spark of consciousness remained in the old man's heart, it might have brightened as he was borne along by the best men of Philadelphia, on this classic path, in the shadow of this building, and to the sound of this bell. The last of the days of Washington was going by, and it was traversing the very spot, where, seventy years ago, John Adams had first suggested Washington as Commander-in-chief of the army of the Revolution. It reposed last night in Independence Hall."
Mr. Reed accompanied him, as his family supposed, and as he probably intended, only as part of an escort, for a short distance. From New York he wrote to his wife that, yielding to the General's solicitations, he had become a soldier, and joined the staff as Aid, and Military Secretary. The young mother--for she was then watching by the cradle of two infant children--neither repined nor murmured. She knew that it was no restless freak, or transient appetite for excitement, that took away her husband; for no one was more conscious than she, how dear his cheerful home was, and what sweet companionship there was in the mother and her babes. It was not difficult to be satisfied that a high sense of duty was his controlling influence, and that hers it was "to love and be silent."
At Philadelphia she remained during Mr. Reed's first tour of duty at Cambridge; and afterwards, in 1776, when being appointed Adjutant-General, he rejoined the army at New York. In the summer of that year, she took her little family to Burlington; and in the winter, on the approach of the British invading forces, took deeper refuge at a little farmhouse near Evesham, and at no great distance from the edge of the Pines.
We, contented citizens of a peaceful land, can form little conception of the horrors and desolation of those ancient times of trial. The terrors of invasion are things which nowadays imagination can scarcely compass. But then, it was rugged reality. The unbridled passions of a mercenary soldiery, compounded not only of the brutal element that forms the vigor of every army, but of the ferocity of Hessians, hired and paid for violence and rapine, were let loose on the land. The German troops, as if to inspire especial terror, were sent in advance, and occupied, in December, 1776, a chain of posts extending from Trenton to Mount Holly, Rhal commanding at the first, and Donop at the other. General Howe, and his main army, were rapidly advancing by the great route to the Delaware. On the other hand, the river was filled with American gondolas, whose crews, landing from time to time on the Jersey shore, by their lawlessness, and threats of retaliation, kept the pacific inhabitants in continual alarm. The American army, if it deserved the name, was literally scattered along the right bank of the Delaware; Mr. Reed being with a small detachment of Philadelphia volunteers, under Cadwalader, at Bristol.
Family tradition has described the anxious hours passed by the sorrowing group at Evesham. It consisted of Mrs. Reed, who had recently been confined, and was in feeble health, her three children, an aged mother, and a female friend, also a soldier's wife: the only male attendant being a boy of fourteen or fifteen years of age. If the enemy were to make a sudden advance, they would be entirely cut off from the ordinary avenues of escape; and precautions were taken to avoid this risk. The wagon was ready, to be driven by the boy we have spoken of, and the plan was matured, if they failed to get over the river at Dunk's or Cooper's Ferry, to cross lower down, near Salem, and push on to the westward settlements. The wives and children of American patriot-soldiers thought themselves safer on the perilous edge of an Indian wilderness, than in the neighborhood of the soldiers who, commanded by noblemen--by "men of honor and cavaliers," for such, according to all heraldry, were the Howes and Cornwallises, the Percies and Rawdons of that day--were sent by a gracious monarch to lay waste this land. The English campaigning of our Revolution--and no part of it more so than this--is the darkest among the dark stains that disfigure the history of the eighteenth century; and if ever there be a ground for hereditary animosity, we have it in the fresh record of the outrages which the military arm of Great Britain committed on this soil. The transplanted sentimentalism which nowadays calls George III. a wise and great monarch, is absolute treason to America. There was in the one Colony of New Jersey, and in a single year, blood enough shed, and misery enough produced, to outweigh all the spurious merits which his admirers can pretend to claim. And let such for ever be
|
anything that belonged to a
chief, for it was a matter of life and death, and even to allow your
shadow to fall across the path of one of those mighty beings meant 'off
with his head' or some similar order. I know what I shall do when I am
queen of these islands; I shall _tabu_ Mother Hubbards. Look at that
fat old monstrosity; isn't she a sight?"
"There are quantities of Chinese and Japanese," said Mary Lee, noting
the various persons who passed them.
"It seems to me one sees more of them than of the natives."
"I believe they do outnumber the natives," Miss Helen remarked, "for
they form the principal class of laborers. The Chinese, more than the
Japanese, have become shopkeepers, and own a larger proportion of real
estate, so no wonder we see so many of them."
"Are you all very tired?" asked Nan suddenly.
"I must confess that I am," Miss Helen told her.
"And I shall be mighty glad to get to my room," Mary Lee put in. "Why
do you ask, Nan?"
"Because I am wild to take a ride on those King Street cars. Mrs.
Beaumont says that nobody of the better class does ride on them, and
that is the very reason I want to go."
"Oh, Nan, I wouldn't," objected her sister.
"Why not? Nobody knows me, and I shall probably see sights undreamed
of. Come along, Mary Lee."
"No, indeed, I don't want to get mixed up with lepers and filthy scum
of the earth."
"Nonsense! There couldn't be any lepers, for they keep a very strict
watch and hustle them off to Molokai as soon as one is discovered."
"Mrs. Beaumont saw one; she told me so."
"Oh, Mary Lee, did she really?"
"Yes, she was buying something in one of the Chinese shops at the time
of the Chinese New Year, and this creature was begging outside when
she came out. She says she shall never forget the sight, and that
sometimes their friends hide them so the officers cannot find them."
"Well, they will not hide them on a King Street car, that's certain,"
retorted Nan. "If neither of you will go with me, I shall go by myself."
Finding her determined, Miss Helen and Mary Lee went on to their hotel
while Nan boarded the car she had selected. It was about an hour before
she rejoined them. "Well, how was it?" asked Mary Lee as her sister
came in.
"It was great larks," was the answer. "You missed it, you two proper
pinks of propriety."
"Come in and tell us, Nan," called Miss Helen from the next room.
Nan laid aside her hat and came to her aunt, sitting on the side of
the bed while she related her experiences. "It was perfectly decent
and respectable," she declared, "and the route is a beautiful one. A
most polite Chinese person of the male persuasion took my car fare to
deposit, handed me my change with an entrancing bow and then," she
laughed at the recollection, "neatly abstracted his own nickel from his
ear and put that in, too."
"From his ear?" Miss Helen exclaimed.
"She is just jollying us, Aunt Helen," said Mary Lee.
"Indeed I am not," declared Nan, "and, what is more, he had stowed away
another nickel, for his return fare, in his other ear; I saw as I came
out. For my part I think it is a lovely idea, and I believe I shall
adopt it in future, particularly when I must get on one of those evil
inventions, a pay-as-you-enter car. One day in New York I dropped as
many as three car fares in trying to get a nickel into the box. It was
a rainy day; I had my umbrella and a small traveling bag to carry, so
how in the world I could be expected to grasp the situation I have been
wondering ever since. No, the ear is the place, a simple and effective
way of solving a very difficult problem."
"What else did you see?" queried Miss Helen.
"I saw a bland, urbane native lady, gowned in a pink Mother Hubbard--I
have learned that the native name for these horrors is _holuku_--well,
she wore one. She carried a basket of fish, principally alive, for one
that looked like a goldfish almost jumped into my lap. When she left
the car I noticed that the Chinaman next me began to jerk his foot in
a most remarkable manner. He attempted to get up, but somehow couldn't
seem to manage it. The woman was going one way; the car the other; but
finally another passenger stopped the car after some unintelligible
words to the motorman and I discovered that the woman's hook and line
had caught in the Chinaman's shoe. The woman was dragging away, all
unconsciously, for she had caught a fish which she didn't intend to
fry. It was very funny, but I was the only one in the car who laughed;
the rest were far too polite."
"Well, Nan, it is just like you to have had such an experience," said
her aunt.
"If I were going to stay in Honolulu for any length of time," returned
Nan, "I think I should like to take a ride in the King Street cars
every day. What are we going to do to-morrow?"
"We are to have tea in Mrs. Beaumont's little grass house--you know she
owns one--and she thinks there is to be an auction."
"Calabashes!" cried Nan. "Good! I have set my heart on one, but I am
not going to pay more than ten dollars for it."
"I am afraid you will be disappointed then," her aunt told her, "for
they run up as high as fifty dollars and over, I am told."
"Well, we shall see," said Nan. "Of course I can't spend all my spare
cash on calabashes or I will have none left for Japan where I expect to
be tempted beyond my powers of resistance."
"We are to dine at Mrs. Beaumont's this evening, so you'd better be
thinking of dressing," Mary Lee warned her.
"And no doubt we must look our best for there will be some fascinating
young officers there, I believe. Isn't it fortunate that our steamer
chairs happened to be next Mrs. Beaumont's? She has been perfectly
lovely to us all, and we have seen twice as much as if we had tried to
trot around alone."
They were not disappointed in their evening's entertainment which
brought them in contact with some of the ladies, as well as the men, of
the garrison, and gave them an opportunity of learning many interesting
things. The evening ended in a surprise when a band of natives came
to serenade, bringing their rude musical instruments and giving songs
typical of these islands of the South Seas.
The calabashes were the great interest of the next day when an auction
sale of a small private collection was held. Mrs. Beaumont, who was
wise on the subject of the antique wooden ware, went with them, and to
her great satisfaction Nan did secure an excellent specimen for the
price she had set.
"You see," said Mrs. Beaumont, "as there is no metal on these Hawaiian
Islands, the best substitute known to the natives was the _Koa_ wood
which has an exceedingly fine grain and is susceptible of a very high
polish. Wherever a calabash was decorated by carving, it had to be done
either with a stone implement or with one made of sharks' teeth, and
though these carvings are crude they are really very interesting and
add to the value of the calabash. There are very few of the very old
ones left now as they have been bought up by collectors. The natives
use those made of cocoanut shells or of small gourds, as you may have
noticed."
Nan bore away her calabash in triumph, stopping at a little place to
have it polished by a man who was noted for doing such work well. Hers,
while not large, was rather unique as it had a division in the middle
so that two kinds of food could be served at once in it.
There were more walks and drives, and even a visit to one of the
neighboring islands. The pretty little Japanese tea-houses, which they
came upon frequently in their drives, the girls absolutely refused to
patronize. "We want to save everything Japanese till we get to Japan,"
they declared. "There is quite enough novelty in that which is strictly
Hawaiian."
"And more than enough that is strictly American, if one is looking for
novelty," remarked Miss Helen. "Who would suppose that in these South
Sea Isles one would find severe-looking New England houses, electric
lights, electric cars, telephones and all the rest of American modern
improvements?"
"Including Mother Hubbards," Nan put in. "I am glad they have left
something typical of the old times. I suppose the little grass houses
were unhealthy places, but how picturesque they are."
They had the opportunity of observing one of these primitive houses
more closely that very afternoon when Mrs. Beaumont gave them tea in
the small hut which she retained as a curiosity. It was quite a gay
little company which gathered there, young officers, bright girls and
charming, elderly, soldier-like military men who, the girls maintained,
were more entertaining than the younger ones.
At last came word that the steamer for Japan would arrive the next day,
and so there was a repacking of trunks, a stowing away of souvenirs and
a final farewell to those who had helped to make the stay at Honolulu
so pleasant and profitable. Then early the following morning the three
travelers boarded the steamer for a still longer journey to Japan.
But they were not allowed to go off without being speeded on their
way by their new friends who came bearing _leis_ in such number that
their hats, their necks, their waists were adorned with garlands as
the vessel slowly moved out. When the last "_Aloha!_" had died upon
the air, they had moved outside the reefs, and finally when Oahu was
lost to view, upon the waters they cast their wreaths that they might
be borne back to land, a silent message to the friends they had left
behind. Such is the pretty custom in these southern seas.
[Illustration: CHAPTER III
FIRST IMPRESSIONS]
CHAPTER III
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
As one nail drives out another so were the sights of Honolulu lost in
those newer ones which were met as the vessel entered the great bay.
"It is just like the pictures," cried Nan, eagerly squeezing her
sister's arm.
"It is exactly," responded Mary Lee. "Oh, Nan, those square-sailed
things are the junks, aren't they? And oh, what a lot of little boats."
"And isn't the color beautiful?" returned Nan, her eyes seeking the
further mass of shore beyond the calmly glittering waters. "I am wildly
excited, aren't you, Aunt Helen? Somehow it seems the foreignest of all
the foreign countries we have seen yet, much more than Honolulu did,
for there was so much that was American there."
"It is certainly deeply interesting," her aunt agreed. "I suppose we
shall have to come down to the matter-of-fact question of customs
directly, and after that we can begin to enjoy ourselves."
"Oh, dear me, I always forget that there are such disagreeable things
as customs. I hope they will not capture my precious calabash."
But the customs were easily passed and then came the first sensation of
the day, a ride to the hotel in a _jinrikisha_.
"I feel as if I were on a fan or a _kakamono_," giggled Mary Lee, as
they were borne along by their galloping coolie.
"What funny little houses," commented Nan. "Can you imagine that really
sober, every-day people live in them? It all looks like a joke, and as
if we might come to our sober senses after a while. To be sure some
of the houses do look somewhat European, but even they have a queer
expression."
"I didn't expect to see any horses, and yet there are a good many."
Mary Lee made the observation.
"I suppose they have been brought in by the foreign population," said
Nan. "I have seen quite a number of phaetons, and some persons on
horseback, so there goes one rooted theory. Set it down for a fact that
they do have horses in Japan."
"Don't the shops look fascinating! But we mustn't try to buy much of
anything here for we are going to Tokyo almost at once, Aunt Helen
says. Do you know how far it is, Nan?"
"Only about twenty miles, I believe. Ah, here is our hotel right on
the quay. We get a harbor view, but they say the best scenery is not
here, but that further in the interior it is wonderful. I am wild for
the first glimpse of Fujiyama."
"I suppose we shall be honorabled and kowtowed to from this out,"
remarked Mary Lee as they left their _jinrikishas_ to be met at the
hotel door by a bowing, obsequious person who conducted them inside.
"It should be a flattering possibility, but you must remember that we
are only poor miserable females and are of no account in this land."
"I shall remember that when I get carried away by my admiration of
things Japanese," replied Mary Lee.
Their rooms looked out upon the water, and for some time they gave
themselves up to viewing the novel scene spread out before them; the
queer crafts which passed and repassed; the lambent, soft light which
played over the waters; the effect of a swarming crowd in the costume
of the country, at times diversified by the wearing of a partial
European dress, again accentuated by those who wore such attire as was
most familiar to the girls in their own home. It was quite late in the
day and, as they expected to go on to Tokyo the next morning, they
decided to take _jinrikishas_ or as they discovered them to be called
_kuruma_ and _kurumaya_, that they might see something of the city of
Yokohama and have their first experience of Japanese shops.
"Now, Nan," warned Mary Lee the wise, "don't get too reckless even if
things are cheap. We have months before us and if you begin to load up
now, think what you will have by the end of the time."
Nan, hesitating while she looked longingly at a fragile cup and saucer,
sighed. "I suppose you are right, but one's enthusiasm is always so
much more ardent in the beginning. Besides, I have always found that no
matter how much I carried home with me from abroad, I was always sorry
I didn't buy double."
"But these breakable things will be so hard to lug around."
"True, my practical sister. I think I will limit myself to the purchase
of two things alone in this precious town and it will be fun to decide
what they shall be."
From shop to shop they went, stopping to look at the queer hanging
signs, to examine the curios, the silks, and the odds and ends which
could be picked up for a mere trifle. But at last Nan decided upon a
silk scarf as being easy to carry and a singularly lovely kakamono,
though she gave many a sigh to the beautiful bits of color which she
must pass by. "So cheap," she would murmur, "and I can't have it."
Then Mary Lee would resolutely rush her away with the consoling remark
that doubtless she would find things twice as lovely and even more
cheap in other places. "For you must remember," said she, "that we
are only on the threshold, and probably, as this is such a well-known
seaport, and one which is so much visited, things here are more
expensive than they will be further on."
"I bow to your superior judgment," Nan would reply, with a last
backward look at the treasure she coveted.
Mary Lee, herself, followed Nan's decision and bought but two articles,
one a small piece of carved ivory and the other a piece of embroidery,
both of which could be easily tucked away and would take up little room.
Their afternoon would not have been complete without a first visit to a
tea-house. "A really truly Japanese one this time," said Nan. "Aren't
you glad we waited? I have much more of a sensation, haven't you, Aunt
Helen?"
"It does seem the real thing in such an atmosphere and such a company,"
she returned, as they were served with the pale yellow beverage in tiny
cups by the most smiling of little maids.
It was something of a ceremony as they discovered, when, at the very
door, they must remove their shoes that they might not soil the clean
straw mats with which the floor was thickly spread. Slippers were
provided them and shuffling in with these upon their feet they sat on
cushions, when a little maid in kimono and broad _obi_ came forward to
ask if the honorable ladies would like some honorable tea.
"Dear me," whispered Nan, "it is just as I hoped it would be. We have
been called honorable at last."
Presently the _mousmeé_ approached on her knees bearing a carved tray
which she presented most humbly, and the three sat drinking their
tea and trying to realize that this was Japan and that they were not
dreaming.
Continuing their ride, they were taken still further away from the
European quarter of the town through the streets which looked more and
more foreign; but they did not stop at any of the tiny shops, raised
above the street, with their banner-like signs of blue or red or white
all bearing lettering in fantastic Japanese or Chinese characters. It
was all wonderfully rich and harmonious and the three were so busy
drinking in the sights, the queer little low houses, the people, mostly
habited in blue, short of stature, smiling, picturesque, that they were
taken by surprise when at last their broad-hatted runner stopped.
They looked up there to see before them in the evening light the great
cone of Fujiyama, or Fujisan, as the wonderful mountain is called.
Nan began to laugh hysterically. "What makes you do that?" said Mary
Lee. "I don't see anything so amusing about this glorious view."
"I have to do something," returned Nan, "and I don't want to cry. I
have to do one or the other, it is so wonderfully beautiful. Doesn't
it seem like the very spirit of a mountain wrapped in this pale, misty
evening light? The great sacred mountain! And how high is it? I must
look at my book and see." She turned the leaves of the book which she
carried with her. "The great volcano," she read, "is between 12,000
and 13,000 feet high. It is 120 miles around the base. It has been
practically inactive since 1707, yet there is a spot where it still
shows indications of inward fires which, it is safe to declare, may
break out some day."
"Dear me, let us hope it will not be while we are here," said Mary Lee.
"It isn't at all probable," Nan assured her, "for I am sure there would
be some warning, unearthly noises, and growlings and mutterings. I
shouldn't mind a little harmless sort of eruption, and I am rather
looking for a baby earthquake that we can really expect almost any
time. Do you know, Mary Lee, I am only beginning to wake up to the
tremendous possibilities of Japan. Every little while I come upon the
description of some famous shrine or temple, some wonderful view,
some queer custom, or fascinating festival. I am beginning to get
more and more bewildered, and shall have to sift this information so
I can gather together the few grains which must serve us while we are
here. It would never do to go away with merely a hodge-podge of facts
not properly catalogued in our minds. You, who have an orderly and
practical mind, must help me arrange some sort of synopsis of what we
are to see and why we must."
Mary Lee agreed and after a short observation of the magic mountain,
they turned their backs upon it and saw only the bobbing hat of their
runner who bore them through the unfamiliar and weirdly interesting
streets, whose shops were now beginning to be lighted by gay paper
lanterns, on to a more familiar looking quarter of the city, peopled
principally by Europeans and back to the hotel on the quay, where
they stopped. Their minds were full of new sensations, and their eyes
were still filled with the pictures of foreign streets, smiling,
gentle-voiced little people, and lastly great Fujisan, calm and
beautiful in the sunset glow.
After dismissing the _jinrikishas_, the three entered the hotel again,
Nan walking ahead. As they were passing through the corridor, she
stopped short as she came face to face with a girl about her own age
who also came to a halt as she saw Nan. Then she sprang forward and
took Nan by the shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. "Nan Corner, as I
live! This is surprising."
"Eleanor Harding, who could have expected to meet you on the other side
of the world?" cried Nan.
"How on earth did you get here?" asked Eleanor.
"Just dug a hole and fell through," returned Nan.
Eleanor laughed. "Dear me, that does make me feel as if we were all
back at Bettersley. Why, there is Mary Lee, too! What fun!" She
hastened forward to greet her old classmate, and to speak to Miss Helen
whom she had met more than once at various college functions. "Well,
this is luck," she declared. "Do let us go somewhere and have a good
talk. Have you all had dinner? No? Then come along and sit with me for
I was just going in."
"But we are still in traveling dress," objected Mary Lee, always
particular.
"Never mind that; lots of others will be, too. Come right along."
Thus urged the three followed along to the dining-room where they found
a table to themselves over in one corner, and the chattering began.
"Now tell me all about it," said Eleanor. "Dear me, but it does me good
to see you."
"We have come just because we all wanted to," Nan told her. "Aunt Helen
proposed it, and here we are. We left mother and the twinnies at home."
"Jack and Jean are at Bettersley, of course."
"Yes, pegging away and getting along about as well as the rest of us
did in our freshman year. Jack, as may be guessed, is in everything,
including scrapes, but she is a general favorite and always comes out
on top."
"It makes me sort of homesick," said Eleanor with a sigh.
"But you haven't told us yet what brought you here," Mary Lee reminded
her.
"Oh, so I haven't. I came out with my aunt whose husband is an army
man. My brother is in the diplomatic service and is to be here some
time, probably, so every one thought it was my chance for seeing this
country."
"It certainly is, for you will have opportunities denied the rest of us
mere tourists. Is your aunt here in Yokohama?"
"For the present. She and my brother have both gone to some function
this evening, hence I am alone. Do you know what I thought when I first
caught sight of you, Nan? I thought you were married and had come on
your wedding trip."
"No such prospect for Nancy," was the answer.
"What about Rob Powell?" asked Eleanor. "He used to be your adorer a
year ago."
"Was it only a year ago? It seems ten," returned Nan. "Oh, I hear of
him once in a while from Rita Converse. He is doing pretty well for a
beginner, I believe."
"What callous indifference," replied Eleanor. "I quite counted on
hearing of your engagement by this time."
"I don't seem to engage as readily as some others," Nan made answer,
"and the longer I put it off the more 'fistadious' I become as Jean
used to say. What about yourself, Nell, my dear? I don't forget Yale
Prom."
"Oh, bless me, who can count upon what happened before the deluge? I've
begun all over again. I am counting on my brother Neal to supply me
with something in the way of a Mikado or a _daimio_."
"Deliver me if you please," cried Mary Lee.
"So say we all of us," echoed Nan. "No Japanese mother-in-law for me.
You must do better than that, Eleanor."
So the chaff and chatter went on. Eleanor had been one of their
comrades at college and there were a thousand questions to ask on each
side, reminiscences and all that, the process of what the girls called
"reminiscing" continuing long after they had left the table and had
retired to a spot where they would be undisturbed. Here, after a while,
they were discovered by Eleanor's brother who was duly presented and
who entertained them all by an account of the affair which he had just
attended. Later came in Mrs. Craig to hunt up her niece and nephew.
She was a charming woman who had already been through many interesting
experiences, and who was disposed to make much of these college friends
of her niece.
"We must all have some good times together," she proposed. "My husband
and Neal have both been out here long enough to give us suggestions."
Neal declared himself eager to be of assistance and lost no time in
beginning to plan what they all must do the next day. There was some
discussion about hours and engagements, but at last all was arranged to
the satisfaction of every one concerned and the little company broke
up.
"Did you ever know such luck?" whispered Nan as they were going to
their rooms. "Aunt Helen, we certainly started out under a lucky star.
What would Honolulu have been without Mrs. Beaumont? And here come Mrs.
Craig and Mr. Harding to act as cicerone for us here. Nell Harding of
all people! I can't get over my surprise yet."
"Were you very intimate with her at college?" asked Miss Helen.
"Not quite as much so as with Rita Converse and one or two others.
Still we were very good friends, especially during our senior year. Do
you remember, Mary Lee, that she was the one who wrote to her brother
about that horrid Oliver Adams, when you were taking up the cudgels for
Natty Gray?"
"Indeed I do remember," returned Mary Lee. "She was so nice about it; I
have always liked her better ever since that time. What do you think of
this brother, Nan?"
"Pleasant sort of somebody. Looks as if there might be a good deal in
him. Not specially good-looking, but he has nice eyes and a well-shaped
head that looks as if he had more than ordinary intellect. I think we
shall all become very good friends. Don't you like Mrs. Craig, Aunt
Helen? I am sure she is great, and is going to be no end of help to us."
So the talk went on while the night opened up new stars to their
vision, and the coming day promised new friends, new scenes and new
experiences.
[Illustration: THEY LOOKED UP TO SEE THE GREAT CONE OF
FUJIYAMA]
[Illustration: CHAPTER IV
TEMPLES AND TEA]
CHAPTER IV
TEMPLES AND TEA
"And aren't we to go to Tokyo to-day?" asked Mary Lee as she sat up in
bed the next morning.
"Don't ask me," replied Nan. "We supposed we were, and as it is only
twenty miles away we may be going yet though Aunt Helen did not say
anything about it last night. She and Mrs. Craig were plotting all
sorts of things for to-day while we were talking to Nell and her
brother. I caught a word here and there about temples and _tori-i_ and
things."
"And we, too, were making plans meanwhile, so it looks as if we might
have a busy day, Nan."
"Yokohama and Tokyo are practically the same city," Nan gave the
information, "for they are so near one another. Because of that we may
be going to carry out the original plan. I'll go ask Aunt Helen." She
pattered into the next room to find Miss Helen already up. "What's the
first thing on the carpet to-day, Aunt Helen?" she asked.
"Why, let me see; breakfast, of course."
"Decidedly of course, but I didn't mean anything quite so obvious."
"Then Mrs. Craig is coming for us and we are to take a drive to see
some temples, and this afternoon we are to call on a Japanese friend of
Mrs. Craig's."
"A real Japanese?"
"A really, truly one whom Mrs. Craig knows quite well."
"And we shall have the chance of seeing a veritable Japanese house?
Good! I've been hoping we might have such a chance. Where is the house?"
"In Tokyo."
"Then we are to go there as was first planned."
"I think so; it is more attractive than in Yokohama, and you know Mrs.
Craig is stopping there. She and her nephew came to Yokohama simply to
meet Miss Harding whom they will take back with them to Tokyo, so it
seems to me we would be better off there ourselves."
Nan uncurled herself from the foot of the bed where she was sitting and
went back to her sister. "Tokyo it is to be," she announced. "Tokyo and
temples and a visit to a Japanese home; that is the day's programme.
Isn't it great? You'd better get up, Mary Lee; Aunt Helen is all
dressed."
The two girls made haste to join their aunt and before very long were
ready for their morning of sightseeing. This time they were to go, not
in _jinrikishas_ but behind Mrs. Craig's stout little ponies which
carried them along at a good pace to a spot where suddenly arose before
them a great stone stairway.
"Oh, where do those steps lead?" asked Nan, all curiosity.
"They are the first intimation we have that we are nearing a _tera_ or
temple," Mrs. Craig told her.
"And do we climb that long flight?" asked Mary Lee.
"Assuredly."
They all alighted from the carriage and began the ascent. At the top
they confronted a queer gateway.
"Is this what they call a _tori-i_?" asked Nan.
"No, it is merely a gateway in the ordinary sense," she was told.
"We must stop and look at it," Miss Helen decided, and they all stood
looking up at the strange structure.
"What an odd roof," Mary Lee observed, as she regarded the peaked
pagoda-like affair.
"And such carving," exclaimed Nan. "Do look at all those queer
gargoylish lions' heads, and see the dragons on the panels; snakes,
too."
"And there is Fuji." Miss Helen, who was resting after her exhausting
climb, and was enjoying the view, directed their attention to the great
mountain whose dim peak arose above the town at their feet.
Nan turned from her regard of snakes and dragons that she might look
off at the scene. "No wonder one sees Fuji on fans and panels and
pretty nearly everything in Japan," said she. "I don't wonder the
Japanese honor and adore their wonderful mountain."
After giving further examination to the gateway, they all walked
on, presently coming to another one which showed more dragons and
gargoyles. Through this they passed to enter a sort of courtyard. The
girls looked with curiosity at an array of stone objects which they
supposed to be monuments. "What are they?" Mary Lee asked.
"Stone lanterns," Mrs. Craig told her, "and yonder are the Buddha
lions." She pointed out two strange, fantastic stone figures in sitting
posture each side the way.
"And does Buddha live here?" asked Nan with a smile.
"He lives in many places," Mrs. Craig replied with an answering smile.
Just ahead they perceived three steps leading to a low edifice. Men
and women were going and coming from these, stopping to kneel at the
entrance of this, the temple which they had come to see. Most of these
people tarried only a very short time, bending their heads in silent
prayer for a few minutes, while they joined their hands reverently.
Some clapped three times quite slowly, though noisily. There were many
contributions made, small coins thrown into the big wooden box at the
entrance.
The girls stood watching the worshippers curiously. "It would be
interesting to know how much their offerings amounted to," said Mary
Lee. "I suppose very little in our money."
"Very little indeed," responded their guide. "When you consider a _rin_
is one-tenth of a _sen_ and that a _sen_ is only about equal to one of
our cents you can see that a very small contribution suffices."
"What is inside the temple?" asked Nan.
"The shrine of Buddha, but he is not on exhibition except on feast
days. If you go in you will have to take off your shoes, so perhaps we
would better wait till some other time."
They decided that they would not attempt an entrance at this time, but
they peeped through the paper-screened sides of the building to see a
dim interior whose contents were in such obscurity that they could not
make them out.
"Do you always have to take off your shoes before entering a temple?"
asked Mary Lee.
"Oh, dear, yes, and not only upon entering a temple but before entering
any house. You know all floors are furnished with soft matting rugs
which it would never do to soil. When one considers how much mud and
dust we carry into our homes on our shoes and skirts I am inclined to
think the Japanese have more than one custom which we might adopt to
advantage. If you want to see a _tori-i_, Miss Nan, I think we can find
you one not very far away."
"I don't exactly understand what a _tori-i_ really is," confessed Mary
Lee.
"There are two theories concerning them," Mrs. Craig told her. "Many
assert that they were originally perches for birds, one meaning of the
word being a bird-rest, and it is supposed that they were used as a
sort of altar on which fowls were offered to the gods; others maintain
that the word means simply a gateway. One can easily see how either
meaning could be accepted, for they do look like a perch as well as a
gateway."
After another drive through a labyrinth of streets, where were queer
little houses and queerer signs, they arrived at the bottom of another
hill where again a flight of steps arose before them.
"Dear me," sighed Miss Helen, "I wonder if I am equal to all these
climbs. I should like to import a few elevators for the sake of my
American powers of climbing."
However, rather than be left behind, the ascent was decided upon by
Miss Helen, Nan helping her up, and lingering with her when a pause for
breath seemed advisable. At last they joined the other two who, more
agile, had reached the spot before them. "So this is a _tori-i_," said
Nan looking up at the gateway. "Such a simple affair; just two upright
pillars with two things across them. It might easily be a bird-perch.
No carving, no letters, no anything, yet it is sort of impressive just
because of its simplicity. Is there a temple beyond?"
"No, only a shrine," she was informed, "and probably closed."
"Then we shall not have to climb that second flight of steps," said
Miss Helen in a relieved tone. "If one has to mortify the flesh in this
manner before seeing temples, I am afraid I shall not see many."
"Oh, but you used to climb lots of steps in Europe," Nan reminded her.
"How many were there in the duomo at Florence?"
"Don't ask me, my dear; the remembrance of them is still with me.
Probably because I did climb so many in Europe is why I hesitate here,
and perhaps the weight of years might be added as a second reason."
Nan frowned and shook her head. "You mustn't say that. You are as young
as any of us."
"In spirit, maybe," her aunt returned with a smile.
"We certainly shall not expect you to see all the shrines and temples
we come upon," Mrs. Craig told them, "for there are too many, and the
best way is to select the most famous only to visit."
"We learned to do that way in Europe," said Nan. "One gets mental
indigestion by tearing off to see every little thing, and finally one
is so mixed up that nothing is remembered correctly."
"And if one lived here a lifetime it would be impossible to see all the
sights or to learn all the legends," Mrs. Craig went on. "The best way
is to get some well-written book and study up between times. You need
to know a little of the folk-lore and something of the religions in
order to understand the sights you wish to see. It will
|
. “In this way,” Wangenheim would say, “we keep our governing
classes pure, unmixed of blood.” Like all of his social order,
Wangenheim worshipped the Prussian military system; his splendid bearing
showed that he had himself served in the army, and, in true German
fashion, he regarded practically every situation in life from a military
standpoint. I had one curious illustration of this when I asked
Wangenheim one day why the Kaiser did not visit the United States. “He
would like to immensely,” he replied, “but it would be too dangerous.
War might break out when he was at sea, and the enemy would capture
him.” I suggested that that could hardly happen as the American
Government would escort its guest home with warships, and that no nation
would care to run the risk of involving the United States as Germany’s
ally; but Wangenheim still thought that the military danger would make
any such visit impossible.
Upon him, more than almost any diplomatic representative of Germany,
depended the success of the Kaiser’s conspiracy for world domination.
This German diplomat came to Constantinople with a single purpose. For
twenty years the German Government had been cultivating the Turkish
Empire. All this time the Kaiser had been preparing for a world war, and
in this war it was destined that Turkey should play an almost decisive
part. Unless Germany should obtain the Ottoman Empire as its ally, there
was little chance that she could succeed in a general European conflict.
When France had made her alliance with Russia, the man power of
170,000,000 people was placed on her side, in the event of a war with
Germany. For more than twenty years Germany had striven diplomatically
to detach Russia from this French alliance, but had failed. There was
only one way in which Germany could make valueless the Franco-Russian
Alliance; this was by obtaining Turkey as an ally. With Turkey on her
side, Germany could close the Dardanelles, the only practical line of
communication between Russia and her western allies; this simple act
would deprive the Czar’s army of war munitions, destroy Russia
economically by stopping her grain exports, her greatest source of
wealth, and thus detach Russia from her partners in the World War. Thus
Wangenheim’s mission was to make it absolutely certain that Turkey
should join Germany in the great contest that was impending.
Wangenheim believed that, should he succeed in accomplishing this task,
he would reap the reward which for years had represented his final
goal--the chancellorship of the Empire. His skill at establishing
friendly personal relations with the Turks gave him a great advantage
over his rivals. Wangenheim had precisely that combination of force,
persuasiveness, geniality, and brutality which was needed in dealing
with the Turkish character. I have emphasized his Prussian qualities;
yet Wangenheim was a Prussian not by birth but by development; he was a
native of Thüringen, and, together with all the push, ambition, and
overbearing traits of the Prussian, he had some of the softer
characteristics which we associate with Southern Germany. He had one
conspicuous quality which is not Prussian at all--that is, tact; and, as
a rule, he succeeded in keeping his less-agreeable tendencies under the
surface and showing only his more ingratiating side. He dominated not so
much by brute strength as by a mixture of force and amiability;
externally he was not a bully; his manner was more insinuating than
coercive; he won by persuasiveness, not by the mailed fist, but we who
knew him well understood that back of all his gentleness there lurked a
terrific, remorseless, and definite ambition. Yet the impression left
was not one of brutality, but of excessive animal spirits and good
nature. Indeed, Wangenheim had in combination the jovial enthusiasm of a
college student, the rapacity of a Prussian official, and the
happy-go-lucky qualities of a man of the world. I still recall the
picture of this huge figure of a man, sitting at the piano, improvising
on some beautiful classic theme--and then suddenly starting to pound out
uproarious German drinking songs or popular melodies. I still see him
jumping on his horse at the polo grounds, spurring the splendid animal
to its speediest efforts--the horse never making sufficient speed,
however, to satisfy the ambitious sportsman. Indeed, in all his
activities, grave or gay, Wangenheim displayed this same restless spirit
of the chase. Whether he was flirting with the Greek ladies at Pera, or
[Illustration: MRS. HENRY MORGENTHAU
(On the right). Wife of the American Ambassador at Constantinople from
1913 to 1916, with Soeur Jeanne (on the left), head of the French
Hospital]
[Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY
Showing (in the centre of the picture) the buildings of the Ministry of
Marine, on the famous Golden Horn, with the city beyond]
spending hours over the card table at the Cercle d’Orient, or bending
the Turkish officials to his will in the interest of Germany, all life
was to him a game, which was to be played more or less recklessly, and
in which the chances favoured the man who was bold and audacious and
willing to pin success or failure on a single throw. And this greatest
game of all--that upon which was staked, as Bernhardi has expressed it,
“World empire or downfall”--Wangenheim did not play languidly, as though
it had been merely a duty to which he had been assigned; to use the
German phrase, he was “fire and flame” for it; he had the consciousness
that he was a strong man selected to perform a mighty task. As I write
of Wangenheim, I still feel myself affected by the force of his
personality, yet I know all the time that, like the government which he
served so loyally, he was fundamentally ruthless, shameless, and cruel.
But he was content to accept all the consequences of his policy, however
hideous these might be. He saw only a single goal, and, with the realism
and logic that are so characteristically German, Wangenheim would brush
aside all feelings of humanity and decency that might interfere with
success. He accepted in full Bismarck’s famous dictum that a German must
be ready to sacrifice for Kaiser and Fatherland not only his life but
his honour as well.
Just as Wangenheim personified Germany, so did his colleague,
Pallavicini, personify Austria. Wangenheim’s essential quality was a
brutal egotism, while Pallavicini was a quiet, kind-hearted,
delightfully mannered gentleman. Wangenheim was always looking to the
future, Pallavicini to the past. Wangenheim represented the mixture of
commercialism and medieval lust for conquest which constitute Prussian
_welt-politik_; Pallavicini was a diplomat left over from the days of
Metternich. “Germany wants this!” Wangenheim would insist, when an
important point had to be decided; “I shall consult my foreign office,”
the cautious Pallavicini would say, on a similar occasion. The Austrian,
with little upturned gray moustaches, with a rather stiff, even slightly
strutting, walk, looked like the old-fashioned Marquis that was once a
stock figure on the stage. I might compare Wangenheim with the
representative of a great business firm which was lavish in its
expenditures and unscrupulous in its methods, while his Austrian
colleague represented a house that prided itself on its past
achievements and was entirely content with its position. The same
delight that Wangenheim took in Pan-German plans, Pallavicini found in
all the niceties and obscurities of diplomatic technique. The Austrian
had represented his country in Turkey many years, and was the dean of
the corps, a dignity of which he was extremely proud. He found his
delight in upholding all the honours, of his position; he was expert in
arranging the order of precedence at ceremonial dinners, and there was
not a single detail of etiquette that he did not have at his fingers’
ends. When it came to affairs of state, however, he was merely a tool of
Wangenheim. From the first, indeed, he seemed to accept his position as
that of a diplomat who was more or less subject to the will of his more
powerful ally. In this way Pallavicini played to his German colleague
precisely the same part that his emperor was playing to that of the
Kaiser. In the early months of the war the bearing of these two men
completely mirrored the respective successes and failures of their
countries. As the Germans boasted of victory after victory Wangenheim’s
already huge and erect figure seemed to become larger and more
upstanding, while Pallavicini, as the Austrians lost battle after battle
to the Russians, seemed to become smaller and more shrinking.
The situation in Turkey, in these critical months, seemed almost to have
been purposely created to give the fullest opportunities to a man of
Wangenheim’s genius. For ten years the Turkish Empire had been
undergoing a process of dissolution, and had now reached a state of
decrepitude that had left it an easy prey to German diplomacy. In order
to understand the situation, we must keep in mind that there was really
no orderly, established government in Turkey at that time. For the Young
Turks were not a government; they were really an irresponsible party, a
kind of secret society, which, by intrigue, intimidation, and
assassination, had obtained most of the offices of state. When I
describe the Young Turks in these words, perhaps I may be dispelling
certain illusions. Before I came to Turkey I had entertained very
different ideas of this organization. As far back as 1908 I remember
reading news of Turkey that appealed strongly to my democratic
sympathies. These reports informed me that a body of young
revolutionists had swept from the mountains of Macedonia, had marched
upon Constantinople, had deposed the bloody Sultan, Abdul Hamid, and had
established a constitutional system. Turkey, these glowing newspaper
stories told us, had become a democracy, with a parliament, a
responsible ministry, universal suffrage, equality of all citizens
before the law, freedom of speech and of the press, and all the other
essentials of a free, liberty-loving commonwealth. That a party of Turks
had for years been struggling for such reforms I well knew, and that
their ambitions had become realities seemed to indicate that, after all,
there was such a thing as human progress. The long welter of massacre
and disorder in the Turkish Empire had apparently ended; “the great
assassin”, Abdul Hamid, had been removed to solitary confinement at
Saloniki, and his brother, the gentle Mohammed V, had ascended the
throne with a progressive democratic programme. Such had been the
promise; but, by the time I reached Constantinople, in 1913, many
changes had taken place. Austria had annexed two Turkish provinces,
Bosnia and Herzegovina; Italy had wrenched away Tripoli; Turkey had
fought a disastrous war with the Balkan states, and had lost all her
territories in Europe except Constantinople and a small hinterland. The
aims for the regeneration of Turkey that had inspired the revolution had
evidently miscarried, and I soon discovered that four years of so-called
democratic rule had ended with the nation more degraded, more
impoverished, and more dismembered than ever before. Indeed, long before
I had arrived, this attempt to establish a Turkish democracy had failed.
The failure was probably the most complete and the most disheartening in
the whole history of democratic institutions. I need hardly explain in
detail the causes of this collapse. Let us not criticize too harshly the
Young Turks, for there is no question that, at the beginning, they were
sincere. In a speech in Liberty Square, Saloniki, in July, 1908, Enver
Pasha, who was popularly regarded as the chivalrous young leader of this
insurrection against a century-old tyranny, had eloquently declared
that, “To-day arbitrary government has disappeared. We are all brothers.
There are no longer in Turkey Bulgarians, Greeks, Servians, Rumanians,
Mussulmans, Jews. Under the same blue sky we are all proud to be
Ottomans.” That statement represented the Young Turk ideal for the new
Turkish state, but it was an ideal which it was evidently beyond their
ability to translate into a reality. The races which had been maltreated
and massacred for centuries by the Turks could not transform themselves
overnight into brothers, and the hatreds, jealousies, and religious
prejudices of the past still divided Turkey into a medley of warring
clans. Above all, the destructive wars and the loss of great sections of
the Turkish Empire had destroyed the prestige of the new democracy.
There were plenty of other reasons for the failure, but it is hardly
necessary to discuss them at this time.
Thus the Young Turks had disappeared as a positive regenerating force,
but they still existed as a political machine. Their leaders, Talaat,
Enver, and Djemal, had long since abandoned any expectation of reforming
their state, but they had developed an insatiable lust for personal
power. Instead of a nation of nearly 20,000,000, developing happily
along democratic lines, enjoying suffrage, building up their industry
and agriculture, laying the foundations for universal education,
sanitation, and general progress, I saw that Turkey consisted of merely
so many inarticulate, ignorant, and poverty-ridden slaves, with a small,
wicked oligarchy at the top, which was prepared to use them in the way
that would best promote its private interests. And these men were
practically the same who, a few years before, had made Turkey a
constitutional state. A more bewildering fall from the highest idealism
to the crassest materialism could not be imagined. Talaat, Enver, and
Djemal were the ostensible leaders, yet back of them was the Committee,
consisting of about forty men. This committee met secretly, manipulated
elections, and filled the offices with its own henchmen. It occupied a
building in Constantinople, and had a supreme chief who gave all his
time to its affairs and issued orders to his subordinates. This
functionary ruled the party and the country something like an American
city boss in our most unregenerate days; and the whole organization thus
furnished a typical illustration of what we sometimes describe as
“invisible government.” This kind of irresponsible control has at times
flourished in American cities, mainly because the citizens have devoted
all their time to their private affairs and thus neglected the public
good. But in Turkey the masses were altogether too ignorant to
understand the meaning of democracy, and the bankruptcy and general
vicissitudes of the country had left the nation with practically no
government and an easy prey to a determined band of adventurers. The
Committee of Union and Progress, with Talaat Bey as the most powerful
leader, constituted such a band. Besides the forty men in
Constantinople, sub-committees were organized in all important cities of
the empire. The men whom the Committee placed in power “took orders” and
made the appointments submitted to them. No man could hold an office,
high or low, who was not indorsed by this committee.
I must admit, however, that I do our corrupt American gangs a great
injustice in comparing them with the Turkish Committee of Union and
Progress. Talaat, Enver, and Djemal had added to their system a detail
that has not figured extensively in American politics--that of
assassination and judicial murder. They had wrested power from the other
factions by a deed of violence. This _coup d’état_ had taken place on
January 26, 1913, not quite a year before my arrival. At that time a
political group, headed by the venerable Kiamil Pasha, as Grand Vizier,
and Nazim Pasha, as Minister of War, controlled the Government; they
represented a faction known as the “Liberal Party,” which was chiefly
distinguished for its enmity to the Young Turks. These men had fought
the disastrous Balkan War, and, in January, they had felt themselves
compelled to accept the advice of the European powers and surrender
Adrianople to Bulgaria. The Young Turks had been outside the breastworks
for about six months looking for an opportunity to return to power. The
proposed surrender of Adrianople apparently furnished them this
opportunity. Adrianople was an important Turkish city, and naturally the
Turkish people regarded the contemplated surrender as marking still
another milestone toward their national doom. Talaat and Enver hastily
collected about two hundred followers and marched to the Sublime Porte,
where the ministry was then sitting. Nazim, hearing the uproar, stepped
out into the hall. He courageously faced the crowd, a cigarette in his
mouth and his hands thrust into his pockets.
“Come, boys,” he said, good humouredly, “what’s all this noise about?
Don’t you know that it is interfering with our deliberations?”
The words had hardly left his mouth when he fell dead. A bullet had
pierced a vital spot.
The mob, led by Talaat and Enver, then forced their way into the council
chamber. They forced Kiamil, the Grand Vizier, to resign his post by
threatening him with the fate that had overtaken Nazim.
As assassination had been the means by which these chieftains had
obtained the supreme power, so assassination continued to be the
instrument upon which they depended for maintaining their control.
Djemal, in addition to his other duties, became Military Governor of
Constantinople, and in this capacity he had control of the police; in
this office he developed all the talents of a Fouché, and did his work
so successfully that any man who wished to conspire against the Young
Turks usually retired for that purpose to Paris or Athens. The few
months that preceded my arrival had been a reign of terror. The Young
Turks had destroyed Abdul Hamid’s régime only to adopt that Sultan’s
favourite methods of quieting opposition. Instead of having one Abdul
Hamid, Turkey now discovered that she had several. Men were arrested and
deported by the score, and hangings of political offenders--opponents,
that is, of the ruling gang--were common occurrences.
The weakness of the Sultan particularly facilitated the ascendancy of
this committee. We must remember that Mohammed V was not only Sultan but
Caliph--not only the temporal ruler, but also head of the Mohammedan
Church. As religious leader he was an object of veneration to millions
of devout Moslems, a fact which would have given a strong man in his
position great influence in freeing Turkey from its oppressors. I
presume that even those who had the most kindly feelings toward the
Sultan would not
[Illustration: BEYLERBEY PALACE ON THE BOSPHORUS
Where Abdul Hamid was confined from the time when he was taken from
Saloniki until his recent death--a photograph taken from the launch of
the _Scorpion_, the American guardship at Constantinople]
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN EMBASSY AT CONSTANTINOPLE
Where Ambassador Morgenthau conducted American diplomatic affairs from
the fall of 1913 to the spring of 1916. After Turkey came into the war
Mr. Morgenthau accepted charge of the affairs of nine other nations]
[Illustration: HENRY MORGENTHAU, AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY,
1913-1916]
have described him as an energetic, masterful man. It is a miracle that
the circumstances which fate had forced upon Mohammed had not long since
completely destroyed him. He was a brother of Abdul Hamid--Gladstone’s
“great assassin”--a man who ruled by espionage and bloodshed, and who
had no more consideration for his own relatives than for the massacred
Armenians. One of Abdul Hamid’s first acts, when he ascended the throne,
was to shut up his heir apparent in a palace, surrounding him with
spies, restricting him for society to his harem and a few palace
functionaries, and constantly holding over his head the fear of
assassination. Naturally Mohammed’s education had been limited; he spoke
only Turkish, and his only means of learning about the outside world was
an occasional Turkish newspaper. So long as he remained quiescent, the
heir apparent was comfortable and fairly secure, but he knew that the
first sign of revolt, or even a too curious interest in what was going
on, would be the signal for his death. Hard as this ordeal was, it had
not destroyed what was fundamentally a benevolent, gentle nature. The
Sultan had no characteristics that suggested the “terrible Turk.” He was
simply a quiet, easy-going, gentlemanly old man. Everybody liked him and
I do not think that he harboured ill-feeling against a human soul. He
could not rule his empire, for he had had no preparation for such a
difficult task; he took a certain satisfaction in his title and in the
consciousness that he was a lineal descendant of the great Osman;
clearly, however, he could not oppose the schemes of the men who were
then struggling for the control of Turkey. In the replacement of Abdul
Hamid, as his master, by Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, the Sultan had not
greatly improved his personal position. The Committee of Union and
Progress ruled him precisely as they ruled all the rest of Turkey--by
intimidation. Indeed they had already given him a sample of their power,
for the Sultan had attempted on one occasion to assert his independence,
and the conclusion of this episode left no doubt as to who was master. A
group of thirteen “conspirators” and other criminals, some real ones,
others merely political offenders, had been sentenced to be hanged.
Among them was an imperial son-in-law. Before the execution could take
place the Sultan had to sign the death warrants. He begged that he be
permitted to pardon the imperial son-in-law, though he raised no
objection to viséing the hangings of the other twelve. The nominal ruler
of 20,000,000 people figuratively went down upon his knees before
Talaat, but all his pleadings did not affect this determined man. Here,
Talaat reasoned, was a chance to decide, once for all, who was master,
the Sultan or themselves. A few days afterward the melancholy figure of
the imperial son-in-law, dangling at the end of a rope in full view of
the Turkish populace, visibly reminded the empire that Talaat and the
Committee were the masters of Turkey. After this tragical test of
strength, the Sultan never attempted again to interfere in affairs of
state. He knew what had happened to Abdul Hamid, and he feared an even
more terrible fate for himself.
By the time I reached Constantinople the Young Turks thus completely
controlled the Sultan. He was popularly referred to as an
“irade-machine,” a phrase which means about the same thing as when we
refer to a man as a “rubber stamp.” His state duties consisted merely
in performing certain ceremonies, such as receiving ambassadors, and in
affixing his signature to such papers as Talaat and his associates
placed before him. This was a profound change in the Turkish system,
since in that country for centuries the Sultan had been an unquestioned
despot, whose will had been the only law, and who had centred in his own
person all the power of sovereignty. Not only the Sultan, but the
Parliament, had become the subservient creature of the Committee, which
chose practically all the members, who voted only as the predominant
bosses dictated. The Committee had already filled several of the most
powerful cabinet offices with its followers, and was reaching out for
the several important places that, for several reasons, still remained
in other hands.
CHAPTER II
THE “BOSS SYSTEM” IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND HOW IT PROVED USEFUL TO
GERMANY
Talaat, the leading man in this band of usurpers, really had remarkable
personal qualities. Naturally Talaat’s life and character proved
interesting to me, for I had for years been familiar with the Boss
system in my own country, and in Talaat I saw many resemblances to the
crude yet able citizens who have so frequently in the past gained power
in local and state politics. Talaat’s origin was so obscure that there
were plenty of stories in circulation concerning it. One account said
that he was a Bulgarian gipsy, while another described him as a Pomak--a
Pomak being a man of Bulgarian blood whose ancestors, centuries ago, had
embraced the Mohammedan faith. According to this latter explanation,
which I think was the true one, this real ruler of the Turkish Empire
was not a Turk at all. I can personally testify that he cared nothing
for Mohammedanism for, like most of the leaders of his party, he scoffed
at all religions. “I hate all priests, rabbis, and hodjas,” he once told
me--hodja being the nearest equivalent the Mohammedans have for a
minister of religion. In American city politics many men from the
humblest walks of life have not uncommonly developed great abilities as
politicians, and similarly Talaat had started life as a letter carrier.
From this occupation he had risen to be a telegraph operator at
Adrianople; and of these humble beginnings he was extremely proud. I
visited him once or twice at his house; although Talaat was then the
most powerful man in the Turkish Empire, his home was still the modest
home of a man of the people. It was cheaply furnished; the whole
establishment reminded me of a moderately priced apartment in New York.
His most cherished possession was the telegraph instrument with which he
had once earned his living. Talaat one night told me that he had that
day received his salary as Minister of the Interior; after paying his
debts, he said, he had just one hundred dollars left in the world. He
liked to spend part of his spare time with the rough-shod crew that made
up the Committee of Union and Progress; in the interims when he was out
of the cabinet he used to occupy the desk daily at party headquarters,
personally managing the party machine. Despite these humble beginnings,
Talaat had developed some of the qualities of a man of the world. Though
his early training had not included instruction in the use of a knife
and fork--such implements are wholly unknown among the poorer classes in
Turkey--Talaat could attend diplomatic dinners and represent his country
with a considerable amount of dignity and personal ease. I have always
regarded it as indicating his innate cleverness that, though he had had
little schooling, he had picked up enough French to converse tolerably
in that language. Physically, he was a striking figure. His powerful
frame, his huge sweeping back, and his rocky biceps emphasized that
natural mental strength and forcefulness which had made possible his
career. In discussing matters Talaat liked to sit at his desk, with his
shoulders drawn up, his head thrown back, and his wrists, twice the
size of an ordinary man’s, planted firmly on the table. It always seemed
to me that it would take a crowbar to pry these wrists from the board,
once Talaat’s strength and defiant spirit had laid them there. Whenever
I think of Talaat now I do not primarily recall his rollicking laugh,
his uproarious enjoyment of a good story, the mighty stride with which
he crossed the room, his fierceness, his determination, his
remorselessness--the whole life and nature of the man take form in those
gigantic wrists.
Talaat, like most strong men, had his forbidding, even his ferocious,
moods. One day I found him sitting at the usual place, his massive
shoulders drawn up, his eyes glowering, his wrists planted on the desk.
I always anticipated trouble whenever I found him in this attitude. As I
made request after request, Talaat, between his puffs at his cigarette,
would answer “No!” “No!” “No!”
I slipped around to his side of the desk.
“I think those wrists are making all the trouble, Your Excellency,” I
said. “Won’t you please take them off the table?”
Talaat’s ogre-like face began to crinkle, he threw up his arms, leaned
back, and gave a roar of terrific laughter. He enjoyed this method of
treating him so much that he granted every request that I made.
At another time I came into his room when two Arab princes were present.
Talaat was solemn and dignified, and refused every demand I made. “No, I
shall not do that”; or, “No, I haven’t the slightest idea of doing
that,” he would answer. I saw that he was trying to impress his princely
guests; to show them that he had become so great a man that he did not
hesitate to “turn down” an ambassador. So I came up nearer and spoke
quietly.
“I see you are trying to make an impression on these princes,” I said.
“Now if it’s necessary for you to pose, do it with the Austrian
Ambassador--he’s out there waiting to come in. My affairs are too
important to be trifled with.”
Talaat laughed. “Come back in an hour,” he said. I returned; the Arab
princes had left, and we had no difficulty in arranging matters to my
satisfaction.
“Someone has got to govern Turkey; why not we?” Talaat once said to me.
The situation had just about come to that. “I have been greatly
disappointed,” he would tell me, “at the failure of the Turks to
appreciate democratic institutions. I hoped for it once, and I worked
hard for it--but they were not prepared for it.” He saw a government
which the first enterprising man who came along might seize, and he
determined to be that man. Of all the Turkish politicians whom I met I
regarded Talaat as the only one who really had extraordinary native
ability. He had great force and dominance, the ability to think quickly
and accurately, and an almost superhuman insight into men’s motives. His
great geniality and his lively sense of humour also made him a splendid
manager of men. He showed his shrewdness in the measures which he took,
after the murder of Nazim, to gain the upper hand in this distracted
empire. He did not seize the government all at once; he went at it
gradually, feeling his way. He realized the weaknesses of his position;
he had several forces to deal with--the envy of his associates on the
revolutionary committee which had backed him, the army, the foreign
governments, and the several factions that made up what then passed for
public opinion in Turkey. Any of these elements might destroy him,
politically and physically. He understood the dangerous path that he was
treading, and he always anticipated a violent death. “I do not expect to
die in my bed,” he told me. By becoming Minister of the Interior, Talaat
gained control of the police and the administration of the provinces, or
vilayets; this gave him a great amount of patronage, which he used to
strengthen the power of the Committee. He attempted to gain the support
of all influential factions by gradually placing their representatives
in the other cabinet posts. Though he afterward became the man who was
chiefly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians, at this time Talaat maintained the pretense that the
Committee stood for the unionization of all the races in the empire, and
for this reason his first cabinet contained an Arab-Christian, a Deunme
(a Jew by race, but a Mohammedan by religion), a Circassian, an
Armenian, and an Egyptian.
He made the latter Grand Vizier, the highest post in the Government, a
position which roughly corresponds to that of Chancellor in the German
Empire. The man whom he selected for this office, which in ordinary
times was the most dignified and important in the empire, belonged to
quite a different order of society from Talaat. Not uncommonly bosses in
America select high-class figureheads for mayors or even governors, men
who will give respectability to their faction, yet whom, at the same
time, they think they can control. It was some such motive as this which
led Talaat and his associates to elevate Saïd Halim to the Grand
Vizierate. Saïd Halim was an Egyptian prince, the cousin of the Khedive
of Egypt, a man of great wealth and great culture. He spoke English and
French as fluently as his own tongue and was an ornament to any society
in the world. But he was a man of unlimited vanity and ambition. His
great desire was to become Khedive of Egypt, and this had led him to
trust his political fortunes to the gang that was then ascendant in
Turkey. He was the heaviest “campaign contributor,” and, indeed, he had
largely financed the Young Turks from their earliest days. In exchange
they had given him the highest office in the empire, with the tacit
understanding that he should not attempt to exercise the real powers of
his office, but content himself with enjoying its dignities.
Germany’s war preparations had for years included the study of internal
conditions in other countries; an indispensable part of the imperial
programme had been to take advantage of such disorganizations as existed
to push her schemes of penetration and conquest. What her emissaries
have attempted in France, Italy, and even the United States is apparent,
and their success in Russia has greatly changed the course of the war.
Clearly such a situation as that which prevailed in Turkey in 1913 and
1914 provided an ideal opportunity for manipulations of this kind. And
Germany had one great advantage in Turkey which was not so conspicuously
an element in other countries. Talaat and his associates needed Germany
almost as badly as Germany needed Talaat. They were altogether new to
the business of managing an empire. Their finances were depleted, their
army and navy almost in tatters, enemies were constantly attempting to
undermine them at home, and the great powers regarded them as seedy
adventurers whose career was destined to be brief. Without strong
support from an outside source, it was a question how long the new
régime could survive. Talaat and his Committee needed some foreign power
to organize the army and navy, to finance the nation, to help them
reconstruct their industrial system, and to protect them against the
encroachments of the encircling nations. Ignorant as they were of
foreign statecraft, they needed a skilful adviser to pilot them through
all the channels of international intrigue. Where was such a protector
to be obtained? Evidently only one of the great European powers could
perform this office. Which one should it be? Ten years before Turkey
would naturally have appealed to England. But now the Turks regarded
England as merely the nation that had despoiled them of Egypt and that
had failed to protect Turkey from dismemberment after the Balkan wars.
Together with Russia, Great Britain now controlled Persia and thus
constituted a constant threat--at least so the Turks believed--against
their Asiatic dominions. England was gradually withdrawing her
investments from Turkey, English statesmen believed that the task of
driving the Turk from Europe was about complete, and the whole
Near-Eastern policy of Great Britain hinged on maintaining the
organization of the Balkans as it had been determined by the Treaty of
Bucharest--a treaty which Turkey refused to regard as binding and which
she was determined to upset. Above all, the Turks feared Russia in 1914,
just as they had feared her ever since the days of Peter the Great.
Russia was the historic enemy, the nation which had given freedom to
Bulgaria and Rumania, which had been most active in dismembering the
Ottoman Empire, and which regarded herself as the power that was
ultimately to possess Constantinople. This fear of Russia, I cannot too
much insist, was the one factor which, above everything else, was
forcing Turkey into the arms of Germany. For more than half a century
Turkey had regarded England as her surest safeguard against Russian
aggression, and now England had become Russia’s virtual ally. There was
even then a general belief, which the Turkish chieftains shared, that
England was entirely willing that Russia should inherit Constantinople
and the Dardanelles.
Though Russia, in 1914, was making no such pretensions, at least openly,
the fact that she was crowding Turkey in other directions made it
impossible that Talaat and Enver should look for support in that
direction. Italy had just seized the last Turkish province in Africa,
Tripoli, at that moment, was holding Rhodes and other Turkish islands,
and was known to cherish aggressive plans in Asia Minor. France was the
ally of Russia and Great Britain, and was also constantly extending her
influence in Syria, in which province, indeed, she had made
|
ial environment,
in a church whose symbolism, teaching, and ordinances, were a coherent
reflection of their own experiences, stood justified by their personal
knowledge of the "law" of spiritual development, the conditions of
advance in the way on which their feet were set.
They owed much to tradition, to their theological studies, to their
familiarity with the recorded experiences of holy men; they recognized
their church as the transmitter of this tradition, as the guardian of
saintly testimony on the subject of their art. They recognized her, not
as an end but as a means, not as a prison, but as a home for all the
human family, keeping open her doors, on the one hand, to the
unconverted, providing, on the other, a suitable medium, the right
atmosphere and opportunities, whereby pilgrims in the spiritual life
might develop, to their full, possibilities in advance of the common
measure of the group. They chid her, they exposed abuses, and called for
reforms; they challenged the "carnal conception" of the sacraments, and
denounced the loose lives of her dignitaries; but they remained in the
church.
The Quakers, on the contrary, appeared when few of those who were in
authority were able to understand what had arisen in their midst. Fox
brought his challenge by the wayside; untrammelled by tradition,
fearless in inexperience, he endowed all men with his own genius, and
called upon the whole world to join him in the venture of faith.
CHAPTER II
THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
I
When Fox came back to the world from his lonely wanderings, he had no
thought of setting up a church in opposition to, or in any sort of
competition with, existing churches. His message was for all,
worshipping under whatever name or form; his sole concern to reveal to
men their own wealth, to wean them to turn from words and ceremonials,
from all merely outward things, to seek first the inner reality. Many of
the Puritan leaders were brought by their contact with Fox to a more
vital attitude with regard to the faith in which they had been brought
up. Several of the magistrates before whom he and his followers were
continually being haled, unable after hours of examination and
discussion not only to find any cause of offence in these men, but
unable, also, to resist the appeal of their strength and sincerity,
espoused their cause with every degree of warmth, from whole-hearted
adherence to lifelong, unflagging interest and sympathy. But the general
attitude, from the panic-stricken behaviour of those who regarded the
Quakers as black magicians, incarnations of the Evil One, or Jesuits in
disguise, to the grave concern of the Calvinist divines, who saw in the
Quaker movement a profane attack upon the foundation-rock of Holy
Scripture, was one of fear--fear based, as is usual, upon
misunderstanding. A concise reasoned formulation of the Quaker
standpoint, though it may be picked out from the writings of Fox and the
early apologists, was to come, and then only imperfectly, when the
scholarly Robert Barclay joined the group; meanwhile, the sometimes
rather amorphous enthusiasm, the "mysterious meetings," the apocalyptic
claims and denunciations--meaningless to those who had no key--stood as
a barrier between the "children of the light" and the religious
fellowship of the Commonwealth church. Fear is clearly visible at the
root of the instant and savage persecution of the Quakers, not only by
the mob, but by official Calvinism, throughout the chapter of its power.
The keynote was struck by the local authorities at Nottingham, who
responded to Fox's plea for the Inner Light during a Sunday morning's
service in the parish church by putting him in prison. It is usually
maintained that his offence was brawling, but it is difficult to
reconcile this reading with the facts of the case. Theological
disputations were the most popular diversions of the day. There were no
newspapers, nor, in the modern sense of the word, either "politics" or
books; popular literature consisted largely of religious pamphlets;
amateur theologians abounded; the public meetings arousing the maximum
of enthusiasm were those gathered for the duels of well-known
controversialists; while speaking in church after the minister had
finished was not only recognized, but far from unusual. In this instance
the minister had preached from the text, "We have also a more sure word
of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light
that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise
in your hearts," and had developed his theme in the sense that the sure
word of prophecy was the record of the Scripture. Fox--whom we may
imagine already much the man William Penn later on described for us as
"no busybody or self-seeker, neither touchy nor critical... so meek,
contented, modest, easy, steady, tender, it was a pleasure to be in his
company.... I never saw him out of his place or not a match for every
service and occasion; for in all things he acquitted himself like a
man--yea, a strong man, a new and heavenly-minded man--civil beyond all
forms of breeding in his behaviour"--rose with his challenge, threw down
the gauntlet to biblicism, and declared that the Light was not the
Scriptures, but the Spirit of God....
But, as we have seen, religious England was not wholly Puritan. Fox's
world was waiting for him. From every denomination and every rank of
society the Children of the Light came forth. Very many--notably the
nuclear members of small independent groups--had reached the Quaker
experience before he came. The beliefs and customs which have since been
identified with the Society of Friends were already in existence in the
group of Separated Baptists at Mansfield in Nottingham, which formed in
face of the closed doors of official religion the centre of the little
Quaker church. The singleness of type, moreover, in the missionary work
of the early Quakers, extending, as it did, over the whole of
Christendom, carried on independently by widely differing
natures--"narrow" nonconformist ministers, prosperous business men, army
officers and privates, shepherds, cloth-makers, gentlewomen and domestic
servants, under every variety of circumstance, would be enough in itself
to reveal Fox as the child of his time. But as we watch the movement, as
we see it assailed by those dangers arising wherever systems and
doctrines are left behind and reason gets to work upon the facts of a
man's own experience; as we find the fresh life threatening here to
crystallize into formal idealism, there to flow away into pantheism or
antinomianism, again to pour into a dead sea of placid illumination; as
we see the little church surviving these dangers and continually
reviving, we recognize that Fox was more than the liberator of mystical
activity. He was its steersman. His constructive genius cast the mould
which has enabled this experiment to escape the fate overtaking similar
efforts. Seventeenth-century mysticism in France[6] and Spain was
succumbing to Quietism. Molinos, the Spanish monk, a contemporary of
Fox, popularized a debased form of Teresian mysticism, formulating it as
a state "where the soul loses itself in the soft and savoury sleep of
nothingness, and enjoys it knows not what"; while in France the practice
of passive contemplation had gained in the religious life of the time a
popularity which even the mystical genius of Madame Guyon--who herself,
it is true, lays in her writings over-much stress upon this, the first
step of the mystic way--failed to disturb.
[Footnote 6: If we except the doomed Port Royalists.]
For Fox, we cannot keep too clearly in mind, the relationship of the
soul to the Light was a life-process; the "inner" was not in
contradistinction to the outer. For him, the great adventure, the
abstraction from all externality, the purging of the self, the Godward
energizing of the lonely soul, was in the end, as it has been in all the
great "actives" among the mystics, the most practical thing in the
world, and ultimately fruitful in life-ends. He surprises us by the
intensity of his objective vision, by the number of modern movements he
anticipates: popular education; the abolition of slavery; the
substitution of arbitration for warfare amongst nations, and for
litigation between individuals; prison reform, and the revising of
accepted notions as to the status of women. He delights us with the
strong balance of his godliness, his instant suspicion of religiosity
and emotionalism, his dealing with those extremes of physical and mental
disturbance which are apt in unstable natures to accompany any sudden
flooding of the field of consciousness; his discouragement of ranting
and "eloquence," of self-assertion and infallibility--of anything
indicating lack of control, or militating against the full operation of
the light.
But, enormously powerful as was the influence of Fox upon the movement
which he liberated and steered, it was at the same time exceptionally
free--even in relation to the comparatively imitative mass of the Quaker
church--from that limitation which justifies the famous description of
an institution as the lengthened shadow of a man. The partial escape of
the Quaker church from this almost universal fate of institutions
becomes clear when we fix our attention on the essential nature of Fox's
"discovery" and what was involved in his offering it to the laity, when
we note that within the Quaker borders there arose that insistence on
the "originality" of life on all levels that has, at last, in our own
day, made its appearance in official philosophy.
II
The history of the Quaker experiment reveals in England three main
movements: the first corresponding roughly to the life of Fox, and
covering the period of expansion, persecution,[7] and establishment; the
second, which may be called the retreat of Quakerism, the quiet
cultivation of Quaker method; and the third, the modern evangelistic
revival.
The first rapid spreading in the North of England was materially helped
by the establishment, in 1652, of a centre at Swarthmoor Hall, near
Ulverston in Lancashire, the property of Judge Fell and his wife
Margaret, good churchpeople, much given to religious exercises, and
holding open house for travelling ministers of all denominations. The
capture of this stronghold gave the movement a northern headquarters,
and a post-office. Margaret Fell, converted by Fox at the age of
thirty-eight, built the rest of her life into the movement; seventeen
years later--more than ten years after the death of her husband--she
became Fox's wife. Her voluminous and carefully preserved correspondence
with the leading missionaries of the group alone forms almost a journal
of the early years of the Society.[8]
[Footnote 7: Toleration Act passed 1689. Fox died two years later.]
The whole of the countryside at Swarthmoor, whose minister Fox had
repudiated, finding him filled with a ranting spirit, high words and
"notions"--"full of filth," as he tersely notes in his Journal--came out
against him.
He was given up to justice, ordered to be whipped, and then handed over
to the mercy of the mob, who beat him until he fell senseless.
Presently, rising up, he bade them strike again. A mason numbed his arm
with a blow from a staff; the arm recovered instantly under the power of
his outgoing love for his persecutors. Incidents of this kind--of
beatings, stonings, and assaults of a more disgusting nature--are
typical of the treatment received with unvarying sweetness by the Quaker
missionaries, both in England and in America. On several occasions Fox's
life was attempted.
[Footnote 8: The bulk of the "Fell" correspondence is preserved at the
headquarters of the Society of Friends, Devonshire House, Bishopsgate,
E.C.]
Persecutions of all kinds, moreover, fell far more heavily upon the
Quakers than upon other nonconformists, owing to their persistence in
holding their meetings openly--meeting in the street if their premises
were burned down, the children meeting together when the parents were
imprisoned. Fines, flogging, pillory, the loathsomeness of damp and
uncleansed dungeons, the brutality of gaolers, left their serenity
unmoved; the exposure of women in the stocks for seventeen hours on a
November night confirmed their faith. In the Restoration period
particularly, when the strong influence of the religious soldiers of the
Commonwealth--many of whom, including Cromwell, were able to grasp the
tendency of Fox's conception--was removed, persecution became
methodical. Some three thousand odd had suffered before the King came
back, twenty-one dying as a result of cruel treatment. Three hundred
died during the Restoration period, and they were in prison thousands at
a time, for although Charles II., once the leaders had made clear their
lack of political ambition, promised them full freedom from disturbance,
the panic of fear of sectaries of all kinds which followed the Fifth
Monarchy outbreak in London opened an era of persecution and
imprisonment. Enormous sums of money were extracted from them under
various pretexts; the Quaker and Conventicle Acts were used against them
with ingenious brutality, an inducement in the shape of the fine imposed
being held out to informers. The Militia Act was, of course, a
convenient weapon, and their refusal to pay tithes meant a perpetual
series of heavy distraints. It was a common trick with judges and
magistrates when they could find no legitimate ground of complaint, to
tender to Quakers the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and turn them
into law-breakers on the ground of their refusal to swear. Wales offered
the most ferocious persecution suffered by them in these islands, but
the Welsh converts furnished Pennsylvania with a fine group of vigorous,
industrious colonists.
In 1654 the "new doctrine" was brought to the South by some sixty
travelling missionaries. The Universities, inflamed, no doubt, in
advance by the report of the Quaker scorn of wisdom and high
"notions"--having already revenged themselves upon four Quaker girls who
were the first to "publish truth" in the colleges and churches,
Cambridge following up the savagery of the students by public flogging,
Oxford by ducking--had little but rage and evil treatment for the
missionaries. Amongst the few converts made in Oxford, however, was the
man who, in his turn, brought William Penn into the Quaker fold. In
pious London, sunk in theological strife, the obscure Waiters, Ranters,
and Seekers were the most favourable soil.
The Quakers, however, worked everywhere, ploughing up the land, calling
men to cease the strife of words, and to wait before the Lord for living
experience.
They had come down in June, and in August were so far settled as to
undertake expansion east and west. The east, a stronghold of Puritanism,
was less receptive than the western country, where Seekers abounded and
convincements took place by hundreds.
Ireland was broken into by William Edmondson, an ex-Cromwellian soldier.
The country was in process of being "settled" by English colonists, who,
most of them being either Baptists or Independents, were already a
sufficient source of irritation, and the progress of the new message was
slow, and met with a persecution, borrowing much of its bitterness from
the state of nervous fear prevailing amongst the civil and military
authorities. For a time there was an attempt systematically to exclude
Friends from the country, but it gave way before the zeal and simplicity
of the preachers, and Quakerism, gaining most of its early converts from
the army, became in the end a rapidly expanding force.
In Scotland Quaker teaching progressed slowly. By 1656 the Continent had
been attacked, Holland and Germany, Austria and Hungary, Adrianople,
where a young girl who had gone out alone reasoned with the Sultan, and
was told that she spoke truth, and asked to remain in the country;
Rome--where John Love was given up by the Jesuits to the Inquisition,
examined by the Pope, and hanged--the Morea, and Smyrna, and Alexandria
were visited. Many attempts were made to land at the Levantine ports,
most of which were, however, frustrated by English consuls and
merchants; George Robinson reached Jerusalem, and came near to meeting
his death at the hands of the Turks; and the first isolated attempt had
been made in the West Indies and America. These activities and
expansions were helped forward and confirmed by Fox during the intervals
between his many imprisonments. He spent altogether some six years in
prison. For the rest, his life was one long missionary enterprise, and
during his detentions he worked unceasingly.
He early recognized the need of a definite church organization, and
matured a system whose final acceptance by the society as a whole was
helped on by an incident occurring during his eight months' confinement
in Launceston gaol.[9] James Nayler, one of the sweetest and ablest of
Quaker writers and preachers, of an acutely "suggestible" temperament,
and less stable than his followers, unsettled by the success attending
his work both in the north and the south and by the adulations of some
of the more excitable of his fellow-workers, permitted on the occasion
of his entry into Bristol a triumphant procession, the singing of
hosannas, and Messianic worship. It is noteworthy that of the thousand
odd Quakers in Bristol at the time not one took any part in the
outbreak. The matter was taken up by Parliament, a committee was
appointed, and Nayler came near being put to death for blasphemy. He
suffered in the pillory, was whipped through London and Bristol, his
tongue was bored, his forehead branded, and he was kept in prison for
three years. He made full public recantation of his errors, and enjoyed
full communion with the society which had never repudiated him,
recognizing even in his time of aberration the fine spiritual character
of the man. This incident, loaded with publicity, brought much
discouragement to Friends; but it also showed them their need of the
organization and discipline insisted upon by Fox. And so the Quaker
church--the most flexible of all religious organizations--came into
being.
[Footnote 9: Part of which was spent in a dungeon reserved for witches
and murderers, and left uncleansed year after year.]
CHAPTER III
THE QUAKER CHURCH
At the heart of the Quaker church is "meeting"--the silent Quaker
meeting so long a source of misunderstanding to those outside the body,
so clearly illuminated now for all who care to glance that way, by the
light of modern psychology. We have now at our disposal, marked out with
all the wealth of spatial terminology characteristic of that science, a
rough sketch of what takes place in our minds in moments of silent
attention. We are told, for instance, that when in everyday life our
attention is arrested by something standing out from the cinematograph
show of our accustomed surroundings, we fix upon this one point, and
everything else fades away to the "margin" of consciousness. The "thing"
which has had the power of so arresting us, of making a breach in the
normal, unnoticed rhythm of the senses, allows our "real self"--our
larger and deeper being, to which so many names have been given--to flow
up and flood the whole field of the surface intelligence. The typical
instances of this phenomenon are, of course, the effect upon the
individual of beauty on all its levels--the experience known as falling
in love and the experience of "conversion."
With most of us, beyond these more or less universal experiences, the
times of illumination are intermittent, fluctuating, imperfectly
accountable, and uncontrollable. The "artist" lives to a greater or less
degree in a perpetual state of illumination, in perpetual communication
with his larger self. But he remains within the universe constructed for
him by his senses, whose rhythm he never fully transcends. His thoughts
are those which the veil of sense calls into being, and though that veil
for him is woven far thinner above the mystery of life than it is for
most of us, it is there. Imprisoned in beauty, he is content to dwell,
reporting to his fellows the glory that he sees.
The religious genius, as represented pre-eminently by the great
mystics--those in whom the sense of an ultimate and essential goodness,
beauty, and truth, is the dominant characteristic--have consciously bent
all their energies to breaking through the veil of sense, to making a
journey to the heart of reality, to winning the freedom of the very
citadel of Life itself. Their method has invariably included what--again
borrowing from psychology--we must call the deliberate control of all
external stimuli, a swimming, so to say, against the whole tide of the
surface intelligence, and this in no negative sense, no mere sinking
into a state of undifferentiated consciousness, but rather, as we have
seen with Fox, a setting forth to seek something already
found--something whose presence is in some way independent of the normal
thinking and acting creature, something which has already proclaimed
itself in moments of heightened consciousness--in the case of the
religious temperament at "conversion."
Silence, bodily and mental, is necessarily the first step in this
direction. There is no other way of entering upon the difficult
enterprise of transcending the rhythms of sense, and this, and nothing
else, has been invariably the first step taken by the mystic upon his
pilgrimage. Skirting chasms of metaphor, abysses of negation and fear,
he has held along this narrowest of narrow ways.
But the early Quakers and the old-time mystics knew nothing of
scientific psychology. They arrived "naturally" at their method of
seeking in silence what modern thought is calling "the intuitive
principle of action"--"the independent spiritual life fulfilling itself
within humanity"--"the unformulated motive which is the greater part of
mind." Like every seeker, on whatever level, they were led by feeling.
Feeling passed into action. Thought followed in due course, and was
deposited as doctrine. They spoke, groping for symbols, of "the seed,"
"the light," "the true birth." In other words--lest we go too far with
psychology's trinity of thought, feeling, and will as separable
activities "doing the will"--they "knew the doctrine."
From this standpoint of obedience to the "inner light" they found
within, they "understood" what they saw around them, and brought a fresh
revelation to the world. "I was afraid of all company," says Fox during
his early trials, "for I saw them perfectly where they were, through the
love of God which let me see myself." For them the keynote of life is
what an independent uninstructed French mystic, Brother Lawrence,[10]
has called "the practice of the Presence of God," and the man to whom
the practical spade-work of the mystics, the art of introversion and
contemplation, the practice (very variously interpreted) of purgation,
the pathway that leads to "unknowing" and to union with what men have
called God, has not been entered on as a matter of living experience, is
no Quaker, no matter how pious, how philanthropically orthodox, how
"religious" he may be. In a meeting for worship he is a foreign body, an
unconverted person.
Side by side with the meeting for worship is the business meeting--a
monthly meeting which is the executive unit of the society. It is held
under the superintendence of a clerk, whose duty it is to embody the
results of discussions in a series of minutes (voting and applause are
unknown), and to send these up to the larger quarterly meeting of the
district--a group of monthly meetings--delegates being appointed by each
monthly meeting to secure representation. The meetings are open to all
members and to outsiders on application. Most local questions are
settled by the quarterly meetings, whose deliberations are on the same
plan as those of the monthly meetings. Questions affecting the society
as a whole, and matters otherwise of wide importance, go up to Yearly
Meeting--the General Assembly of the Society--where, as in the
subordinate meetings, decisions are reached by means of a taking by the
clerk of the general "sense" of the gathering after free discussion. The
decisions of Yearly Meeting are final. It issues periodically a Book of
Discipline, in which are embodied, in the form of epistles and other
documents, the general attitude of the society as a whole in matters of
belief and conduct. A number of sub-committees are perpetually at work
for special ends--social, philanthropic, etc.--and there is attached to
Yearly Meeting a standing committee known as the Meeting for Sufferings,
established in 1675 in the interest of the victims of persecution. It is
composed of representatives of quarterly meetings and of certain
officers. It is always engaged in the interest, not only of members of
the Quaker body in difficult circumstances, but of sufferers all over
the world. It does an enormous amount of unpublished work. Notorious, of
course, is the history of the party of Quakers who arrived in Paris on
the raising of the siege[11] with food and funds for the famine-stricken
town; less known is the constant quiet assistance, such as that rendered
to famine and plague districts and at the seat of war in various parts
of the world. There are two offices in the Quaker body: that of Elder,
whose duty it is to use discretion in acting as a restraining or
encouraging influence with younger members in their ministry; and that
of Overseer, exercising a general supervision over members of their
meeting, admonishing them, if it should be necessary, as to the payment
of just debts; the friendly settlement of "differences" about outward
things; the discouraging and, as far as possible, restraining legal
proceedings between members; "dealing" with any who may be conducting
themselves, either in business or in private life, in a way such as to
bring discredit upon their profession; caring for the poor, securing
maintenance for them where necessary, and assisting them to educate
their children. When any person has been found to be specially helpful
in a meeting, and his or her ministry is recognized over a considerable
period of time as being a true ministry, exercised "in the spirit," such
a one is, after due deliberation, "acknowledged" or "recorded" as a
"minister." This acknowledgment, however, confers no special status upon
the individual, and implies no kind of appointment to preach or
otherwise to exercise any special function in the society. There is,
apparently, to-day a growing feeling against even this slight
recognition of ministry as also against the custom hitherto prevailing
of the special "bench" for Elders, which is usually on a raised dais,
and facing the meeting. Men and women work, both in government and in
ministry, side by side. Until the year 1907 they held their Yearly
Meeting separately,[12] with occasional joint sittings. Since then all
Yearly Meetings are held jointly, though the women's meetings are still
held for certain purposes.
[Footnote 10: Nicholas Hermann.]
[Footnote 11: 1870.]
The superficial structure of the society has existed, together with its
founder's system of the methodical recording of births, marriages, and
deaths, much as we know it to-day from the beginning.
The distinctive Quaker teaching--with its two main points, the direct
communication of truth to a man's own soul: the presence, in other
words, of a "seed of God" in every man; and the possibility here and now
of complete freedom from sin, together with the many subsidiary
testimonies, such as that against war, oaths, the exclusion of women
from the ministry, etc., depending from these points--has also survived
through many crises, and, in spite of the perpetual danger of being
overwhelmed by the Calvinism amidst which it was born, and which to this
day takes large toll of the society, and perpetually threatens the whole
group, is still represented in its original purity.
[Footnote 12: See chapter on Quakerism and Women.]
The Quakers have never, in spite of their deprecation of the written
word and their insistence on the secondariness of even the highest
"notions" and doctrines, been backward in defending their faith. They
sat at the feet of no man, nor did they desire that any man should sit
at theirs; but when they met, not merely at the hands of the wilder
sectaries, but from sober, godly people, with accusations of blasphemy,
when they were told that they denied Christ and the Scriptures, they
rose up and justified themselves. They were fully equal to those who
attacked them in the savoury vernacular of the period, in apocalyptic
metaphor, in trouncings and denunciations. Bunyan, their relentless
opponent throughout, is thus apostrophized by Burrough: "Alas for thee,
John Bunion! thy several months' travail in grief and pain is a
fruitless birth, and perishes as an untimely fig, and its praise is
blotted out among men, and it's passed away as smoke." But throughout
the vehemence of the Friends' controversial writings runs the sense of
fair play--the fearlessness of truth; the spirit, so to say, of
tolerance of every belief in the midst of their intolerance of an
"unvital" attitude in the believer. Their positive attitude to life,
their grand affirmation, redeems much that on other grounds seems
regrettable.
By the time the classical apologist of Quakerism--Robert Barclay, a
member of an ancient Scottish family, liberally educated at Aberdeen
College and in Paris, who had on his conversion forced himself to ride
through the streets of his city in sackcloth and ashes--had published
his book,[13] any justification of Quakerism had, from the point of view
of the laity at large, ceased to be necessary. They had had some thirty
years' experience of the fruits of the doctrine; they knew the Quakers
as neighbours; had scented something of the sweet fragrance of their
austerity; had wondered at their independence of happenings, their
freedom from fear, their centralized strength, their picking their way,
so to say, amongst the externalities of life with the calm assurance of
those who hold a clue where most men blunder, driven by fear or selfish
desire. They knew them, moreover, as untiringly available outside their
own circle on behalf of every sort of distress. The custodians, amateur
and official, of theology still preyed upon them, though many of these
were, no doubt, disarmed by the Puritan orthodoxy of the background upon
which Barclay's rationale of the Quaker's attitude is wrought.
[Footnote 13: _An Apology for the True Christian Divinity._ 1678.]
There is ample evidence that he was widely read, both in England and
abroad, and the fact that no one took up the challenge, though Baxter
and Bunyan were still living and working, may perhaps be accounted for
by the absence in the _Apology_ of any clear statement of the real
irreconcilability between Quakerism and attitudes that are primarily
doctrinal or institutional.
He accepts the scriptures as a secondary light, saying that they may not
be esteemed the "principal ground of all Truth and Knowledge, nor yet
the adequate primary rule of faith and manners," that they cannot go
before the teaching of the very spirit that makes them intelligible. He
maintains that the closing adjuration in the Book of Revelation refers
only to that particular prophecy, and is not intended to suggest that
prophecy is at an end. The ground of knowledge is immediate revelation,
which may not be "subjected to the examination either of the outward
Testimony of the Scripture or of the Natural Reason of Man as to a more
noble or certain Rule or Touchstone."
He considers that Augustine's doctrine of original sin was called out by
his zeal against the Pelagian exaltation of the natural light of reason.
He admits that man in sin--the natural man--can know no right; that,
therefore, the Socinians and Pelagians are convicted in exalting a
"natural light," but that, nevertheless, God in love gives universal
light, convicting of sin, and teaching if not resisted. He qualifies the
Quaker claim to the possibility of absolute present salvation from sin
by adding that there may be a falling off.
The whole of his argument displays the impossibility of rationalizing
the position to which the Quakers had felt their way in terms of the
absolute dualism of seventeenth-century philosophy. He places the
doctrines of natural sinfulness and of universal light side by side, and
so leaves them.
The logical instability of Quaker formulas due to the limitations of the
scientific philosophy of the day (not until the dawn of our own century
has a claim analogous to theirs been put forward on the intellectual
plane)--due, in other words, to the characteristic lagging of thought
behind life, while comparatively immaterial in the founders and leaders
of the Quaker movement, who were all mystics or mystically minded
persons, a variation of humanity, peculiar people gathered together,
with all their differences, by a common characteristic, seeing their
universe in the same terms urged towards unanimous activity--began to
bear fruit in the second generation. Mystical genius is not hereditary,
and to the comparatively imitative mass making up the later generations
the Inward Light becomes a doctrine, a conception as mechanical and
static as is the infallible Scripture to the imitative mass of the
Protestants.
We may not, of course, apply the term "imitative" in too absolute a
sense. All have the light. We are all mystics. We all live our lives on
our various levels, at first hand. But a full recognition of this fact
need not blind us to the further fact that, while those who have
mystical genius need no chart upon their journey, most of us need a
plain way traced out for us through the desert. Most of us follow the
gleam of doctrine thrown out by first-hand experience, and cling to that
as our guide. But if the Quaker message failed as theology, and the
later generations swung back to the simpler doctrine of Protestantism
and re-enthroned an infallible Scripture, something, nevertheless, had
been done. Within the precincts of Quakerism certain paths backwards
were, so to say, permanently blocked. A fresh type of conduct was
assured. The world, the environment in which the new lives of the group
were to arise, had been changed for ever.
The working out of the logical insecurity of the Quaker position is
interestingly shown in the person of George Keith, intellectually the
richest of the early Quakers, a man whose writings have been
acknowledged by his fellows, and would still stand if he had not left
the group, as amongst the best expositions of the Quaker attitude.
He was a Scotch Presbyterian, and seems to have joined the Quakers while
still a student at Aberdeen University. For nearly thirty years he was
under the spell of the Quaker reading of life, and lived during this
time well in the forefront of public discussion and persecution. We find
him writing books and pamphlets in and out of prison, full of the ardour
and the joy of his discovery that there are to-day immediate
revelations, speaking with delight of the meaning and use of silence,
defending his new faith before Presbyterian divines and University
students, declaring that he found Friends "wiser than all the teachers I
ever formerly had been under."
It was not until after the death of Fox, when the first generation of
"born Friends" was growing up, that he began to express his sense of the
danger he saw ahead. Then we find him accusing Friends of neglecting the
historic evidences of their faith, of sacrificing the outer to the
inner. His main doctrinal divergence from them was his assertion that
salvation is impossible without the knowledge of and belief in the
historic Jesus. But doctrine was not his only difficulty. He went to the
very heart of the situation. He saw that the Quakers could never become
in the world what they hoped to be--a mystical church, a body of men
swayed without let or hindrance by the Divine Spirit, pioneers for the
world upon the upward way--unless they were willing to pay the price of
|
stuff and nonsense," was the monk's glose.
"No doubt your notion is sensible," observed the pawnbroker: "but
mine is the prettier."
Then Jurgen passed the Cistercian Abbey, and was approaching
Bellegarde, when he met a black gentleman, who saluted him and said:
"Thanks, Jurgen, for your good word."
"Who are you, and why do you thank me?" asks Jurgen.
"My name is no great matter. But you have a kind heart, Jurgen. May
your life be free from care!"
"Save us from hurt and harm, friend, but I am already married."
"Eh, sirs, and a fine clever poet like you!"
"Yet it is a long while now since I was a practising poet."
"Why, to be sure! You have the artistic temperament, which is not
exactly suited to the restrictions of domestic life. Then I suppose
your wife has her own personal opinion about poetry, Jurgen."
"Indeed, sir, her opinion would not bear repetition, for I am sure
you are unaccustomed to such language."
"This is very sad. I am afraid your wife does not quite understand
you, Jurgen."
"Sir," says Jurgen, astounded, "do you read people's inmost
thoughts?"
The black gentleman seemed much dejected. He pursed his lips, and
fell to counting upon his fingers: as they moved his sharp nails
glittered like flame-points.
"Now but this is a very deplorable thing," says the black gentleman,
"to have befallen the first person I have found ready to speak a
kind word for evil. And in all these centuries, too! Dear me, this
is a most regrettable instance of mismanagement! No matter, Jurgen,
the morning is brighter than the evening. How I will reward you, to
be sure!"
So Jurgen thanked the simple old creature politely. And when Jurgen
reached home his wife was nowhere to be seen. He looked on all sides
and questioned everyone, but to no avail. Dame Lisa had vanished in
the midst of getting supper ready--suddenly, completely and
inexplicably, just as (in Jurgen's figure) a windstorm passes and
leaves behind it a tranquillity which seems, by contrast, uncanny.
Nothing could explain the mystery, short of magic: and Jurgen on a
sudden recollected the black gentleman's queer promise. Jurgen
crossed himself.
"How unjustly now," says Jurgen, "do some people get an ill name for
gratitude! And now do I perceive how wise I am, always to speak
pleasantly of everybody, in this world of tale-bearers."
Then Jurgen prepared his own supper, went to bed, and slept soundly.
"I have implicit confidence," says he, "in Lisa. I have particular
confidence in her ability to take care of herself in any
surroundings."
That was all very well: but time passed, and presently it began to
be rumored that Dame Lisa walked on Morven. Her brother, who was a
grocer and a member of the town-council, went thither to see about
this report. And sure enough, there was Jurgen's wife walking in the
twilight and muttering incessantly.
"Fie, sister!" says the town-councillor, "this is very unseemly
conduct for a married woman, and a thing likely to be talked about."
"Follow me!" replied Dame Lisa. And the town-councillor followed her
a little way in the dusk, but when she came to Amneran Heath and
still went onward, he knew better than to follow.
Next evening the elder sister of Dame Lisa went to Morven. This
sister had married a notary, and was a shrewd woman. In consequence,
she took with her this evening a long wand of peeled willow-wood.
And there was Jurgen's wife walking in the twilight and muttering
incessantly.
"Fie, sister!" says the notary's wife, who was a shrewd woman, "and
do you not know that all this while Jurgen does his own sewing, and
is once more making eyes at Countess Dorothy?"
Dame Lisa shuddered; but she only said, "Follow me!"
And the notary's wife followed her to Amneran Heath, and across the
heath, to where a cave was. This was a place of abominable repute. A
lean hound came to meet them there in the twilight, lolling his
tongue: but the notary's wife struck thrice with her wand, and the
silent beast left them. And Dame Lisa passed silently into the cave,
and her sister turned and went home to her children, weeping.
So the next evening Jurgen himself came to Morven, because all his
wife's family assured him this was the manly thing to do. Jurgen
left the shop in charge of Urien Villemarche, who was a highly
efficient clerk. Jurgen followed his wife across Amneran Heath until
they reached the cave. Jurgen would willingly have been elsewhere.
For the hound squatted upon his haunches, and seemed to grin at
Jurgen; and there were other creatures abroad, that flew low in the
twilight, keeping close to the ground like owls; but they were
larger than owls and were more discomforting. And, moreover, all
this was just after sunset upon Walburga's Eve, when almost anything
is rather more than likely to happen.
So Jurgen said, a little peevishly: "Lisa, my dear, if you go into
the cave I will have to follow you, because it is the manly thing to
do. And you know how easily I take cold."
The voice of Dame Lisa, now, was thin and wailing, a curiously
changed voice. "There is a cross about your neck. You must throw
that away."
Jurgen was wearing such a cross, through motives of sentiment,
because it had once belonged to his dead mother. But now, to
pleasure his wife, he removed the trinket, and hung it on a barberry
bush; and with the reflection that this was likely to prove a
deplorable business, he followed Dame Lisa into the cave.
2.
Assumption of a Noted Garment
The tale tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen could see no one.
But the cave stretched straight forward, and downward, and at the
far end was a glow of light. Jurgen went on and on, and so came
presently to a centaur: and this surprised him not a little, because
Jurgen knew that centaurs were imaginary creatures.
Certainly they were curious to look at: for here was the body of a
fine bay horse, and rising from its shoulders, the sun-burnt body of
a young fellow who regarded Jurgen with grave and not unfriendly
eyes. The Centaur was lying beside a fire of cedar and juniper wood:
near him was a platter containing a liquid with which he was
anointing his hoofs. This stuff, as the Centaur rubbed it in with
his fingers, turned the appearance of his hoofs to gold.
"Hail, friend," says Jurgen, "if you be the work of God."
"Your protasis is not good Greek," observed the Centaur, "because in
Hellas we did not make such reservations. Besides, it is not so much
my origin as my destination which concerns you."
"Well, friend, and whither are you going?"
"To the garden between dawn and sunrise, Jurgen."
"Surely, now, but that is a fine name for a garden! and it is a
place I would take joy to be seeing."
"Up upon my back, Jurgen, and I will take you thither," says the
Centaur, and heaved to his feet. Then said the Centaur, when the
pawnbroker hesitated: "Because, as you must understand, there is no
other way. For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in
what men humorously called real life; so that of course only
imaginary creatures such as I can enter it."
"That sounds very reasonable," Jurgen estimated: "but as it happens,
I am looking for my wife, whom I suspect to have been carried off by
a devil, poor fellow!"
And Jurgen began to explain to the Centaur what had befallen.
The Centaur laughed. "It may be for that reason I am here. There is,
in any event, only one remedy in this matter. Above all devils--and
above all gods, they tell me, but certainly above all centaurs--is
the power of Koshchei the Deathless, who made things as they are."
"It is not always wholesome," Jurgen submitted, "to speak of
Koshchei. It seems especially undesirable in a dark place like
this."
"None the less, I suspect it is to him you must go for justice."
"I would prefer not doing that," said Jurgen, with unaffected
candor.
"You have my sympathy: but there is no question of preference where
Koshchei is concerned. Do you think, for example, that I am frowzing
in this underground place by my own choice? and knew your name by
accident?"
Jurgen was frightened, a little. "Well, well! but it is usually the
deuce and all, this doing of the manly thing. How, then, can I come
to Koshchei?"
"Roundabout," says the Centaur. "There is never any other way."
"And is the road to this garden roundabout?"
"Oh, very much so, inasmuch as it circumvents both destiny and
common-sense."
"Needs must, then," says Jurgen: "at all events, I am willing to
taste any drink once."
"You will be chilled, though, traveling as you are. For you and I
are going a queer way, in search of justice, over the grave of a
dream and through the malice of time. So you had best put on this
shirt above your other clothing."
"Indeed it is a fine snug shining garment, with curious figures on
it. I accept such raiment gladly. And whom shall I be thanking for
his kindness, now?"
"My name," said the Centaur, "is Nessus."
"Well, then, friend Nessus, I am at your service."
And in a trice Jurgen was on the Centaur's back, and the two of them
had somehow come out of the cave, and were crossing Amneran Heath.
So they passed into a wooded place, where the light of sunset yet
lingered, rather unaccountably. Now the Centaur went westward. And
now about the pawnbroker's shoulders and upon his breast and over
his lean arms glittered like a rainbow the many-colored shirt of
Nessus.
For a while they went through the woods, which were composed of big
trees standing a goodish distance from one another, with the
Centaur's gilded hoofs rustling and sinking in a thick carpet of
dead leaves, all gray and brown, in level stretches that were
unbroken by any undergrowth. And then they came to a white roadway
that extended due west, and so were done with the woods. Now
happened an incredible thing in which Jurgen would never have
believed had he not seen it with his own eyes: for now the Centaur
went so fast that he gained a little by a little upon the sun, thus
causing it to rise in the west a little by a little; and these two
sped westward in the glory of a departed sunset. The sun fell full
in Jurgen's face as he rode straight toward the west, so that he
blinked and closed his eyes, and looked first toward this side, then
the other. Thus it was that the country about him, and the persons
they were passing, were seen by him in quick bright flashes, like
pictures suddenly transmuted into other pictures; and all his
memories of this shining highway were, in consequence, always
confused and incoherent.
He wondered that there seemed to be so many young women along the
road to the garden. Here was a slim girl in white teasing a great
brown and yellow dog that leaped about her clumsily; here a girl sat
in the branches of a twisted and gnarled tree, and back of her was a
broad muddied river, copper-colored in the sun; and here shone the
fair head of a tall girl on horseback, who seemed to wait for
someone: in fine, the girls along the way were numberless, and
Jurgen thought he recollected one or two of them.
But the Centaur went so swiftly that Jurgen could not be sure.
3.
The Garden between Dawn and Sunrise
Thus it was that Jurgen and the Centaur came to the garden between
dawn and sunrise, entering this place in a fashion which it is not
convenient to record. But as they passed over the bridge three fled
before them, screaming. And when the life had been trampled out of
the small furry bodies which these three had misused, there was none
to oppose the Centaur's entry into the garden between dawn and
sunrise.
This was a wonderful garden: yet nothing therein was strange.
Instead, it seemed that everything hereabouts was heart-breakingly
familiar and very dear to Jurgen. For he had come to a broad lawn
which slanted northward to a well-remembered brook: and
multitudinous maples and locust-trees stood here and there,
irregularly, and were being played with very lazily by an irresolute
west wind, so that foliage seemed to toss and ripple everywhere like
green spray: but autumn was at hand, for the locust-trees were
dropping a Danaë's shower of small round yellow leaves. Around the
garden was an unforgotten circle of blue hills. And this was a place
of lucent twilight, unlit by either sun or stars, and with no
shadows anywhere in the diffused faint radiancy that revealed this
garden, which is not visible to any man except in the brief interval
between dawn and sunrise.
"Why, but it is Count Emmerick's garden at Storisende," says Jurgen,
"where I used to be having such fine times when I was a lad."
"I will wager," said Nessus, "that you did not use to walk alone in
this garden."
"Well, no; there was a girl."
"Just so," assented Nessus. "It is a local by-law: and here are
those who comply with it."
For now had come toward them, walking together in the dawn, a
handsome boy and girl. And the girl was incredibly beautiful,
because everybody in the garden saw her with the vision of the boy
who was with her. "I am Rudolph," said this boy, "and she is Anne."
"And are you happy here?" asked Jurgen.
"Oh, yes, sir, we are tolerably happy: but Anne's father is very
rich, and my mother is poor, so that we cannot be quite happy until
I have gone into foreign lands and come back with a great many lakhs
of rupees and pieces of eight."
"And what will you do with all this money, Rudolph?"
"My duty, sir, as I see it. But I inherit defective eyesight."
"God speed to you, Rudolph!" said Jurgen, "for many others are in
your plight."
Then came to Jurgen and the Centaur another boy with the small
blue-eyed person in whom he took delight. And this fat and indolent
looking boy informed them that he and the girl who was with him were
walking in the glaze of the red mustard jar, which Jurgen thought
was gibberish: and the fat boy said that he and the girl had decided
never to grow any older, which Jurgen said was excellent good sense
if only they could manage it.
"Oh, I can manage that," said this fat boy, reflectively, "if only I
do not find the managing of it uncomfortable."
Jurgen for a moment regarded him, and then gravely shook hands.
"I feel for you," said Jurgen, "for I perceive that you, too, are a
monstrous clever fellow: so life will get the best of you."
"But is not cleverness the main thing, sir?"
"Time will show you, my lad," says Jurgen, a little sorrowfully.
"And God speed to you, for many others are in your plight."
And a host of boys and girls did Jurgen see in the garden. And all
the faces that Jurgen saw were young and glad and very lovely and
quite heart-breakingly confident, as young persons beyond numbering
came toward Jurgen and passed him there, in the first glow of dawn:
so they all went exulting in the glory of their youth, and
foreknowing life to be a puny antagonist from whom one might take
very easily anything which one desired. And all passed in
couples--"as though they came from the Ark," said Jurgen. But the
Centaur said they followed a precedent which was far older than the
Ark.
"For in this garden," said the Centaur, "each man that ever lived
has sojourned for a little while, with no company save his
illusions. I must tell you again that in this garden are encountered
none but imaginary creatures. And stalwart persons take their hour
of recreation here, and go hence unaccompanied, to become aldermen
and respected merchants and bishops, and to be admired as captains
upon prancing horses, or even as kings upon tall thrones; each in
his station thinking not at all of the garden ever any more. But now
and then come timid persons, Jurgen, who fear to leave this garden
without an escort: so these must need go hence with one or another
imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, because
imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways,
and shun them. Thus must these timid persons skulk about obscurely
with their diffident and skittish guides, and they do not ever
venture willingly into the thronged places where men get horses and
build thrones."
"And what becomes of these timid persons, Centaur?"
"Why, sometimes they spoil paper, Jurgen, and sometimes they spoil
human lives."
"Then are these accursed persons," Jurgen considered.
"You should know best," replied the Centaur.
"Oh, very probably," said Jurgen. "Meanwhile here is one who walks
alone in this garden, and I wonder to see the local by-laws thus
violated."
Now Nessus looked at Jurgen for a while without speaking: and in the
eyes of the Centaur was so much of comprehension and compassion that
it troubled Jurgen. For somehow it made Jurgen fidget and consider
this an unpleasantly personal way of looking at anybody.
"Yes, certainly," said the Centaur, "this woman walks alone. But
there is no help for her loneliness, since the lad who loved this
woman is dead."
"Nessus, I am willing to be reasonably sorry about it. Still, is
there any need of pulling quite such a portentously long face? After
all, a great many other persons have died, off and on: and for
anything I can say to the contrary, this particular young fellow may
have been no especial loss to anybody."
Again the Centaur said, "You should know best."
4.
The Dorothy Who Did Not Understand
For now had come to Jurgen and the Centaur a gold-haired woman,
clothed all in white, and walking alone. She was tall, and lovely
and tender to regard: and hers was not the red and white comeliness
of many ladies that were famed for beauty, but rather it had the
even glow of ivory. Her nose was large and high in the bridge, her
flexible mouth was not of the smallest: and yet whatever other
persons might have said, to Jurgen this woman's countenance was in
all things perfect. Perhaps this was because he never saw her as she
was. For certainly the color of her eyes stayed a matter never
revealed to him: gray, blue or green, there was no saying: they
varied as does the sea; but always these eyes were lovely and
friendly and perturbing.
Jurgen remembered that: for Jurgen saw this was Count Emmerick's
second sister, Dorothy la Désirée, whom Jurgen very long ago (a many
years before he met Dame Lisa and set up in business as a
pawnbroker) had hymned in innumerable verses as Heart's Desire.
"And this is the only woman whom I ever loved," Jurgen remembered,
upon a sudden. For people cannot always be thinking of these
matters.
So he saluted her, with such deference as is due to a countess from
a tradesman, and yet with unforgotten tremors waking in his staid
body. But the strangest was yet to be seen, for he noted now that
this was not a handsome woman in middle life but a young girl.
"I do not understand," he said, aloud: "for you are Dorothy. And yet
it seems to me that you are not the Countess Dorothy who is Heitman
Michael's wife."
And the girl tossed her fair head, with that careless lovely gesture
which the Countess had forgotten. "Heitman Michael is well enough,
for a nobleman, and my brother is at me day and night to marry the
man: and certainly Heitman Michael's wife will go in satin and
diamonds at half the courts of Christendom, with many lackeys to
attend her. But I am not to be thus purchased."
"So you told a boy that I remember, very long ago. Yet you married
Heitman Michael, for all that, and in the teeth of a number of other
fine declarations."
"Oh, no, not I," said this Dorothy, wondering. "I never married
anybody. And Heitman Michael has never married anybody, either, old
as he is. For he is twenty-eight, and looks every day of it! But who
are you, friend, that have such curious notions about me?"
"That question I will answer, just as though it were put reasonably.
For surely you perceive I am Jurgen."
"I never knew but one Jurgen. And he is a young man, barely come of
age--" Then as she paused in speech, whatever was the matter upon
which this girl now meditated, her cheeks were tenderly colored by
the thought of it, and in her knowledge of this thing her eyes took
infinite joy.
And Jurgen understood. He had come back somehow to the Dorothy whom
he had loved: but departed, and past overtaking by the fleet hoofs
of centaurs, was the boy who had once loved this Dorothy, and who
had rhymed of her as his Heart's Desire: and in the garden there was
of this boy no trace. Instead, the girl was talking to a staid and
paunchy pawnbroker, of forty-and-something.
So Jurgen shrugged, and looked toward the Centaur: but Nessus had
discreetly wandered away from them, in search of four-leafed
clovers. Now the east had grown brighter, and its crimson began to
be colored with gold.
"Yes, I have heard of this other Jurgen," says the pawnbroker. "Oh,
Madame Dorothy, but it was he that loved you!"
"No more than I loved him. Through a whole summer have I loved
Jurgen."
And the knowledge that this girl spoke a wondrous truth was now to
Jurgen a joy that was keen as pain. And he stood motionless for a
while, scowling and biting his lips.
"I wonder how long the poor devil loved you! He also loved for a
whole summer, it may be. And yet again, it may be that he loved you
all his life. For twenty years and for more than twenty years I have
debated the matter: and I am as well informed as when I started."
"But, friend, you talk in riddles."
"Is not that customary when age talks with youth? For I am an old
fellow, in my forties: and you, as I know now, are near
eighteen,--or rather, four months short of being eighteen, for it is
August. Nay, more, it is the August of a year I had not looked ever
to see again; and again Dom Manuel reigns over us, that man of iron
whom I saw die so horribly. All this seems very improbable."
Then Jurgen meditated for a while. He shrugged.
"Well, and what could anybody expect me to do about it? Somehow it
has befallen that I, who am but the shadow of what I was, now walk
among shadows, and we converse with the thin intonations of dead
persons. For, Madame Dorothy, you who are not yet eighteen, in this
same garden there was once a boy who loved a girl, with such love as
it puzzles me to think of now. I believe that she loved him. Yes,
certainly it is a cordial to the tired and battered heart which
nowadays pumps blood for me, to think that for a little while, for a
whole summer, these two were as brave and comely and clean a pair of
sweethearts as the world has known."
Thus Jurgen spoke. But his thought was that this was a girl whose
equal for loveliness and delight was not to be found between two
oceans. Long and long ago that doubtfulness of himself which was
closer to him than his skin had fretted Jurgen into believing the
Dorothy he had loved was but a piece of his imaginings. But
certainly this girl was real. And sweet she was, and innocent she
was, and light of heart and feet, beyond the reach of any man's
inventiveness. No, Jurgen had not invented her; and it strangely
contented him to know as much.
"Tell me your story, sir," says she, "for I love all romances."
"Ah, my dear child, but I cannot tell you very well of just what
happened. As I look back, there is a blinding glory of green woods
and lawns and moonlit nights and dance music and unreasonable
laughter. I remember her hair and eyes, and the curving and the feel
of her red mouth, and once when I was bolder than ordinary--But that
is hardly worth raking up at this late day. Well, I see these things
in memory as plainly as I now seem to see your face: but I can
recollect hardly anything she said. Perhaps, now I think of it, she
was not very intelligent, and said nothing worth remembering. But
the boy loved her, and was happy, because her lips and heart were
his, and he, as the saying is, had plucked a diamond from the
world's ring. True, she was a count's daughter and the sister of a
count: but in those days the boy quite firmly intended to become a
duke or an emperor or something of that sort, so the transient
discrepancy did not worry them."
"I know. Why, Jurgen is going to be a duke, too," says she, very
proudly, "though he did think, a great while ago, before he knew me,
of being a cardinal, on account of the robes. But cardinals are not
allowed to marry, you see--And I am forgetting your story, too! What
happened then?"
"They parted in September--with what vows it hardly matters now--and
the boy went into Gâtinais, to win his spurs under the old Vidame de
Soyecourt. And presently--oh, a good while before Christmas!--came
the news that Dorothy la Désirée had married rich Heitman Michael."
"But that is what I am called! And as you know, there is a Heitman
Michael who is always plaguing me. Is that not strange! for you tell
me all this happened a great while ago."
"Indeed, the story is very old, and old it was when Methuselah was
teething. There is no older and more common story anywhere. As the
sequel, it would be heroic to tell you this boy's life was ruined.
But I do not think it was. Instead, he had learned all of a sudden
that which at twenty-one is heady knowledge. That was the hour which
taught him sorrow and rage, and sneering, too, for a redemption. Oh,
it was armor that hour brought him, and a humor to use it, because
no woman now could hurt him very seriously. No, never any more!"
"Ah, the poor boy!" she said, divinely tender, and smiling as a
goddess smiles, not quite in mirth.
"Well, women, as he knew by experience now, were the pleasantest of
playfellows. So he began to play. Rampaging through the world he
went in the pride of his youth and in the armor of his hurt. And
songs he made for the pleasure of kings, and sword-play he made for
the pleasure of men, and a whispering he made for the pleasure of
women, in places where renown was, and where he trod boldly, giving
pleasure to everybody, in those fine days. But the whispering, and
all that followed the whispering, was his best game, and the game he
played for the longest while, with many brightly colored playmates
who took the game more seriously than he did. And their faith in the
game's importance, and in him and his high-sounding nonsense, he
very often found amusing: and in their other chattels too he took
his natural pleasure. Then, when he had played sufficiently, he held
a consultation with divers waning appetites; and he married the
handsome daughter of an estimable pawnbroker in a fair line of
business. And he lived with his wife very much as two people
customarily live together. So, all in all, I would not say his life
was ruined."
"Why, then, it was," said Dorothy. She stirred uneasily, with an
impatient sigh; and you saw that she was vaguely puzzled. "Oh, but
somehow I think you are a very horrible old man: and you seem doubly
horrible in that glittering queer garment you are wearing."
"No woman ever praised a woman's handiwork, and each of you is
particularly severe upon her own. But you are interrupting the
saga."
"I do not see"--and those large bright eyes of which the color was
so indeterminable and so dear to Jurgen, seemed even larger
now--"but I do not see how there could well be any more."
"Still, human hearts survive the benediction of the priest, as you may
perceive any day. This man, at least, inherited his father-in-law's
business, and found it, quite as he had anticipated, the fittest of
vocations for a cashiered poet. And so, I suppose, he was content. Ah,
yes; but after a while Heitman Michael returned from foreign parts,
along with his lackeys, and plate, and chest upon chest of merchandise,
and his fine horses, and his wife. And he who had been her lover could
see her now, after so many years, whenever he liked. She was a handsome
stranger. That was all. She was rather stupid. She was nothing
remarkable, one way or another. This respectable pawnbroker saw that
quite plainly: day by day he writhed under the knowledge. Because, as
I must tell you, he could not retain composure in her presence, even
now. No, he was never able to do that."
The girl somewhat condensed her brows over this information. "You
mean that he still loved her. Why, but of course!"
"My child," says Jurgen, now with a reproving forefinger, "you are
an incurable romanticist. The man disliked her and despised her. At
any event, he assured himself that he did. Well, even so, this
handsome stupid stranger held his eyes, and muddled his thoughts,
and put errors into his accounts: and when he touched her hand he
did not sleep that night as he was used to sleep. Thus he saw her,
day after day. And they whispered that this handsome and stupid
stranger had a liking for young men who aided her artfully to
deceive her husband: but she never showed any such favor to the
respectable pawnbroker. For youth had gone out of him, and it seemed
that nothing in particular happened. Well, that was his saga. About
her I do not know. And I shall never know! But certainly she got the
name of deceiving Heitman Michael with two young men, or with five
young men it might be, but never with a respectable pawnbroker."
"I think that is an exceedingly cynical and stupid story," observed
the girl. "And so I shall be off to look for Jurgen. For he makes
love very amusingly," says Dorothy, with the sweetest, loveliest
meditative smile that ever was lost to heaven.
And a madness came upon Jurgen, there in the garden between dawn and
sunrise, and a disbelief in such injustice as now seemed incredible.
"No, Heart's Desire," he cried, "I will not let you go. For you are
dear and pure and faithful, and all my evil dream, wherein you were
a wanton and be-fooled me, was not true. Surely, mine was a dream
that can never be true so long as there is any justice upon earth.
Why, there is no imaginable God who would permit a boy to be robbed
of that which in my evil dream was taken from me!"
"And still I cannot understand your talking, about this dream of
yours--!"
"Why, it seemed to me I had lost the most of myself; and there was
left only a brain which played with ideas, and a body that went
delicately down pleasant ways. And I could not believe as my fellows
believed, nor could I love them, nor could I detect anything in
aught they said or did save their exceeding folly: for I had lost
their cordial common faith in the importance of what use they made
of half-hours and months and years; and because a jill-flirt had
opened my eyes so that they saw too much, I had lost faith in the
importance of my own actions, too. There was a little time of which
the passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable
darkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere. Now tell
me, Heart's Desire, but was not that a foolish dream? For these
things never happened. Why, it would not be fair if these things
ever happened!"
And the girl's eyes were wide and puzzled and a little frightened.
"I do not understand what you are saying: and there is that about
you which troubles me unspeakably. For you call me by the name which
none but Jurgen used, and it seems to me that you are Jurgen; and
yet you are not Jurgen."
"But I am truly Jurgen. And look you, I have done what never any man
has done before! For I have won back to that first love whom every
man must lose, no matter whom he marries. I have come back again,
passing very swiftly over the grave of a dream and through the
malice of time, to my Heart's Desire! And how strange it seems that
I did not know this thing was inevitable!"
"Still, friend, I do not understand you."
"Why, but I yawned and fretted in preparation for some great and
beautiful adventure which was to befall me by and by, and dazedly I
toiled forward. Whereas behind me all the while was the garden
between dawn and sunrise, and therein you awaited me! Now assuredly,
the life of every man is a quaintly builded tale, in which the right
and proper ending comes first. Thereafter time runs forward, not as
schoolmen fable in a straight line, but in a vast closed curve,
returning to the place of its starting. And it is by a dim
foreknowledge of this, by some faint prescience of justice and
reparation being given them by and by, that men have heart to live.
For I know now that I have always known this thing. What else was
living good for unless it brought me back to you?"
But the girl shook her small glittering head, very sadly. "I do not
understand you, and I fear you. For you talk foolishness and in your
face I see the face of Jurgen as one might see the face of a dead
man drowned in muddy water."
"Yet am I truly Jurgen, and, as it seems to me, for the first time
since we were parted. For I am strong and admirable--even I, who
sneered and played so long, because I thought myself a thing of
no worth at all. That which has been since you and I were young
together is as a mist that passes: and I am strong and admirable,
and all my being is one vast hunger for you, my dearest, and I will
not let you go, for you, and you alone, are my Heart's Desire."
Now the girl was looking at him very steadily, with a small puzzled
frown, and with her vivid young soft lips a little parted. And all
her tender loveliness was glorified by the light of a sky that
|
sure to build them exactly opposite each other, that is,
cells are built on opposite sides of the comb. Yet these cells can be
removed; but in separating them the knife must pass through the base of
one of the cells; damage that is easily repaired by a little warm bee’s
wax.
With the above minor exceptions, the nucleus system as above given is
very good. For rearing queens on a small scale, I consider the above
method as good and as practical as can be desired. Such queens will be
found large, long-lived and in every way will equal those reared under
the swarming impulse. If you desire to practice and experiment in
queen-rearing, do not be afraid to try it. It is a good way for the
novice to start in on rearing queens.
Removing the queen from a full colony of bees is practically the same
method as above given; the difference is, however, that no more queen’s
cells are likely to be made than in a three-frame nucleus, and I hardly
think one could get any better results by the full colony plan in the
end. I very much prefer the nucleus system for rearing only a few
queens, and it will be found much less trouble and much less expensive.
REARING QUEENS ON A LARGE SCALE
I think I have given as much advice as a novice will need on the subject
of rearing a few queens, and will now describe how to rear queens by the
thousands.
In this system a much smaller hive is used for nucleus colonies for
keeping the queens until they have become fertile. The little hives, or
boxes, used in my apiary have always worked as well with me as standard
frames. The reader can do as he pleases about using them, but I advise
testing the system and judging for ones self as to its merits.
Bear in mind that I am not laying down any stereotyped system of
queen-rearing. I shall give only that part of my long experience that
will prove of value to the inexperienced bee-keeper who desires to enter
queen-rearing; and I hope it will result in the production of much
better queen bees than many that are now being reared and sold. I advise
the reader to carry out any experiments that this work may suggest to
his mind. If any of my readers can improve upon the methods herein
given, I advise them, by all means, to do so.
I shall hold back nothing, but give in this work a full description and
explanation of every valuable point I have found in my forty years’
experience in rearing queen bees for the bee-keepers of the world. In
connection with this business I have conducted hundreds of experiments
that were found to be impractical and of no value.
I think many bee-keepers are in too much of a hurry to rush into print,
when they are seized with an idea that they have made a valuable and
important discovery in apiculture. When important discoveries are made
it is time enough to make them public after a thorough test.
Well, I could go on and spread this story out over 200 pages of this
size, but I think a more condensed form will be more comprehensive and
better in every way, therefore I will get down to the point at once and
drop the lecture part of the subject.
PROPER CONDITION OF THE APIARY WHEN QUEEN-REARING IS COMMENCED
All who undertake to rear queens should understand that before such work
should begin the whole apiary should be put in the highest state of
prosperity; and the colonies to be used in queen-rearing made very
strong in numbers. The combs of all cell-building colonies should be
well filled with honey and pollen. It would be the merest folly to
attempt to rear queens when the whole or even a part of the apiary is in
a state of semi-starvation. So you see queen-rearing should not be
commenced in the spring until the weather is quite warm and the bees
have had a chance to breed up, fill all combs with brood and gather
nectar from the early bloom. Give the bees time enough on the early
bloom to get the swarming fever on.
Here in New England, in Massachusetts particularly, the 8th of May is
about as early as it is safe to commence to rear queens. However, if the
weather is fairly warm in April and the first week of May, colonies can
be so fed and stimulated that they may think it is about time to get
ready to swarm. By the way, I have heard of swarms issuing as early as
the 10th of May, and had one swarm on May 10, 1902.
Now here is a point at the start that should not be lost sight of. In
breeding queen bees the same rules should be observed as in the breeding
of animals. If desired to rear a colt, calf, chicken or any other
animal, the parents selected are not taken from scrubs or inferior
stock. The very best are selected. The same principle applies to bees.
Now for a queen mother take the best queen in the apiary, also for a
drone mother equal care should be taken to obtain the best. Of course in
the selection of the mother queen color and beauty are important factors
to be considered, and so is prolificness, longevity, and honey-gathering
qualities. It takes pretty good stock to combine all the above named
points. As for gentleness I find almost any strain of bees docile enough
to be handled with the use of a good bellows smoker. However, bees that
have vigorous dispositions are usually good honey-gatherers, and no
queen need be rejected as a breeder on account of the vicious
disposition of her worker progeny. Only an occasional queen breeds
vicious bees, and this trait is but seldom transmitted to offspring.
TO PROCURE EGGS FOR CELL-BUILDING; WHERE TO KEEP THE BREEDING-QUEEN
If only a few queens are to be reared, the mother bee may be kept in a
full colony; and if a few dozen queens only are required, I advise
placing a comb that the queens have used once or twice for brood in the
centre of a large colony. In about five days this comb should contain
several thousand eggs. Now some good queens can be reared on this comb
by the plan given as the nucleus system; but if you like to work with
bees for amusement and experiment, try the plan I shall now give.
When a large number of queens are to be reared, it will be found a good
plan to keep the breeding queen in a small hive having frames about five
inches square, with five frames to a hive. I have used such an
arrangement a great many years as above stated, and find it superior, in
many ways to a full sized frame for getting eggs for cell-building. By
this plan no combs are cut or mutilated when a few eggs are wanted,
whereas if full frames are used many good combs will necessarily be
destroyed during the season. Then again, it is very much more trouble
and work to open a large hive than a small one when necessary to have
some eggs to use. Any person rearing queens feels the need of time
saving devices, as there is always something to do when queen-rearing is
going on; I have found it so every day during the season.
One of the small combs will contain enough eggs for fifty queen-cells,
and a good prolific queen will fill such a comb and put an egg in every
cell during each twenty-four hours. Does not the reader see that by this
arrangement there are always fresh eggs at hand, and the exact age of
the eggs can be known to within almost an hour?
This one thing alone is a great point with me in my system of
queen-rearing, as I can know, and so can any one who practices this
method, just when to prepare bees for cell-building.
If a comb containing eggs is removed every day and a clean comb inserted
in its place, cell-building can go on every day in the week; and that is
the right way to do if a supply of queens is to be kept up to meet the
demands of customers whose orders come by every mail.
Now it may be that one queen will not supply all the eggs needed, or
that it is desired to rear more than one strain of queens. When this is
so, more breeding queens may be used, and they may be kept in small
hives. I have found that one good queen will supply enough eggs for 1500
young queens in one season.
[Illustration: Figure 1]
HOW TO START THE QUEEN-BREEDER COLONY
I will now describe the hive, fig. 1, for keeping the breeding queen in,
and give the dimensions of all the parts so that any one can make the
entire thing. Sides of hive, 6 in. high × 7¾ in. long × ½ in. thick;
ends, 6 × 6 in., ⅞ in. thick. Make rabbit for frames to rest on ½ × ½
in. in the 6 × 6 × ⅞ in. thick pieces. As the top bar of frame is but ¼
in. thick, there will be a bee-space of ¼ in. between the cover of the
hive and the top of the frame, and plenty of room under the frames for
the bees to cluster and be kept out of the way while the combs are being
handled. The bottom of the hive is 9 × 8¾ in. × ⅞ in. thick and is
nailed firmly to the bottom of the box. The top, or cover, is the same
as the bottom only there are two 1 × ⅞ in. thick clamps nailed on to
prevent the board from warping. Use ⅞ in. boards for the entire hive,
excepting the sides, as these hives must necessarily be out in all sorts
of weather, and rest upon the ground.
It will be found that the width of the hive allows for more room than a
regular bee-space for four frames, but this is quite an advantage when
handling the frames, as just a bee-space does not allow sufficient room
for easy handling the combs; and if they go in closely the queen and
many of the bees may be crushed when the frames are removed.
The dimensions of the frames are as follows: Top bar 6½ × ⅞ × ¼ in.;
bottom bar 5½ × ⅞ × ¼ in.; end pieces 5½ × ⅞ × ¼ in. The top and bottom
bars are nailed to the end pieces. A block is used to form them on when
nailed, so that when the frames are put up they are all alike.
To stock this hive with bees, brood, stores and queen, remove from a
full colony one comb containing brood in all stages of maturity with the
queen and adhering bees. Place the hive on the grass, or a cloth, and
brush the bees from the comb directly in front of it. They will at once
run in, or, at any rate, stay about the hive until the combs are
transferred to the small frames. To cut the combs in the small frames,
lay the full comb on a clean board, place one of the little frames over
it, and with a sharp knife cut the brood into the frame. If nicely done
no strings or sticks will be needed to keep the brood in the frame. One
of the combs should contain honey, pollen, etc.
The bees will soon repair the damage done the combs and brood, and, in
the course of 24 hours, this colony will be in condition for the
business of producing eggs for queen-rearing.
If any clean and nearly new pieces of comb about the size of the nucleus
frame are at hand use them for the breeding-queen to deposit eggs in.
Never place the empty comb at the side of the hive. The queen will
utilize it at once if placed near the centre of the brood-nest.
In four days after inserting the comb it will be filled with eggs and
larvae in just the light condition for cell-building and queen-rearing.
From this time on a new comb can be given the nucleus each day. If
desired to start cell-building every day in the week, eggs will always
be found in the right condition for use if the above instructions are
followed.
Now, I dislike the bother of starting queens every day. To avoid doing
so and still have plenty of eggs, I use three breeding queens and start
cell-building every fourth day. I like the idea of having hundreds of
queen-cells growing at one time. Then when queens hatch they come in
large numbers, and can be sent out by mail in the same proportion. A
large queen-dealer cannot do a successful business on a small scale. He
must branch out and have queens by the hundreds on hand at any time
during the season from which he can draw a supply of fertile queens when
orders are to be filled.
PREPARING A COLONY OF BEES FOR QUEEN-CELL BUILDING
I think I have made the matter of getting eggs for queen-cells so clear
that all may understand how to proceed, and now will give several
methods for preparing colonies of bees for queen-cell building.
I have always worked on the theory that bees should be put in proper
condition for rearing queens several hours before any eggs are given
them from which they may rear queens. The entire colony should be put in
a “broody” state by dequeening and then given six hours at least to
realize their queenless condition. There are three ways for doing this.
[Illustration: Figure 2]
METHOD NUMBER ONE
Before giving any of the methods I will describe some of the necessary
apparatus to use in this arrangement. One of the handiest things for use
in the apiary is a wire screen shown in fig. 2. This screen is made in
about the same style as a common window screen and the size of the top
of the brood-nest of the hive. I always have at hand some half dozen of
these wire covers and they come into use many times when necessary to
confine bees in the hive.
Now when ready to “seize” a colony of bees for the purpose of forcing
them to rear queens against their natural will, proceed in this way: If
a colony working in sections is selected, the super should be removed
the previous day and all the bees allowed to return to the hive. When
the sections are taken off place the screen on and just fasten it by one
or two small nails. The next morning fasten the bees in by using a
similar screen and suitable for confining the bees so that none can
escape. Now the colony is ready to be taken to the bee-room and all the
bees removed from the hive and combs. To the novice this may seem like a
huge undertaking, yet it is not and does not require one half the time
to perform as it does to describe it so that it can be understood.
I so arrange my workshop that all the above work is easily and quickly
done. When the hive is taken to the bee-room it is placed on the cap of
a hive and then I just sit down and at once commence operations. The
first thing is to give the bees tobacco smoke at the entrance as well as
some at the top through the screen, all the while drum on the hive, or
excite the bees by striking the hands on the sides of the hive. This
causes the bees to fill with honey and in the course of ten minutes they
are ready and in condition to be brushed from the combs into a box where
they will remain quiet until all are removed from the combs and hive.
The screen is first removed from the top, the bees shaken from it, then
the combs are taken out, one at a time, and all the bees brushed from
them into a hive-cap. While doing this work some of the bees may attempt
to fly, or crawl up the sides of the cap, if they do, more smoke is
blown among them, when they soon quiet down and remain so for quite
awhile. When all the bees have been removed, the queen should be hunted
up. If the work of finding the queen is rightly done, it will not
require but a few minutes to find her. Of course the bees must be pushed
over considerably in the operation. The best tool for such a purpose is
the wide part of a 4 × 4 section. Never use feathers or a small broom
for such work.
When the queen is found, the bees are forced into one end of the cap by
a sudden strike of the box on the floor, and then they are quickly
dumped into another box the exact size of the hive the bees were taken
from. This latter box has a wire-cloth bottom; the cover is a screen
same as above described. This arrangement gives the bees all needed air
while confined. It is necessary to nail three pieces of wood ⅞ inches
square across the bottom of the box so that the air will not be shut out
when the box is resting on anything. The bees are then put in a cool
place until the time arrives for giving them eggs for cell-building.
The bees disposed of, we now have all the brood of a strong colony to
take care of. Now for the first two or three colonies treated as above,
I divide the brood among the weaker colonies in the apiary. By this
operation, the light colonies soon become strong and in condition for
the first flow of honey. At this stage of the work, we have a colony of
queenless bees; the brood disposed of, and everything is in readiness
for starting the bees to building cell-cups in a natural and practical
way. We will now suppose the bees have been queenless six hours. The
next move is to get the frame, or piece of comb containing the eggs, cut
in strips and fasten in position so the bees will at once commence work
on cell-cups.
This work cannot be done in a cold room. Have in the workshop a
three-wick oil stove, not only for heating purposes but to use in other
necessary work in queen-rearing operation. Another thing that must be at
hand is a tin vessel in which there are equal parts of rosin and
bees-wax. Melt these on the oil stove, mix thoroughly and when quite hot
it will be ready for use.
[Illustration: Figure 3]
We will now suppose the comb containing eggs for queen-cells has been
taken from the hive and is at hand ready to be prepared. This is cut in
strips by using a thin, hot knife by the lines as shown in fig. 3. Now
the egg in each alternate cell of the strips should be removed in order
that sufficient room may be given for large queen-cells. I know of no
better way of doing this than by taking a common “scratch” match between
the thumb and fore finger, inserting the “scratch” end in the cell and
rapidly twirling it for a moment. This effectively destroys the egg as
shown in fig. 4.
[Illustration: Figure 4]
Now the next thing to do is to fasten the comb on strips of wood and in
such a position that the bees will construct a large number of
queen-cells. Fig. 5 illustrates three rows of completed queen-cells and
the manner of fastening the strips of comb to the wood. This is done by
lightly dipping the strips of comb in the wax mixture. Just touch the
edges of the cells of the opposite side of those in which the eggs were
destroyed and quickly place the comb on the wood.
The strips of wood mentioned here, but more fully described on another
page, are 1–4 inches thick, 1 inch wide and cut any length desired. The
queen-cells shown are fastened to such strips of wood described. The
cells illustrated are completed and nearly matured, or, in other words,
are about ripe. The illustration shows but few cells; this was owing to
the fact that they were built late in the season and from drawn
foundation, in fact, they were the last hatch of queen-cells of the
season 1902. Earlier in the summer, the bees under the same conditions
would have started many more queen-cells. However, the illustration is
the best one I have been able to obtain of completed queen-cells.
To go back to fastening the strips of eggs to the pieces of wood, will
say that when placing the strips in position if the comb is pressed down
a little harder at both ends than it is in the middle, it will be made a
little curving on the underside, thus giving more room for the
queen-cells. But this curving business must not be carried too far, as
too much curving will elongate the cells and the bees will remove the
egg from all such and but few queens would be reared.
The reader will appreciate the fact that it is almost impossible to lay
down any set rules, or to describe every little detail connected with
the rearing of queen bees.
I can give all the main points in the business, but those who rear
queens by them must use good judgment and a fair amount of common sense.
That is what is needed in the queen-rearing business. Experiment and
practice are as much needed in queen-rearing as in any other occupation
one is at work at.
A piece of nice worker comb 5 × 5 inches square will furnish all the
eggs a large colony of bees should be allowed to work into queen-cells.
Such a piece of comb if carefully cut will make about ten strips
containing a dozen or more eggs. Always give eggs in proportion to the
quantity of bees that are to do the work of cell-building.
[Illustration: Figure 5]
When the strips of comb are fastened to the sticks and in the frame,
they should be placed in a brood-box and the balance of the space of the
hive filled by combs of honey and pollen. In no case use combs that have
brood in them.
Now all being ready set the box of bees in a convenient place on the
floor: put the box of combs between yourself and the bees. With a sudden
drop of the box on the floor all the bees will go to the bottom and
before they can recover from their surprise, remove the cover, place it
on the box of combs and quickly place the combs over the box of bees.
Now all the labor is done excepting giving the bees water until the next
morning. All this work can be done without even one bee escaping in the
entire operation.
The bees can be left in the bee-room over night, and placed on the stand
about 10 o’clock the following day. Water may be supplied them while
confined by splashing a little over the frames and on the bees, through
the wire cover at the top.
When the bees are released they may be somewhat excited, not being
wholly reconciled to loss of their queen. To pacify them place a caged
queen at the entrance for a few hours, then they will quickly quiet down
and the queen can be taken away and all will go on as though nothing had
happened to the colony.
The bees are left 24 hours to build cell-cups, and then another thing
must be done if first-class queens are to be reared. Now the colony to
which the eggs are given will commence to build from 40 to 60 cell-cups,
or would rear from 40 to 60 queens if none of the cell-cups were
removed. But such a thing should never be permitted, as not one queen
out of all those reared would be of any good. Should the colony commence
to build 60 cell-cups, the proper thing to do would be to divide that
number of cells equally among three strong colonies of bees. Well, you
say, how can this be done? If at this time bees are gathering honey from
the fields and in a high state of success, the cell-cups can be placed
above a colony of bees as has been and is now practiced by many breeders
of queen-bees. I want it understood, however, that I do not so advise
anyone, as by the method to follow this very much better queens are
reared. Yet if bees are in a swarming mood, pretty good queens are
reared over the brood-nest.
I shall advise all not to rear queens by above method excepting at
swarming time, as under no other conditions can good queens be reared by
such a system when any kind of a queen is in the hive the bees occupy.
Of course, if a colony is about to supersede its queen, fairly good
queens are reared while a queen is in the colony.
Only a few of the queens reared under the supersedence process are
first-class. Bees do not seem to work with that interest when
superseding an old queen as they do when absolutely queenless, or are
about to cast a swarm.
THE THEORY OF USING YOUNG BEES IN QUEEN-REARING
I have given three methods of preparing bees for cell-building. The
final result is the same in all cases. The only difference being in the
manner of doing the work of preparing the bees. Now, how many of my
readers understand the correct theory of taking all the bees of a colony
for such work rather than only a part of it? Let me describe. Old bees
will not and cannot rear good queens; they will commence cell-cups and
complete queen-cells, but no strong queens will come from them.
Why is this so? Simply because old bees have passed from the stage of
nurses to the sphere of honey and pollen-gatherers, or out-door workers.
Old bees cannot prepare the proper food for nursing either worker or
queen-bee larvae.
What are considered old bees in this connection are those that have been
made queenless and kept so from three days to a week; such bees are of
no value as cell-builders, as after being queenless thirty-six hours
they seem to lose their enthusiasm and interest in the work.
Now as to the correct theory of taking _all_ the bees of a colony for
cell-building or for rearing queens. By such an operation every nurse
bee in the hive is taken, and this includes thousands of just hatched
bees that are maturing each day as nurse bees, thus keeping up a
constant supply of nurses.
How many of the readers of this work ever watched bees building
queen-cells in an observatory hive? Why, a queen-cell, until it is
capped is never without a worker bee’s head in it. The young bees keep a
constant watch over the little worm within, and it is supposed that each
bee that thrusts its head into the cell leaves a small amount of royal
jelly. You all know that every cell from which a strong and healthy
queen has emerged contains a lump of royal food as large as a pea. The
amount is greatly in excess of the needs of the royal occupant.
It is the young bees that do all the labor in the hive and in rearing
queens, and the more young bees there are engaged in the work the better
will be the quality of the queens reared.
By this the reader will understand why all the bees of a colony should
be used in building cell-cups and in completing queen-cells.
Has any one connected with the rearing of queen-bees ever before
explained this point in any book or publication?
Notwithstanding the fact that young bees are constantly maturing as
nurse bees, as above detailed, it is not good policy to compel any given
lot of bees to commence cell-cup building a second time. After once
starting one batch of cell-cups the interest and enthusiasm has
vanished, and pretty poor work will be done.
Hens, ducks and birds of all kinds will sit on their eggs for a time,
but there is a limit to the “broody” condition in all such cases. Hens
have been known to sit six weeks, or rather have been compelled to sit
long enough to “hatch out” a second brood of chickens. But in many such
cases the nest is deserted before the second lot of eggs mature. It’s
but little use to overwork Nature. Natural laws must be observed in all
such cases. This I have tried to apply to all my operations in
queen-rearing.
PREPARING BEES FOR CELL-BUILDING
METHOD NUMBER TWO
My favorite way of preparing bees for cell-building is given in Method
No. 1. No doubt many will say they cannot do any thing of the kind; ’tis
too fussy and takes too much time, etc. It is not fussy nor in any way
difficult to perform. However, I will give two other methods for
preparing bees for cell-building, making a colony queenless, etc.
We must start in the same as in case No. 1, that is, the sections must
be removed the day previous.
Now proceed in the usual way of “drumming out” a swarm. The proper way
to do this, and the way I practiced artificial swarming, or dividing a
colony of bees, is as follows: Blow rottenwood smoke among the bees
through the entrance; this so alarms the colony that all the bees
commence to fill their sacs with honey. By drumming on sides of the
hive, while smoking is being done, greatly helps in the operation.
When the bees seem ready to go up into the cap, more smoke should be
introduced and a vigorous drumming on the hive kept up. In this way
about two-thirds of the colony will run up into the cap. Now give them a
few minutes to sort of settle down and become quiet. Remove the cap,
invert it and throw a cloth over the box. Give the bees a few puffs of
tobacco smoke under the cloth. In a few minutes the cloth can be
removed, the queen hunted out and the bees dumped into a box same as
described in Method No. 1.
By this plan bees, in either box or frame hives, can be utilized for
queen-rearing. The queen can be re-introduced at once.
In a few hours, bees thus prepared, will be ready to build queen-cells
and all that is necessary to do is to proceed as in case of No. 1.
METHOD NUMBER THREE
Early in the morning remove the queen from a populous colony. At night
they will be in a proper condition for cell-building. When ready,
prepare the eggs and queen-rearing hive as given above. Remove the
queenless colony to a new stand, twenty feet away, and put the
queen-rearing hive in its place. Now after arranging to brush the bees
down in front of the latter hive, take out the combs of the queenless
colony and brush or shake, at least one-half of the bees in front of the
queen-rearing hive. They will all run in and at once commence to
construct queen-cells, and the next day will be seen working just the
same as if nothing had happened to them. The queen removed in the
morning may be given back to the old colony.
This operation so depopulates the colony that little will be done in the
supers for a week or ten days. But as the combs are filled with brood in
all stages, and as the queen is with them, the stock will soon recover
and get back in fine condition.
I have tried to make the above very clear. Of course it is all plain and
easy to me, but how other people can translate it so as to understand it
is the question. In none of the works I have published were the methods
made so clear, but nearly all who read these books have stated that they
had no trouble in rearing queens by the methods given.
The “Beekeepers’ Handy Book,” a work of nearly 200 pages, and “Thirty
Years Among the Bees” were treatises on queen-rearing published by me
within the last fifteen years. Some 5000 copies were issued and both
books are now out of print.
HOW TO REAR THE VERY BEST QUEENS
Of all the methods I have given or shall give for having cell-cups, or
queen-cells completed, none of them will compare with the one given
below. I believe this method is entirely new. Certain am I that it never
has appeared in any publication, nor has it even been brought to my
notice by anyone.
After reading what follows the reader will understand why I advised
letting queenless bees work on cell-cups from twelve to twenty-four
hours.
In the course of twelve hours after bees have worked on the queen cells,
remove the queen from one of the strongest colonies in the yard. Twelve
hours later remove one of the side combs from the hive and three or four
other combs laterally so as to leave space in the centre of the
brood-nest for one of the frames on which the queen-cells are started.
Now cover up with a super or in any way to suit the convenience of the
apiarist. Not later than five days remove the frame of completed
queen-cells to a queenless colony, replace the combs in the hive just as
they were at the start and reintroduce the queen and never mind about
looking the combs over for queen-cells, as the old queen will be well
received and will soon destroy all queen-cells that may have been
started.
Of course if there are cell-cups enough started by the queenless bees,
say 40 or 60, not less than three strong colonies should be prepared as
per above, as 20 queen-cells are as many as the largest stock of bees
should complete.
The above operation does not so disturb the bees that they will desert
the sections. In all this work it is better to be quiet and do the work
as quickly as possible. Also do as much of it at about sunset as that
late hour will permit.
NECESSITY OF QUEENLESS BEES
Right here will be found the necessity of queenless bees in the apiary.
Such colonies must care for the completed queen-cells when removed from
the colony that built them until such a time as the cells can be
transferred to nuclei or the nursery.
One doing a large queen-rearing business will need several queenless
colonies at all times. Not only must queenless bees be used in caring
for queen-cells, but for queens confined in the queen nursery.
When the bees are removed from a hive for the purpose of starting more
cell-cups, the bees that have just completed a batch of cells may be put
on the combs and a queen given them at once, and in a short time, say
two weeks, such a colony will be in as good condition as any in the
yard.
This thing can go all through the queen-rearing season. Only a few
colonies need be made queenless in the beginning, and then no colony
will of necessity need be queenless.
I would not advise using one colony for cell-building but once in four
weeks. It requires a lot of colonies to rear queens in the above way,
but the results are so satisfactory it will be found much the cheapest
in the end.
Good queens is the main point in queen-rearing. Never mind about the
cost. If the right methods are used in rearing queens, good queens will
cost no more than poor ones.
Bee-keepers the world over are interested in the subject of better
queens. We all know that queens to supply the demand must be reared by
what is called artificial methods. The best methods must be put in
practice if the bee-keeping public is to be satisfied. Cheap and
inferior queens have had their day, and those who rear the best will get
the business and they should have it, too.
FEEDING WHILE QUEEN-REARING IS GOING ON
It should be understood that when queen-rearing is going on and no
forage in the fields, feeding must be resorted to; a syrup composed of
honey and granulated sugar will answer all right for food. Feeding not
only keeps up the excitement, but the interest in the work the bees are
doing. Keep up a liberal supply until the cells are capped.
During the past season I conducted some experiments in feeding clear
honey and clear sugar syrup while cell-building was going on. The
results of my experiments clearly show that sugar syrup with some honey
is just as good to feed bees in queen-rearing as the best honey. This
fact I could not believe until I had made the above experiment;
therefore it will be seen that food has no influence whatever on the
quality of the queens reared. Other conditions and circumstances do have
a positive influence on the embryo queens; large colonies, thousands of
young bees, plenty of stores of both honey and pollen, and then when the
colony is put in fine condition for queen-rearing, the result is fine
queens. Observe all these conditions if success is desired.
THE QUEEN NURSERY AND HOW TO USE IT
One would naturally think that when a lot of ripe queen-cells are at
hand the thing to do would be to form nuclei for the reception of the
cells or young queens. It is not so in my case. I never allow queens to
hatch in nuclei. My reasons for this are many. I like to secure a large
number of queens, say 50 or 100, and critically examine each one to see
that they are all right before making up nucleus colonies.
All of my queens are hatched in nurseries and in such cages as
illustrated in fig. 6. The size of these cages is such that 35 of them
just fill one standard Langstroth frame having a thin top bar. These
cages are saw
|
her own
wash; as she had soaked it the day before, she must go and rinse it now.
So she arose and left the room.
Her tub and her board were on the bank of the Toucques. She threw a heap
of clothes on the ground, rolled up her sleeves and grasped her bat;
and her loud pounding could be heard in the neighbouring gardens. The
meadows were empty, the breeze wrinkled the stream, at the bottom of
which were long grasses that looked like the hair of corpses floating
in the water. She restrained her sorrow and was very brave until night;
but, when she had gone to her own room, she gave way to it, burying her
face in the pillow and pressing her two fists against her temples.
A long while afterward, she learned through Victor’s captain, the
circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had bled
him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors held him at
one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had said:
“Here goes another one!”
His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred not to see
them again, and they made no advances, either from forgetfulness or out
of innate hardness.
Virginia was growing weaker.
A cough, continual fever, oppressive breathing and spots on her cheeks
indicated some serious trouble. Monsieur Popart had advised a sojourn in
Provence. Madame Aubain decided that they would go, and she would have
had her daughter come home at once, had it not been for the climate of
Pont-l’Eveque.
She made an arrangement with a livery-stable man who drove her over to
the convent every Tuesday. In the garden there was a terrace, from which
the view extends to the Seine. Virginia walked in it, leaning on her
mother’s arm and treading the dead vine leaves. Sometimes the sun,
shining through the clouds, made her blink her lids, when she gazed at
the sails in the distance, and let her eyes roam over the horizon from
the chateau of Tancarville to the lighthouses of Havre. Then they rested
on the arbour. Her mother had bought a little cask of fine Malaga wine,
and Virginia, laughing at the idea of becoming intoxicated, would drink
a few drops of it, but never more.
Her strength returned. Autumn passed. Felicite began to reassure Madame
Aubain. But, one evening, when she returned home after an errand, she
met M. Boupart’s coach in front of the door; M. Boupart himself was
standing in the vestibule and Madame Aubain was tying the strings of her
bonnet. “Give me my foot-warmer, my purse and my gloves; and be quick
about it,” she said.
Virginia had congestion of the lungs; perhaps it was desperate.
“Not yet,” said the physician, and both got into the carriage, while the
snow fell in thick flakes. It was almost night and very cold.
Felicite rushed to the church to light a candle. Then she ran after the
coach which she overtook after an hour’s chase, sprang up behind and
held on to the straps. But suddenly a thought crossed her mind: “The
yard had been left open; supposing that burglars got in!” And down she
jumped.
The next morning, at daybreak, she called at the doctor’s. He had been
home, but had left again. Then she waited at the inn, thinking that
strangers might bring her a letter. At last, at daylight she took the
diligence for Lisieux.
The convent was at the end of a steep and narrow street. When she
arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a funeral
knell. “It must be for some one else,” thought she; and she pulled the
knocker violently.
After several minutes had elapsed, she heard footsteps, the door
was half opened and a nun appeared. The good sister, with an air of
compunction, told her that “she had just passed away.” And at the same
time the tolling of Saint-Leonard’s increased.
Felicite reached the second floor. Already at the threshold, she caught
sight of Virginia lying on her back, with clasped hands, her mouth open
and her head thrown back, beneath a black crucifix inclined toward her,
and stiff curtains which were less white than her face. Madame Aubain
lay at the foot of the couch, clasping it with her arms and uttering
groans of agony. The Mother Superior was standing on the right side of
the bed. The three candles on the bureau made red blurs, and the windows
were dimmed by the fog outside. The nuns carried Madame Aubain from the
room.
For two nights, Felicite never left the corpse. She would repeat the
same prayers, sprinkle holy water over the sheets, get up, come back
to the bed and contemplate the body. At the end of the first vigil, she
noticed that the face had taken on a yellow tinge, the lips grew blue,
the nose grew pinched, the eyes were sunken. She kissed them several
times and would not have been greatly astonished had Virginia opened
them; to souls like this the supernatural is always quite simple. She
washed her, wrapped her in a shroud, put her into the casket, laid a
wreath of flowers on her head and arranged her curls. They were blond
and of an extraordinary length for her age. Felicite cut off a big lock
and put half of it into her bosom, resolving never to part with it.
The body was taken to Pont-l’Eveque, according to Madame Aubain’s
wishes; she followed the hearse in a closed carriage.
After the ceremony it took three quarters of an hour to reach the
cemetery. Paul, sobbing, headed the procession; Monsieur Bourais
followed, and then came the principal inhabitants of the town, the women
covered with black capes, and Felicite. The memory of her nephew, and
the thought that she had not been able to render him these honours,
made her doubly unhappy, and she felt as if he were being buried with
Virginia.
Madame Aubain’s grief was uncontrollable. At first she rebelled against
God, thinking that he was unjust to have taken away her child--she who
had never done anything wrong, and whose conscience was so pure! But no!
she ought to have taken her South. Other doctors would have saved her.
She accused herself, prayed to be able to join her child, and cried in
the midst of her dreams. Of the latter, one more especially haunted her.
Her husband, dressed like a sailor, had come back from a long voyage,
and with tears in his eyes told her that he had received the order to
take Virginia away. Then they both consulted about a hiding-place.
Once she came in from the garden, all upset. A moment before (and she
showed the place), the father and daughter had appeared to her, one
after the other; they did nothing but look at her.
During several months she remained inert in her room. Felicite scolded
her gently; she must keep up for her son and also for the other one, for
“her memory.”
“Her memory!” replied Madame Aubain, as if she were just awakening, “Oh!
yes, yes, you do not forget her!” This was an allusion to the cemetery
where she had been expressly forbidden to go.
But Felicite went there every day. At four o’clock exactly, she would go
through the town, climb the hill, open the gate and arrive at Virginia’s
tomb. It was a small column of pink marble with a flat stone at its
base, and it was surrounded by a little plot enclosed by chains. The
flower-beds were bright with blossoms. Felicite watered their leaves,
renewed the gravel, and knelt on the ground in order to till the earth
properly. When Madame Aubain was able to visit the cemetery she felt
very much relieved and consoled.
Years passed, all alike and marked by no other events than the return
of the great church holidays: Easter, Assumption, All Saints’ Day.
Household happenings constituted the only data to which in later years
they often referred. Thus, in 1825, workmen painted the vestibule; in
1827, a portion of the roof almost killed a man by falling into the
yard. In the summer of 1828, it was Madame’s turn to offer the hallowed
bread; at that time, Bourais disappeared mysteriously; and the
old acquaintances, Guyot, Liebard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, old
Gremanville, paralysed since a long time, passed away one by one. One
night, the driver of the mail in Pont-l’Eveque announced the Revolution
of July. A few days afterward a new sub-prefect was nominated, the Baron
de Larsonniere, ex-consul in America, who, besides his wife, had his
sister-in-law and her three grown daughters with him. They were often
seen on their lawn, dressed in loose blouses, and they had a parrot
and a negro servant. Madame Aubain received a call, which she returned
promptly. As soon as she caught sight of them, Felicite would run and
notify her mistress. But only one thing was capable of arousing her: a
letter from her son.
He could not follow any profession as he was absorbed in drinking. His
mother paid his debts and he made fresh ones; and the sighs that she
heaved while she knitted at the window reached the ears of Felicite who
was spinning in the kitchen.
They walked in the garden together, always speaking of Virginia, and
asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased her, and
what she would probably have said on this or that occasion.
All her little belongings were put away in a closet of the room which
held the two little beds. But Madame Aubain looked them over as little
as possible. One summer day, however, she resigned herself to the task
and when she opened the closet the moths flew out.
Virginia’s frocks were hung under a shelf where there were three dolls,
some hoops, a doll-house, and a basic which she had used. Felicite
and Madame Aubain also took out the skirts, the handkerchiefs, and the
stockings and spread them on the beds, before putting them away again.
The sun fell on the piteous things, disclosing their spots and the
creases formed by the motions of the body. The atmosphere was warm and
blue, and a blackbird trilled in the garden; everything seemed to live
in happiness. They found a little hat of soft brown plush, but it was
entirely moth-eaten. Felicite asked for it. Their eyes met and filled
with tears; at last the mistress opened her arms and the servant threw
herself against her breast and they hugged each other and giving vent to
their grief in a kiss which equalised them for a moment.
It was the first time that this had ever happened, for Madame Aubain was
not of an expansive nature. Felicite was as grateful for it as if it had
been some favour, and thenceforth loved her with animal-like devotion
and a religious veneration.
Her kind-heartedness developed. When she heard the drums of a marching
regiment passing through the street, she would stand in the doorway
with a jug of cider and give the soldiers a drink. She nursed cholera
victims. She protected Polish refugees, and one of them even declared
that he wished to marry her. But they quarrelled, for one morning when
she returned from the Angelus she found him in the kitchen coolly eating
a dish which he had prepared for himself during her absence.
After the Polish refugees, came Colmiche, an old man who was credited
with having committed frightful misdeeds in ‘93. He lived near the river
in the ruins of a pig-sty. The urchins peeped at him through the cracks
in the walls and threw stones that fell on his miserable bed, where he
lay gasping with catarrh, with long hair, inflamed eyelids, and a tumour
as big as his head on one arm.
She got him some linen, tried to clean his hovel and dreamed of
installing him in the bake-house without his being in Madame’s way. When
the cancer broke, she dressed it every day; sometimes she brought him
some cake and placed him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the poor old
creature, trembling and drooling, would thank her in his broken voice,
and put out his hands whenever she left him. Finally he died; and she
had a mass said for the repose of his soul.
That day a great joy came to her: at dinner-time, Madame de
Larsonniere’s servant called with the parrot, the cage, and the perch
and chain and lock. A note from the baroness told Madame Aubain that as
her husband had been promoted to a prefecture, they were leaving that
night, and she begged her to accept the bird as a remembrance and a
token of her esteem.
Since a long time the parrot had been on Felicite’s mind, because he
came from America, which reminded her of Victor, and she had approached
the negro on the subject.
Once even, she had said:
“How glad Madame would be to have him!”
The man had repeated this remark to his mistress who, not being able to
keep the bird, took this means of getting rid of it.
CHAPTER IV
He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of his
wings were pink and his breast was golden.
But he had the tiresome tricks of biting his perch, pulling his feathers
out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his bath. Madame Aubain
grew tired of him and gave him to Felicite for good.
She undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat: “Pretty
boy! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Marie!” His perch was placed near
the door and several persons were astonished that he did not answer to
the name of “Jacquot,” for every parrot is called Jacquot. They called
him a goose and a log, and these taunts were like so many dagger thrusts
to Felicite. Strange stubbornness of the bird which would not talk when
people watched him!
Nevertheless, he sought society; for on Sunday, when the ladies
Rochefeuille, Monsieur de Houppeville and the new habitues, Onfroy, the
chemist, Monsieur Varin and Captain Mathieu, dropped in for their game
of cards, he struck the window-panes with his wings and made such a
racket that it was impossible to talk.
Bourais’ face must have appeared very funny to Loulou. As soon as he
saw him he would begin to roar. His voice re-echoed in the yard, and
the neighbours would come to the windows and begin to laugh, too; and
in order that the parrot might not see him, Monsieur Bourais edged along
the wall, pushed his hat over his eyes to hide his profile, and entered
by the garden door, and the looks he gave the bird lacked affection.
Loulou, having thrust his head into the butcher-boy’s basket, received
a slap, and from that time he always tried to nip his enemy. Fabu
threatened to ring his neck, although he was not cruelly inclined,
notwithstanding his big whiskers and tattooings. On the contrary, he
rather liked the bird, and, out of devilry, tried to teach him oaths.
Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off
his chain and let him walk all over the house.
When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his
right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such
feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat. There
was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are sometimes
afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and cured him.
One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his cigar in his
face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with the tip of her
umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.
She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a
second; when she returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among the
bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without paying any
attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: “Take care! you must be
insane!” Then she searched every garden in Pont-l’Eveque and stopped the
passers-by to inquire of them: “Haven’t you perhaps seen my parrot?”
To those who had never seen the parrot, she described him minutely.
Suddenly she thought she saw something green fluttering behind the mills
at the foot of the hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she
could not see it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird
in Saint-Melaine, in Mother Simon’s store. She rushed to the place. The
people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came home,
exhausted, with her slippers worn to shreds, and despair in her heart.
She sat down on the bench near Madame and was telling of her search when
presently a light weight dropped on her shoulder--Loulou! What the deuce
had he been doing? Perhaps he had just taken a little walk around the
town!
She did not easily forget her scare; in fact, she never got over it. In
consequence of a cold, she caught a sore throat; and some time later
she had an earache. Three years later she was stone deaf, and spoke in
a very loud voice even in church. Although her sins might have been
proclaimed throughout the diocese without any shame to herself, or ill
effects to the community, the cure thought it advisable to receive her
confession in the vestry-room.
Imaginary buzzings also added to her bewilderment. Her mistress often
said to her: “My goodness, how stupid you are!” and she would answer:
“Yes, Madame,” and look for something.
The narrow circle of her ideas grew more restricted than it already was;
the bellowing of the oxen, the chime of the bells no longer reached her
intelligence. All things moved silently, like ghosts. Only one noise
penetrated her ears; the parrot’s voice.
As if to divert her mind, he reproduced for her the tick-tack of the
spit in the kitchen, the shrill cry of the fish-vendors, the saw of the
carpenter who had a shop opposite, and when the door-bell rang, he would
imitate Madame Aubain: “Felicite! go to the front door.”
They held conversations together, Loulou repeating the three phrases
of his repertory over and over, Felicite replying by words that had
no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her feelings. In her
isolation, the parrot was almost a son, a love. He climbed upon her
fingers, pecked at her lips, clung to her shawl, and when she rocked her
head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the wings of
the bird flapped in unison. When clouds gathered on the horizon and the
thunder rumbled, Loulou would scream, perhaps because he remembered the
storms in his native forests. The dripping of the rain would excite him
to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling with his wings, upset
everything, and would finally fly into the garden to play. Then he would
come back into the room, light on one of the andirons, and hop around in
order to get dry.
One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him in
front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead in
his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had probably
died of congestion. But she believed that he had been poisoned, and
although she had no proofs whatever, her suspicion rested on Fabu.
She wept so sorely that her mistress said: “Why don’t you have him
stuffed?”
She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to the
bird.
He wrote to Havre for her. A certain man named Fellacher consented to do
the work. But, as the diligence driver often lost parcels entrusted to
him, Felicite resolved to take her pet to Honfleur herself.
Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were
covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and
Felicite, with her hands beneath her cape, her little black sabots and
her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the sidewalk. She
crossed the forest, passed by the Haut-Chene, and reached Saint-Gatien.
Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline, a
mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind. When he
saw a woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out of the
way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and so did
the postilion, while the four horses, which he could not hold back,
accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost upon her; with
a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but, furious at the
incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her from her head to her
feet with such violence that she fell to the ground unconscious.
Her first thought, when she recovered her senses, was to open the
basket. Loulou was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek; when
she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was flowing.
She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her
handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her basket,
and consoled herself by looking at the bird.
Arriving at the top of Ecquemanville, she saw the lights of Honfleur
shining in the distance like so many stars; further on, the ocean spread
out in a confused mass. Then a weakness came over her; the misery of her
childhood, the disappointment of her first love, the departure of her
nephew, the death of Virginia; all these things came back to her at
once, and, rising like a swelling tide in her throat, almost choked her.
Then she wished to speak to the captain of the vessel, and without
stating what she was sending, she gave him some instructions.
Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He always promised that it would
be ready for the following week; after six months he announced the
shipment of a case, and that was the end of it. Really, it seemed as
if Loulou would never come back to his home. “They have stolen him,”
thought Felicite.
Finally he arrived, sitting bold upright on a branch which could be
screwed into a mahogany pedestal, with his foot in the air, his head on
one side, and in his beak a nut which the naturalist, from love of the
sumptuous, had gilded. She put him in her room.
This place, to which only a chosen few were admitted, looked like a
chapel and a second-hand shop, so filled was it with devotional and
heterogeneous things. The door could not be opened easily on account of
the presence of a large wardrobe. Opposite the window that looked out
into the garden, a bull’s-eye opened on the yard; a table was placed by
the cot and held a wash-basin, two combs, and a piece of blue soap in
a broken saucer. On the walls were rosaries, medals, a number of Holy
Virgins, and a holy-water basin made out of a cocoanut; on the bureau,
which was covered with a napkin like an altar, stood the box of
shells that Victor had given her; also a watering-can and a balloon,
writing-books, the engraved geography and a pair of shoes; on the
nail which held the mirror, hung Virginia’s little plush hat! Felicite
carried this sort of respect so far that she even kept one of Monsieur’s
old coats. All the things which Madame Aubain discarded, Felicite begged
for her own room. Thus, she had artificial flowers on the edge of the
bureau, and the picture of the Comte d’Artois in the recess of the
window. By means of a board, Loulou was set on a portion of the chimney
which advanced into the room. Every morning when she awoke, she saw
him in the dim light of dawn and recalled bygone days and the smallest
details of insignificant actions, without any sense of bitterness or
grief.
As she was unable to communicate with people, she lived in a sort of
somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day seemed to
wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for candlesticks and mats
so as to adorn the temporary altars in the street.
In church, she always gazed at the Holy Ghost, and noticed that there
was something about it that resembled a parrot. The likenesses appeared
even more striking on a coloured picture by Espinal, representing the
baptism of our Saviour. With his scarlet wings and emerald body, it was
really the image of Loulou. Having bought the picture, she hung it near
the one of the Comte d’Artois so that she could take them in at one
glance.
They associated in her mind, the parrot becoming sanctified through the
neighbourhood of the Holy Ghost, and the latter becoming more lifelike
in her eyes, and more comprehensible. In all probability the Father had
never chosen as messenger a dove, as the latter has no voice, but rather
one of Loulou’s ancestors. And Felicite said her prayers in front of the
coloured picture, though from time to time she turned slightly towards
the bird.
She desired very much to enter in the ranks of the “Daughters of the
Virgin.” But Madame Aubain dissuaded her from it.
A most important event occurred: Paul’s marriage.
After being first a notary’s clerk, then in business, then in the
customs, and a tax collector, and having even applied for a position
in the administration of woods and forests, he had at last, when he
was thirty-six years old, by a divine inspiration, found his vocation:
registrature! and he displayed such a high ability that an inspector had
offered him his daughter and his influence.
Paul, who had become quite settled, brought his bride to visit his
mother.
But she looked down upon the customs of Pont-l’Eveque, put on airs, and
hurt Felicite’s feelings. Madame Aubain felt relieved when she left.
The following week they learned of Monsieur Bourais’ death in an inn.
There were rumours of suicide, which were confirmed; doubts concerning
his integrity arose. Madame Aubain looked over her accounts and soon
discovered his numerous embezzlements; sales of wood which had been
concealed from her, false receipts, etc. Furthermore, he had an
illegitimate child, and entertained a friendship for “a person in
Dozule.”
These base actions affected her very much. In March, 1853, she developed
a pain in her chest; her tongue looked as if it were coated with smoke,
and the leeches they applied did not relieve her oppression; and on the
ninth evening she died, being just seventy-two years old.
People thought that she was younger, because her hair, which she wore in
bands framing her pale face, was brown. Few friends regretted her loss,
for her manner was so haughty that she did not attract them. Felicite
mourned for her as servants seldom mourn for their masters. The fact
that Madame should die before herself perplexed her mind and seemed
contrary to the order of things, and absolutely monstrous and
inadmissible. Ten days later (the time to journey from Besancon), the
heirs arrived. Her daughter-in-law ransacked the drawers, kept some of
the furniture, and sold the rest; then they went back to their own home.
Madame’s armchair, foot-warmer, work-table, the eight chairs, everything
was gone! The places occupied by the pictures formed yellow squares on
the walls. They had taken the two little beds, and the wardrobe had been
emptied of Virginia’s belongings! Felicite went upstairs, overcome with
grief.
The following day a sign was posted on the door; the chemist screamed in
her ear that the house was for sale.
For a moment she tottered, and had to sit down.
What hurt her most was to give up her room,--so nice for poor Loulou!
She looked at him in despair and implored the Holy Ghost, and it was
this way that she contracted the idolatrous habit of saying her prayers
kneeling in front of the bird. Sometimes the sun fell through the window
on his glass eye, and lighted a spark in it which sent Felicite into
ecstasy.
Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and eighty francs.
The garden supplied her with vegetables. As for clothes, she had enough
to last her till the end of her days, and she economised on the light by
going to bed at dusk.
She rarely went out, in order to avoid passing in front of the
second-hand dealer’s shop where there was some of the old furniture.
Since her fainting spell, she dragged her leg, and as her strength was
failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost her money in the grocery
business, came very morning to chop the wood and pump the water.
Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that. Many
years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing that she would
be put out, Felicite did not ask for repairs. The laths of the roof were
rotting away, and during one whole winter her bolster was wet. After
Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Felicite wished to know what her
complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only one word:
“Pneumonia.” She was familiar with it and gently answered:--“Ah! like
Madame,” thinking it quite natural that she should follow her mistress.
The time for the altars in the street drew near.
The first one was always erected at the foot of the hill, the second
in front of the post-office, and the third in the middle of the street.
This position occasioned some rivalry among the women and they finally
decided upon Madame Aubain’s yard.
Felicite’s fever grew worse. She was sorry that she could not do
anything for the altar. If she could, at least, have contributed
something towards it! Then she thought of the parrot. Her neighbours
objected that it would not be proper. But the cure gave his consent
and she was so grateful for it that she begged him to accept after her
death, her only treasure, Loulou. From Tuesday until Saturday, the day
before the event, she coughed more frequently. In the evening her face
was contracted, her lips stuck to her gums and she began to vomit; and
on the following day, she felt so low that she called for a priest.
Three neighbours surrounded her when the dominie administered the
Extreme Unction. Afterwards she said that she wished to speak to Fabu.
He arrived in his Sunday clothes, very ill at ease among the funereal
surroundings.
“Forgive me,” she said, making an effort to extend her arm, “I believed
it was you who killed him!”
What did such accusations mean? Suspect a man like him of murder! And
Fabu became excited and was about to make trouble.
“Don’t you see she is not in her right mind?”
From time to time Felicite spoke to shadows. The women left her and
Mother Simon sat down to breakfast.
A little later, she took Loulou and holding him up to Felicite:
“Say good-bye to him, now!” she commanded.
Although he was not a corpse, he was eaten up by worms; one of his wings
was broken and the wadding was coming out of his body. But Felicite was
blind now, and she took him and laid him against her cheek. Then Mother
Simon removed him in order to set him on the altar.
CHAPTER V
The grass exhaled an odour of summer; flies buzzed in the air, the sun
shone on the river and warmed the slated roof. Old Mother Simon had
returned to Felicite and was peacefully falling asleep.
The ringing of bells woke her; the people were coming out of church.
Felicite’s delirium subsided. By thinking of the procession, she was
able to see it as if she had taken part in it. All the school-children,
the singers and the firemen walked on the sidewalks, while in the middle
of the street came first the custodian of the church with his halberd,
then the beadle with a large cross, the teacher in charge of the boys
and a sister escorting the little girls; three of the smallest ones,
with curly heads, threw rose leaves into the air; the deacon with
outstretched arms conducted the music; and two incense-bearers turned
with each step they took toward the Holy Sacrament, which was carried by
M. le Cure, attired in his handsome chasuble and walking under a canopy
of red velvet supported by four men. A crowd of people followed, jammed
between the walls of the houses hung with white sheets; at last the
procession arrived at the foot of the hill.
A cold sweat broke out on Felicite’s forehead. Mother Simon wiped it
away with a cloth, saying inwardly that some day she would have to go
through the same thing herself.
The murmur of the crowd grew louder, was very distinct for a moment and
then died away. A volley of musketry shook the window-panes. It was the
postilions saluting the Sacrament. Felicite rolled her eyes, and said as
loudly as she could:
“Is he all right?” meaning the parrot.
Her death agony began. A rattle that grew more and more rapid shook her
body. Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth, and her whole frame
trembled. In a little while could be heard the music of the bass
horns, the clear voices of the children and the men’s deeper notes. At
intervals all was still, and their shoes sounded like a herd of cattle
passing over the grass.
The clergy appeared in the yard. Mother Simon climbed on a chair to
reach the bull’s-eye, and in this manner could see the altar. It was
covered with a lace cloth and draped with green wreaths. In the middle
stood a little frame containing relics; at the corners were two little
orange-trees, and all along the edge were silver candlesticks, porcelain
vases containing sun-flowers, lilies, peonies, and tufts of hydrangeas.
This mount of bright colours descended diagonally from the first floor
to the carpet that covered the sidewalk. Rare objects arrested one’s
eye. A golden sugar-bowl was crowned with violets, earrings set with
Alencon stones were displayed on green moss, and two Chinese screens
with their bright landscapes were near by. Loulou, hidden beneath
roses, showed nothing but his blue head which looked like a piece of
lapis-lazuli.
The singers, the canopy-bearers and the children lined up against the
sides of the yard. Slowly the priest ascended the steps and placed his
shining sun on the lace cloth. Everybody knelt. There was deep silence;
and the censers slipping on their chains were swung high in the air. A
blue vapour rose in Felicite’s room. She opened her nostrils and inhaled
with a mystic sensuousness; then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled.
The beats of her heart grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a
fountain giving out, like an echo dying away;--and when she exhaled her
last breath, she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic
parrot hovering above her head.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Simple Soul, by Gustave Flaubert
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SIMPLE SOUL ***
***** This file should be named 1253-0.txt or 1253-0.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/5/1253/
Produced by Dagny, John Bickers and David Widger
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
|
shade, a piece of exquisite lace. He hardly knew how
much his own clothes, quietly good, had cost him: Garth had been the
best turned out boy in the neighbourhood. Their servants, well-paid and
lightly-worked, had kept the household machinery moving silently on
oiled wheels. There had seemed not one crumpled petal in the
rose-leaves that strewed their path.
The trained nurse entered softly, bearing on a little brass tray Garth's
tea-service--dainty china, painted with queer, long-necked cats.
"This is the first day I've felt really int'rested in tea," Garth
proclaimed cheerfully, wriggling up on his pillows. His mother moved
quickly to help him, slipping a wrap round the thin little shoulders.
Then a gong chimed softly from the hall, and she turned to her husband.
Her fingers lay on his shoulder for a moment.
"Tea, Tom."
"Oh, all right," he said, and turned from the window. "So long, old
son--eat a big tea."
"I'll eat a 'normous one, if Nurse will only give it to me," Garth said,
eyeing his tray hungrily. "Mind you do, too, Daddy. And come back
soon."
"I will," Macleod said. He smiled at the eager face as he followed his
wife from the room.
*CHAPTER II*
*BREAKING BAD NEWS*
It was one of Aileen Macleod's whims that she liked to brew her own tea.
A copper kettle bubbled busily over a spirit lamp on the tray as they
entered the drawing-room, and her husband flung himself into an
arm-chair and watched the slim, beautiful hands busy with the silver
tea-caddy and the quaint, squat teapot. Neither spoke until she came to
his side with his cup.
"I beg your pardon, dear," he said, trying to rise. She kept him back,
a hand on his shoulder.
"You've been working: why shouldn't I bring you your tea?" she said,
smiling at him.
"Because I ought to be looking after you," he rejoined. He was on his
feet with a quick movement, took her by the shoulders laughingly, and
put her into a big chair, bringing tea and hot cakes to a tiny table
beside her.
"There!" he said. "No: you want another cushion. Now lie back,
sweetheart, and rest; you're ever so much more tired than you'll admit,
even to yourself."
"Being tired doesn't matter, now," she said. "Nothing matters, now that
Garth is safe. But it's nice to be bullied." She smiled at him, with a
little restful movement, then took up her cup. Over it she looked at him
questioningly.
"Dr. Metcalfe _is_ quite satisfied, Tom? What were you and he talking
about for so long?"
"Oh, he's quite satisfied with the boy's progress," Macleod answered.
"He says you and he can go away quite soon. We--we were just yarning."
Something tied his tongue; she looked so tired, and yet so peaceful. He
would not tell her just yet.
Aileen opened her lips to speak and then closed them again. They talked
idly of the garden, the tulips that were just blossoming, and the new
roses, until tea was over and a silent-footed maid had removed the tray.
Macleod lit a cigarette, and lay back in his chair.
"Tell me, Tom," she said quietly. "I know there is something more."
He was silent for a moment, looking at her. She was very pale, her
breath coming quickly.
"Don't bother about anything now," he said. "We've got the little chap
back; and you're dog-tired. You mustn't worry about anything."
"Don't you see--when I don't know, I think it's Garth!" Her voice
broke, almost in a cry. "Tell me--quick!"
He was on his knees beside her in a flash.
"What a fool I am!--it's all right, my girl. Garth's quite safe. Only
we've got to go away--to leave all this and take him to the Bush. He'll
grow strong if we do. But I didn't know how to tell you."
His wife gave a long sigh, and put her face down on his shoulder.
"Oh-h!" she said. "I thought it was something that really mattered!"
"My girl!" said Macleod huskily. For a while they did not move. Then
she put him away from her gently, and looked at him with steady eyes.
"I suppose I shall wake up some morning--perhaps to-morrow morning--to
realize that it's quite large and important," she said. "But at present
it seems the smallest thing, because all that really counts is that
Garth is safe. Tell me all about it, Tom."
"Metcalfe won't answer for him if we keep him in town," he said. "If we
take him right into the country for a few years he will grow into a
strong boy. Therefore, as the Americans say, it's country for ours."
"Of course. What will happen?"
"We'll sell or let this place," he said, watching her face keenly for
some sign that the blow was telling. But there was no change in its
eager interest, and he went on.
"I must send in my resignation at the office. They'll be nice about it,
of course: probably they'd always try to find a berth for me, though it
would not be as good as this one. That will leave us with the little
bit of private income we have and whatever we get out of the house. We
might live on that, after a fashion. But if we've got to go into the
country, I'd rather see if we can't make something out of the land."
"But we don't know anything about it."
"Not a thing," Macleod agreed. "But I don't believe it's so awfully
complicated: surely a man of reasonable common sense can learn. And
look at the alternative--living in some beastly cottage in a township,
with not a thing to do. I don't think I could stand it."
"I'm sure I couldn't," said his wife. "Of course you'll learn--look at
all the stupid people who do well out of land. Quite stupid people: and
your worst enemy can't say you haven't got brains, Tom!"
"I make you my best bow," said her husband solemnly. "You're very
encouraging, ma'am! I'll try to live up to your high estimate of me. But
what seems to matter more is that I think I've got enough muscle."
For the first time a shadow of doubt came into her eyes.
"I don't want you to be worked to death," she said. "Will it be very
hard for you, Tom?"
He broke into a short laugh.
"Hard for _me_! Do you think it matters the least little bit about me?
But it maddens me to think what it's going to mean for you. Do you
realize that it means no more fun, as we've always counted fun? no more
outings or gaiety, no pretty clothes? any sort of a home, and mighty
little comfort? We--we won't have much money, Aileen."
"We'll have enough to--to _live_, won't we?" she asked. "To buy food, I
mean?"
"Oh, there'll be enough for that. But we'll have to scrimp in a hundred
ways. I don't know that we can even keep a servant for you, though I
don't suppose, for that matter, that there are any to be had in the
Bush. I wouldn't mind that so much if I could help you: but I'll have
my own work outside, and it will keep me going. I've never let you
work, Aileen," he ended wistfully.
"No, you haven't," she said; looking at him gently. "If ever a woman
was thoroughly spoilt it's your wife!"
"I couldn't have had the face to marry you, if it had meant that you
would have to work," he answered. "How could I, when you'd never done
any work in your life?"
"I don't know that that is a very creditable record for a woman," she
said reflectively. "I've often thought my life was too soft a one; only
you have made it so easy to be lazy, Tom."
"You're not lazy," he defended her hotly. "Look at all you have on
hand--your music, the garden, the home--do you think it's only servants
that have made us our 'House Beautiful?' You've charities, and Women's
Leagues--and Garth. It seems to me you're always busy."
"They're all very pretty things to play at," she said, laughing. "All
except Garth: he is a solid reality. Now I'm going to discover ever so
many other realities. Don't worry about me, Tom, dear. It's going to
be an Awfully Big Adventure, but we'll get through somehow."
She smiled up at him. Something like a great weight lifted from
Macleod's heart.
"You aren't afraid?" he asked.
Her face grew grave, and for a moment she did not answer.
"I never knew what fear really meant until Garth was ill," she said, at
length. "One says one is afraid of lots of things; but you get right to
the terrible depths of fear when you think your child is dying. And it
teaches you that nothing else matters. Now that Garth has come back,
and I can hold him again, nothing else even seems serious. I suppose a
month ago I might have felt scared at the idea of cooking and scrubbing,
but now I feel as if I could do it, and sing. You understand, don't
you?"
"Yes, I understand," he answered. "It's hard to imagine anything else
troubling us, if the kid's safe. But will we feel like that in a year's
time? in six months? The sharp edge of thankfulness will have worn off
then, but the cooking and scrubbing will remain."
She nodded.
"It isn't easy to say. I suppose I shouldn't make any predictions,
since I don't in the least understand all I'll have to tackle. But
plenty of other women have done it, and much more--women with half a
dozen little children. I'm not going to be afraid." She lifted her
chin with a defiant little toss. "I suppose it will be hard, and I'll
make ever so many mistakes--so will you, and we'll laugh at each other!
Oh, Tom, nothing can be very bad if we keep laughing, and we have
Garth!"
"You dear!" he said. "I might have known you'd take it that way. Of
course"--he hesitated--"there are other alternatives. You wouldn't care
to send Garth to live on a farm for a few years, if we could get hold of
the right people? Like the Agnews did with that delicate boy of theirs,
you know?"
"The Agnews couldn't help themselves," said Aileen. "_There's_ a woman
to be pitied, if you like. Mrs. Agnew aged ten years in the first year
after she had to part with Harry. We don't do that sort of thing in
this family. Next?"
He laughed.
"With my first suggestion badly squashed----"
"You would have squashed it yourself if I hadn't, Tom!"
"Yes, but I knew you would," he said comfortably. "Well, the next is
really more feasible." He watched her narrowly. "Suppose I stayed on
at the office, and we let this house, and I lived in rooms; there would
be money enough to establish you and Garth in some little country place
where you wouldn't have to work, and it would be all right for the boy.
It would mean separation, of course, but I might be able to run down to
see you every few months. It would be far easier for you, dear."
"And for you?"
"Whatever is best for you will be best for me," he said. "You know
that, Aileen, don't you? I will be quite satisfied with your choice."
"I wish I knew what you want," she said, watching his face.
"And I won't tell you." He laughed at her.
"Very well," she said, "then I will choose, and it's your own fault if
you don't like it. I think that as a planner you begin well, and then
slump dreadfully--at any rate, your last two efforts are simply horrid.
Do you think I can take the responsibility of bringing up Garth alone,
just when he needs a man's hand? He'd break his heart. I wouldn't dare
to tell him we meant to leave you. And if you imagine that a little
freedom from work would make up to me for being without you---- Aren't
you ashamed of yourself, Tom Macleod?"
He sat down on the arm of her chair and lifted her hand against his
face.
"I had to give you your choice," he said. "But you don't know what a
blue funk I was in!"
"Then you ought to be more ashamed of yourself than ever!" she retorted.
"We're mates, you and Garth and I: nothing matters, so long as we are
together."
"Not even scrubbing?"
"No," she said. "Nor ploughing, Tom?"
"Certainly not. Nor cooking?"
"Cooking might be fun. What about milking?"
"I learned to milk in my extreme youth," said he proudly. "That's a
detail. But--washing?"
"It's done in the best families," she said. "Counted out. How about
clearing land?"
"I will do it with my little hatchet," said her husband. "Washing-up,
Aileen?"
"Ugh!" she said. "Even in this uplifted moment I can't pretend I'm
going to enjoy greasy dishes. Never mind--they'll get done. We won't
think about them. Anything else?"
"Lots, I'm certain. What if the sheep get foot-rot, and the hens
develop pip? Or is it the other way round? Could you manage a hen with
foot-rot?"
"Just as well as you would handle a sheep with pip. What are they,
anyhow?"
"Diseases which have always been happily obscure to me," he said, "Now
we'll have to study them."
"We'll study them together, then," said his wife; "then, if they appear
we can turn on them our united batteries of knowledge. There must be
lots of other diseases, Tom. Is it hens that get glanders?"
"Very probably: it always seemed to me that hens have nasty habits,"
said he. "Of course, I've only looked at them with a kind of
semi-detached eye, but then, I never felt any inclination for close
acquaintance with a live fowl. My soul was as a star, and dwelt apart!"
"I think one of the first things you had better do would be to uproot
any graceful notions about your soul," said his wife. "We shan't need
encumbrances like that for some time. Stout bodies and strong muscles
are likely to be more in our line; don't be surprised or shocked if you
find me writhing in odd corners, because it will be only Swedish drill,
to develop me--also in odd corners!"
"It will be awfully interesting," he said, laughing. "Couldn't you start
it now? I believe there's one lovely exercise that you do at
meal-times. Strangers are apt to run to your assistance, thinking
you're strangling, but it's only neck-drill, to give you a long, slender
throat!"
"I've always faintly hoped mine pleased you," rejoined his wife.
"However, it's too late now--it won't matter in the Bush if one has a
throat or not. My energies are going to enable me to develop strength
enough to throw a bag of wheat over my shoulder, and go whistling down
the lea!"
"Why not bring it home? I don't see why you want to throw good wheat
about, after I shall probably have had grave trouble in growing it. And
what is a lea, anyhow?"
"It's something the lowing herd winds slowly o'er," she said. "You
ought to know that."
"I did, but I don't know what it looks like. And I suppose I'll have to
know." The laughter died out of his eyes, and he looked at her in
silence for a moment. "Aileen--it's all very well to play the fool, but
we're two horribly ignorant people. I wonder if we'll do any good at
all?"
"Yes--we will," she said stubbornly. "And I don't mean to stop playing
the fool: at least I hope I won't have to. Think of poor old Garth, if
we grew old and solemn! We'll just back each other up and worry
through. We're in a pretty tight place, but we're not going to pull
long faces over it. I suppose sometimes things will get bothersome, and
we'll be tired, and possibly our tempers may become a bit ragged at the
edges. But we'll understand, and not remember it against each other
next day."
"Nor next minute, I hope," he said. "Well, a man would be a cur if he
were afraid to face things with any one like you."
"Don't you expect too much of me," said his wife. "I'm an ignorant old
thing, as you've justly pointed out, and when you have indigestion
through my bad cooking you'll dislike me extremely. But I'll improve.
Now come and we'll tell Garth all about it."
*CHAPTER III*
*GORDON'S FARM*
It was Dr. Metcalfe who found the new home for them.
He came in on Garth's first afternoon in the garden. They were gathered
under the pepper tree, and Garth gave a glad little shout at sight of
him.
"Oh, there's my doctor! Come along, Doctor, and have tea!"
"This seems a party," said the new-comer, regarding the table beside the
boy's couch. "Cakes, as I live! and with pink and white icing! Who
said you could have exciting things like that, young man?"
"Mother did--and I b'lieve you told her," said Garth cheerfully. "I'm
ever so nearly well. You know you don't have to come and stick that old
fernometer in my mouth any more."
"It's evident that it will be needed again to-morrow," said the doctor,
regarding the cakes with a lowering brow.
"Never mind--it'll be worth it," Garth rejoined. "Anyhow, I know you're
only pulling my leg!"
"The attitude of disrespect shown by one's patients is very
distressing," said the doctor, subsiding into a low chair and accepting
tea. "Go on, young man: don't blame me when you find the castor-oil
bottle looming by your bed of pain! Then you'll wish that you had stuck
to good old bread-and-butter, and you'll send for me."
"Well, you'd come," said Garth comfortably.
"I would not. I would send back a stern message--'Double dose of oil.'"
"Then I'd better have a double go of cake," said Garth. "Bettern't I,
Dad?"
"Most certainly, I should say," his father answered. "It's a sound rule
not to mind paying for your fun." He held the plate for Garth's
inspection. "There's one in the corner, with an enormous blob of icing:
it looks pretty good."
"It is," said Garth, digging his sharp little teeth into it, with a rapt
expression.
"A nice pair, you are!" quoth the doctor, regarding them with a twinkle
in his eye. "Not that I can blame the son, seeing what his father is. I
pity you, Aileen: you'll have a hard time with them when you get to the
Back of Beyond."
"Oh, did you know we were going there?" Garth queried eagerly. "Isn't
it lovely, Doctor! I'm going to have a pony, Dad b'lieves. Will you
come and see it?"
"It will be my one ambition," the doctor told him gravely. "Have you
made any arrangements yet, Tom?"
"I'm trying to find a place," Macleod answered. "The office has been
awfully decent: they say I'm to come to them if ever we return to
Melbourne, and they'll do their best to take me back. Likewise, they've
given me a bonus, which is handy."
"And said the nicest things about him," interpolated his wife. "_He_
won't tell you that, so I must--you can blush unseen, Tom. And the
staff, to his great horror, mean to give him a silver salver."
"Very handy in the Bush, I'm sure," said the doctor.
"It's jolly good of them," Tom said; "but I wish they wouldn't. Poor
beggars, they have enough to do with their money. The awful part is
that I believe they're going to make speeches!"
"And you'll have to make one," said Aileen. "Do you think they would let
us come and hear?"
"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated her husband. "I haven't made a speech since
the burst of eloquence I uttered, at our wedding breakfast."
"I remember well," said the doctor. "It lasted fully ten seconds, and
then you collapsed. We all blushed for you. I think I'd like to hear
you make another."
"Well, you won't,'" said the victim, with finality. "I wish you'd change
the subject: it hurts."
"Certainly," said the doctor. "I've found you a farm."
"You have! Where?"
"Down in the Gippsland Lakes country," said his friend.
"Is it any good?"
"I wouldn't have found it if it were not," said the doctor severely.
"As a matter of fact, I believe it is rather a lucky find. It belongs
to Jim Gordon, an Englishman who has been out there about fifteen years.
He knocked about all over the country for a good while, and then bought
this place. Now he has had money left to him, and he's going back to
England. But he likes Australia, and he does not mean to stay away for
ever, so he won't sell: he's fond of this little place, and he'll take a
low rent if he can get a tenant who will look after it. He showed it to
one man, who looked at his plunge-bath and remarked, that it would be a
good thing to set tomato plants in! It seems to have given Gordon rather
a shock."
"It would," said Aileen feelingly. "Did you tell him we were nice
people, Doctor?"
"I went as far as I could," said the doctor guardedly.
"I wonder he hasn't already come to call, in that case," said she,
laughing.
"Apart from your quite unjustifiable reasoning, he isn't exactly a
calling man," the doctor remarked. "I gather that he has lived very much
to himself on this place, doing most of his own work, and that he is not
at all popular among the settlers near, who, probably regard him as full
of unpleasant English pride--which he is. He's one of those
stiff-necked people who think their own ways are always best, and so
will never learn any new ones. Therefore, he has never made much money.
From what he says, there is plenty of work to be done on this place.
It's about the acreage you want, and there's a decent little house on
it; and he does seem to have taken some pains with his orchard and
garden. But for the most part he appears to have gone fishing, and let
the place take care of itself."
"Would there be room on it for a pony?" Garth asked wistfully.
"Yes--and what's more, there's a pony there already!"
"Glory!" said Garth faintly.
"Have we got to take his live stock, too?" asked Macleod.
"It isn't necessary, but I should think it would suit you. There is not
much--a pony or two, and a few cows and sheep. You will need all he has
had, and, I should think, more: and he'll sell them at a fair valuation.
He has two boats, which are let with the house, if the tenant undertakes
to keep them in order--he really seems keener about the boats than about
anything else. He has a horror of agents and lawyers, and wants to
arrange the whole thing privately. If you will consider the place he
would like you to go down with him to see it."
"I suppose he would not object to my taking a man down with me? Dawson,
who values for our office, knows all about these things: and you know
how much I do. The office has offered to lend me Dawson to look at any
place."
"Oh, Gordon won't mind--he's really a very fair-minded old chap, and you
won't find him hard to deal with. He's not the sort of person to take
advantage of the young and innocent: in fact, he'll probably respect you
more for taking a tame expert with you."
"It's a long way from town," Macleod said, regarding Aileen with
troubled eyes.
"What of that? It's glorious country, and the very place for a small
boy," said the doctor, smiling at Garth, who had forgotten cake, and was
listening, his eyes shining. "You don't want to be running to town
always--that's expensive and unsettling. Cuninghame is quite close,
where you can get all your stores: and if you want a bigger town, Sale
and Bairnsdale are within easy reach. I've never found out which of them
is the capital of Gippsland, but perhaps you'll make the discovery. Did
I mention that one of the boats is a motor-launch. You lucky people
will be able to explore all the corners of the lakes that mere tourists
never see."
"Dad!" came from Garth, in a burst of ecstasy--which somehow checked his
father in a remark that busy farmers would not have much time to play
about on the lakes. Looking at the delighted face, with the unnaturally
large eyes, it seemed better to put that remark away among unborn
speeches. He said instead--
"It sounds very jolly. I'll have to teach you to run the motor, old
son. By the way, Metcalfe, do you happen to have gathered whether we
are likely to make a living out of this highly desirable place?"
"Why, yes, I think you are," the doctor answered. "Gordon has not done
so badly, and he's not a hard worker. Given decent seasons and fair
luck you ought to get on, though it's not a place to make any fortunes
out of. But go down and look at it for yourself."
Which Macleod did, returning a few days later with a cheered expression.
"It's not so bad, Dawson says," he told Aileen, gratefully sipping a cup
of coffee, after his long journey. "No fortune in it, as Metcalfe said;
but a living, unless we have bad luck. And it's certainly cheap. The
house might be much worse--though I'm afraid you will find it bad
enough, after this one, my girl."
"Bless you, I'm not expecting a palace," said Aileen cheerily. "I hope
it's small: a palace would be somewhat burdensome when one came to scrub
it."
"Oh, it's small enough," he said. "We'll fit in, with an extra room or
two. There are some things that you don't rind in many bush homes,
Dawson says--a decent bathroom, wire window-screens and doors, and a
thoroughly good water-supply. They seem awfully ordinary, but I can
assure you they're not! And the country is lovely: the view from the
front windows will make you forget your old scrubbing-brush!"
"It will be a bad look-out for you if I do!" murmured his wife.
"That's beneath you," he said, laughing. "I don't think a respectable
farmeress ought to make bad jokes. There's a good garden, and a fair
orchard, and Garth will fall in love with the pony."
"Is the pony safe?" she asked.
"Very unsafe, I think--it's always in danger of going to sleep. I
wouldn't like to say how old it is, and I'd hate to ride five miles on
it. But Garth will think it a lovely steed. It may make you realize
how much past its prime it is when I tell you Gordon wouldn't sell it.
He hadn't the face to put a price on it--threw it in with the farm, on
condition that it was treated kindly. Well, you couldn't treat anything
like that unkindly--not if you had been brought up to reverence age!"
"It sounds a soothing beast," said Aileen--"not likely to harrow my mind
by bucking Garth off."
"I'll guarantee it won't. There's another pony, too. I've bought that.
Also three cows, twenty-four sheep, some assorted calves, and a lot of
fowls. Dawson says they're cheap: I don't know. And I've inherited an
orphan boy!"
"Tom! What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. Gordon has a boy on a three-years' lease from an
orphanage in Melbourne, and only six months of it have run, so I've
taken him over. He's about fourteen, and quite full of wickedness. But
one may train him into something."
"Did he--did he look at all clean?"
"He did not. I rather think the training will begin with soap; and it
will be a terrible shock to him, because you'd say from his appearance
that he'd never met it. His name is Horace, I suppose, but old Gordon
always called him Horrors, and I think we'll stick to it; it's
extraordinarily suitable."
"I don't think he sounds nice," said Aileen, wrinkling her pretty nose.
"To tell you the truth," said her husband confidentially, "he isn't.
But he'll do a lot of odd jobs. I made inquiries about a servant, but
it's as we thought--not a soul to be had. Did you sound Julia about
coming?"
"I did," said Aileen. "'Is it me?' said Julia, 'that 'ud be leavin'
Melbourne to go to wan of them places I've heard tell of--nowhere to go
on your night out, and never a man to see, not if it was even a
butcher-boy! I lived in a bog in Ireland all me days till I come to
Australia; and 'tis no longer the counthry that I'd work in, but a good
town with moving pictures and the grocer callin' every day for orders!'
Then she wept at leaving me, and said she loved me as if I was her
mother. Annie weeps too, at intervals, but of course she won't leave the
young man in the baker's shop. But we couldn't afford them, anyway, Tom,
so what's the good of worrying? Stop worrying at once, and tell me more
about the farm."
"There's a gorgeous cloth-of-gold rose tumbling all over the veranda,"
he said obediently, "and lots of nice common flowers in the
garden--stocks, and wallflowers, and snapdragons, and honesty, and
pinks, and things like that. It's very untidy, but quite pretty. The
house is in a sheltered place where anything will grow: he has orange
and lemon trees, covered with fruit, and he says the lemons bear all the
year round. There are guavas, too: I didn't know they grew in
Victoria."
"Glory!" said Aileen, quoting her son. "I'll make guava jelly!"
"Do you know how?"
"No, but I'll learn. What else?"
"Oh--apricots, and peaches, and cherries, and apples, and pears, to say
nothing of gooseberries and currants. There's a good strawberry bed,
too."
"It sounds lovely," said Aileen. "Think of pies! I've been learning to
make pastry, Tom, and Julia says I have a lovely hand for it. She's
going to teach me all sorts of things. Do you think we can afford to
buy one of those nice American oil-stoves? The ovens have glass doors,
and you sit in front in ecstasy, and watch your cakes rise."
"What if they don't rise?"
"Then you go and do something else, and hope for the best. Don't
depress me, Tom. They truly are lovely stoves, and you and Horrors
wouldn't have nearly as much wood to cut. And they're nice and cool to
work at."
"Well, that's quite enough reason," Macleod said. "If any dodge is
going to make work easier for you, we'll get it, if I have to pawn my
watch. Let's go and buy these fascinating things to-morrow. I've got a
list of everything in the house, and you'll have to go over it, and see
what else you'll need." He rose and stretched himself with a great
yawn. "Eh, but I'm sleepy! The boy is asleep, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, poor man: he tried to stay awake for you, but I told him you
would be too tired to talk. He's desperately anxious to hear about the
pony--you must go in to see him as soon as you get up, and tell him
about it. He is so happy to be going to the country. It's going to be
awfully worth while, Tom."
"Is it?" Then the doubt in his eyes died at the sight of her face.
"Yes, I believe it is," he said. "But then you'd make anything worth
while!"
*CHAPTER IV*
*INTO THE UNKNOWN*
They said good-bye to the "House Beautiful" in the early morning, while
the roses on the porch were still wet with dew. One fragrant bud
brushed Aileen's shoulder as she went, and she picked it, and tucked it
into her coat. If a little shiver ran through her as the door closed
behind her, she gave no sign. Their cab rattled off down the familiar
suburban street. Neither Tom nor Aileen looked back.
At the big station all was bustle and hurry: and soon they were in the
train and slipping through the long miles of grey houses, until the
just-awaking city was left far behind, and wide green paddocks and gum
trees, tall and stately, surrounded them. Little townships, like beads
upon a string, brought them to a halt every few miles: sometimes so
close together that there seemed scarcely any break between the outlying
homesteads.
"Plenty of settlement here now," Macleod said. "My mother used often to
travel this road by coach, and it was a journey in the winter: the road
was just a succession of bog-holes. There was one cheery spot known as
the Glue-Pot. Passengers used to get out there, in a body; the women
and children stood under the trees, often in pouring rain, while the men
got their shoulders to the wheels and dragged and pushed the old coach
through. It must have been hard on women with babies."
"Ugh!" said Aileen. "Do you know, I think our mothers were made of
better stuff than we are."
"I don't," said her husband stoutly. "You aren't called upon to do what
they did--you would do it if you were. But I don't think we men are
anything like as good as our fathers: we're brought up softly, and we
simply haven't got their muscle and endurance
|
in
the way of her passionate will, and the world may soon see under its
eyes the conflict of two republics founded on the same principles, but
subjected to influences that produce repulsion as great as exists in two
bodies charged with the same electricity. If ever the explosion come it
will be tremendous in its results, and distant Europe must feel the
shock.
The authorities seem resolved to make a stand at Fort Pickens,
notwithstanding the advice of Mr. Douglass to give it up. They regard it
as an important Federal fortress, as indisputably essential for national
purposes as Tortugas or Key West. Although United States property has
been “occupied,” the store vessels of the State seized, and the
sovereignty of the seceding States successfully asserted by the
appropriation of arsenals, and money, and war materials, on the part of
the local authorities, the Government of Washington are content by
non-recognition to reserve their own rights in face of the exercise of
_force majeure_.
The Chevalier Bertinnati, who has been Chargé d’Affaires for the
Government of King Victor Emmanuel, has been raised to the rank of
Minister, and in that capacity delivered his letters of credence to the
President on Wednesday. The letter addressed to the President by the
King of Piedmont was couched in terms of much friendliness and sympathy,
and Mr. Lincoln’s reply was equally warm. There is no display of
military preparation to meet the eye either at Washington or along the
road to it. General Scott, who was to have dined at the President’s
Cabinet dinner last night, and who was actually in the White House for
that purpose, was compelled to leave by indisposition. Any attempt to
relieve Fort Sumter would unquestionably be attended with great loss of
life; but most Americans readily admit that if they had a foreign force
to deal with, no consideration of that kind would stay the hands of the
Government. The fort stands on a sand-bank in shallow water, and
batteries have been cast up on both shores effectually commanding the
whole of the channels for several miles. The military activity and
enterprise--I hear the skill as well--of the South have been displayed
in the readiness and completeness of their preparations. In Galveston,
Texas, Governor Houston, who has resigned, or been deposed, protests, it
is said, against the acts of the new Government, and is likely to give
them trouble. The telegraph will, however, anticipate any news of this
sort which I can send you, though its intelligence should be received
with many grains of salt. Some people assert that “the telegraph has
caused the Secession,” and there is a strong feeling that some
restrictions should be placed upon the misuse of it in disseminating
false reports.
LETTER II.
WASHINGTON, April 1, 1861.
FROM all I have seen and heard, my belief is that the Southern States
have gone from the Union, if not forever, at least for such time as will
secure for their Government an absolute independence till it be
terminated by war, or, if their opponents be right, by the certain
processes of internal decay arising from inherent vices in their system,
faulty organization, and want of population, vigor, and wealth. That the
causes which have led to their secession now agitate the Border States
most powerfully with a tendency to follow them is not to be denied by
those who watch the course of events, and as these powerful neutrals
oscillate to and fro, under the pressure of contending parties and
passions, the Government at Washington and the authorities of the
revolting States regard every motion with anxiety; the former fearful
lest by word or deed they may repel them forever, the latter more
disposed by active demonstrations to determine the ultimate decision in
their own favor, and to attach them permanently to the Slave States by
resolute declarations of principle. Whatever the results of the Morrill
tariff may be, it is probable they must be endured on both sides of the
Atlantic, for there is no power in the Government or in the President,
as I understand, to modify its provisions, and there is a strong feeling
in Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet against the extra session, so loudly demanded
in New York, and so confidently expected in some parts of the Union.
Nothing but some overwhelming State necessity will overcome that
opposition, and, as the magnitude of such an occasion will have to be
estimated by those who are vehemently opposed to an extra Congress, it
is not likely that anything can occur which will be considered of
sufficient gravity by the Government at Washington to induce them to
encounter the difficulties and dangers they anticipate in consequence of
the convocation of an extraordinary assemblage of both Houses. Until
next December, then, in all probability, the President and his Cabinet
will have such control of affairs as is possible in the system of this
Government, or in the circumstances, together with the far more than
coördinate responsibility attached to their position as a Federal
Government. It is scarcely possible for an Englishman, far less for the
native of any State possessing a powerful Executive, to comprehend the
limits which are assigned to the powers of the State in this country, or
to the extent to which resistance to its authority can be carried by the
action of the States supposed to be consenting parties to its
Constitution and supporters of its jurisdiction. Take, for instance,
what is occurring within a few miles of the seat of the Central
Government, across the Potomac. At a certain iron-foundery guns have
been cast for the United States Government, which are about to be
removed to Fort Monroe, in the State of Virginia, one of the fortresses
for the defence of the United States. The Legislature of Virginia sat
all night last Saturday, and authorized the Governor of that State to
call out the public guard in order to prevent by force, if necessary,
the removal of those guns, at the same time offering to the contractor
the price which he was to have received for them from the Federal
Government. Again, at Mobile, where a writ of _habeas corpus_ is sued
out on behalf of the master of a vessel, who was seized because he had a
cargo of small stores which he intended to sell to the United States
men-of-war on observation off Pensacola, the counsel for the State of
Florida resists the application on the ground that the prisoner was
carrying supplies to an enemy, and that a state of war exists in
consequence of the acts of the Federal Government; and the Court,
without deciding on the point, discharge the prisoner, in order that it
may be freed from responsibility. On the other hand, the Federal
Government remits the penalties of forfeiture and fines on the vessel
seized by the Custom House at New York for want of proper clearances
from Southern ports. The stereotype plates with the words “Evacuation of
Fort Sumter” have apparently been worn out, but it is believed on all
sides that it will be abandoned by Major Anderson this week, although I
heard a member of the Cabinet declare last week that no orders had been
issued to that officer to evacuate it. If the opinions of some of the
Northern people prevailed, the fort would be retained until it was taken
by assault. The Southern Confederation, secure of Fort Sumter, are now
preparing for active operations against Fort Pickens, which protects the
entrance to the quondam United States Navy Yard at Pensacola, now in the
possession of the troops of Florida; and certain organs of the extreme
party in the South have already demanded that the forts at Tortugas and
Key West, which are situated far out at sea from the coast, should be
surrendered.
The Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln is understood to contain the representatives
of three different courses of policy--that trinity of action which
generally produces torpid and uncertain motion or complete rest. First,
there are those who would, at any risk, vindicate the rights they claim
for the Federal Government, and use force, even though it could only, in
its most successful application, overrun the States of the South, and
compel a temporary submission, without leading to the reestablishment of
Federal authority, or the reincorporation of the States with the Union.
Secondly, there are those, men of intellect and capacity, who,
dissenting altogether from the doctrines propounded by the leaders of
the revolution, and convinced that the separation will not be permanent,
see the surest and safest mode of action in the total abstinence from
all aggressive assertion of rights, and in a policy of _laissez aller_
of indeterminate longitude and latitude. These statesmen believe that,
like most revolutions, the secession is the work of the minority, and
that a strong party of reaction exists, which will come to the front by
and by, “expel the traitors,” and return triumphantly with their
repentant States into the bosom of the Union. The gentlemen who hold
these views have either a more accurate knowledge than the public, are
better read in the signs of the times, or have more faith in the
efficacy of inaction on the love of Americans for the Union, than is
possessed by most of the outer world. The third party is formed of those
who are inclined to take the South at their word; to cut the cord at
once, believing that the loss would be a gain, and that the Southern
Confederation would inflict on itself a most signal retribution for what
they consider as the crime of breaking up the Union. Practically, so far
as I have gone, I have failed to meet many people who really exhibited
any passionate attachment to the Union for its own sake, or who
pretended to be animated by any strong feelings of regard or admiration
for the Government of the United States in itself. The word
“Constitution” is forever ringing in one’s ears, its “principles” and
its authority are continually appealed to, but the end is no nearer. The
other day I bought the whole Constitution of the United States, neatly
printed, for three halfpence. But the only conclusion I could draw was,
that it was better for States not to have Constitutions which could be
bought at such very moderate prices. It is rather an inopportune moment
for the Professor of the Harvard Law School to send forth his lecture on
the Constitution of the United States, and on the differences between it
and that of Great Britain. Just as the learned gentleman is glorying in
the supremacy of the Judicial body of the United States over Congress,
Presidents, and Legislatures, the course of events exhibits that Supreme
Court as a mere nullity in the body politic, unable to take cognizance,
or unwilling to act in regard to matters which are tearing the
Constitution into atoms. No one thinks of appealing to it, or invoking
its decision. And, after all, if the Court were to decide, what would be
the use of its judgment, if one or other of the two great parties
resisted it? The _ultima ratio_ would be the only means by which the
decision could be enforced. In the very midst of the hymns which are
offered up around the shrines of the Constitution, whether old or
mended, all celebrating the powers of the great priestess of the
mysteries, there are heretic voices to be heard, which, in addition to
other matters, deny that the Supreme Court was ever intended by the
Constitution to exercise the sole and signal right of interpreting the
Constitution, that it is competent to do so, or that it would be safe
to give it the power. Its powers are judicial, not political, and Mr.
Calhoun on that very point said:
“Let it never be forgotten, that if we should absurdly attribute to
the Supreme Court the exclusive right of construing the
Constitution, there would be, in fact, between the sovereign and
subject under such a Government no Constitution, or at least
nothing deserving the name, or serving the legitimate object of so
sacred an instrument.”
The argument revolves in a circle; it ends nowhere, and there seems no
solution except such as concession or a sword cut may give.
There are at present in Washington two of the three unrecognized
Ministers Plenipotentiary of the Southern Government, Mr. Roman and Mr.
Crawford. Judging from the tone of these gentlemen, all idea of
returning to the Union, under any circumstances whatever, has been
utterly abandoned. Mr. Forsyth, the third of the Commissioners, who is
at present engaged in adjusting certain business of a very important
character at New York, is expected back in a few days, and it will then
be seen whether the Commissioners consent to walk up and down in the
_salles des pas perdus_ any longer. They are armed with full powers on
all questions which can come up for settlement. The Government has
refused to receive them, or to take any official notice of them
whatever; but there is reason to believe that certain propositions and
negotiations have been laid before Mr. Seward in a private and
unofficial manner, to which no reply of a definite character has been
given. Before this letter reaches you, Mr. Yancey, Mr. Mann, and Mr.
Rort will have arrived in Europe to try the temper of the Governments of
England and France in reference to the recognition of the Southern
States. Both parties have been somewhat startled by the intelligence of
an active movement of Spain to gain political ascendancy in St. Domingo;
and the news that France and England are sending a combined fleet to
these shores, though coming in a very questionable shape, has excited
uneasy feeling and some recrimination.
If the Congress is reassembled, there is much reason to fear an open
rupture; if not, another solution may be arrived at. It is unfortunate
for the Government that General Scott is suffering at this moment from
the infirmities of age, and the effect of the great demands made upon
his strength. Mr. Lincoln gave a dinner to his Cabinet on Thursday last,
the first of the season, in honor principally of General Scott; but the
veteran General, who had entered the White House, was obliged to leave
before dinner was served. There has been a great emigration of
candidates and office-hunters from this since I last wrote, some
contented, many more grumbling. It is asserted that there never has been
such a clean sweep of office-holders since the practice was introduced
by General Jackson. If I am rightly informed, the President has the
patronage of one hundred and forty thousand places, great and
small--some very small.
NIGHT.--The influence of England and of France on the destinies of the
Republic is greater than any American patriot would like to admit. It
must not be expected, therefore, that there will be any proof of
excessive anxiety afforded by the leaders of either party in reference
to the course which may be taken by the European Governments in the
present crisis; but it is not the less to be apprehended, that an
immediate recognition of the confederated independence of the South, or
of the doctrine of absolute individual sovereignty on the part of those
States, may precipitate the hostile action which, in the event of
absolute final separation, seems to be inevitable. To the North it would
be a heavy blow and great discouragement, the consequences of which
could only be averted by some very violent remedies. Separation without
war is scarcely to be expected. The establishment of an independent
Republic in the South may, indeed, be effected peaceably; but it is not,
humanly speaking, within the limits of any probability that the diverse
questions which will arise out of conflicting interests in regard to
revenue and State and Federal rights can be settled without an appeal to
arms. At the present minute there is nothing to induce a stranger to
believe that an effectual resistance could be offered to a vigorous
aggressive movement from the South, supposing the means to make it
existed either in the adhesion or permission of the Border States. The
North, however, is strong in its population, in its wealth, and in its
calm. In the hands of the Border States are all the arbitraments of
revolution or union, of war or peace. By an unmeaning euphemism the
revolution of the South has been called Secession; but the confusion and
mischief caused by the euphemistic timidity of statesmen disappear, when
the acts of the South are tested by the standard applicable to
revolutionary crises; and by that standard alone are those acts
intelligible and coherent. Measured in that way, the seizure of
property, the deeds and the language of the leaders of the movement,
and the acts of the masses, can be properly estimated. Mr. Douglass,
whose mental capacity is a splendid justification of his enormous
political activity, and of a high political rank--unattached--is
understood to be engaged on a vast system for establishing duties all
over the North American continent in the nature of a Zollverein. It is
his opinion that the North, in case of separation, must fight the South
on the arena of free trade; that the tariff must be completely altered;
and that the duties must be lowered from point to point, in proportion
as the South bids against the North for the commerce of Europe, till the
reduction reaches such a point that the South, forced to raise revenue
for the actual expenses of Government, and unable to struggle against
the superior wealth of the North in such a contest, is obliged to come
to an understanding with its powerful competitor, and to submit to a
treaty of commerce which shall include all the States of the North
American continent, from the Isthmus of Panama to the ice of the Arctic
Seas. The Canadas are, of course, included in such a project; indeed, it
is difficult to say where the means of escaping from their present
embarrassment will not be sought by the leading statesmen of America.
But on one point all are agreed. Whatever may happen, the North will
insist on a Free Mississippi. It is the very current of life for the
trade of myriads of people hundreds of miles from New Orleans. If
Louisiana, either as sovereign State or representative agent of the
Southern Confederation, attempts to control the navigation of that
river, we shall see a most terrible and ruinous war. Let England look to
the contingencies.
APRIL, 5.--One month and one day have elapsed since Mr. Lincoln and his
Cabinet were installed at Washington. Long previous to their accession
to power or rather to office, the revolution of the South had assumed
the aspect of an independent Government. When the new Administration
tried to direct the horses’ heads, they found the reins were cut, and
all they could do was to sit on the State coach, and take their chance
of falling in a soft place, or of the fiery steeds coming to a
standstill from exhaustion. A month ago and the State Treasury was
nearly exhausted; only some £370,000 was forthcoming to meet demands and
requirements four times as large. The navy was scattered all over the
world at stations by no means readily accessible, the army posted along
frontier lines, between which and the Northern States was interposed the
expanse of the Southern Confederation; the officers disaffected to the
Government, or at all events so well affected to their individual
sovereign States as to feel indisposed to serve the United States; the
whole machinery of Government in the hands of the revolutionary leaders,
every trace of Federal existence erased in the South, wiped away by acts
which, unless justified by successful revolt, would be called
treasonable, or by force or stratagem, and only two forts held on the
seaboard, weekly garrisoned, and unhappily situated with reference to
operations of relief. In addition to these sources of weakness, came the
confusion and apprehension caused by divided counsels, want of cohesion,
the disorders of a violent national contest, mistrust of adequate
support, and above all the imperious necessities of the place-seekers,
whose importunate requisitions distracted the attention of the
Government from the more important business which presented itself for
adjustment. It was, of course, necessary to fill the posts which were
occupied by enemies with men devoted to the interests of a Government
which could little brook any indifference or treacherous tendencies on
the part of its subordinates. But had the Administration been as strong
in all respects as any United States Government ever could or can hope
to be, in reference to such emergencies as the present, it really could
have done little except precipitate a civil war, in which the Border
States would have arranged themselves by the side of the Cotton States.
A considerable portion of the North would have been hostile to coercion,
and the theories which have been propounded with much apparent
approbation respecting the actual uses of Government, its powers and
jurisdiction, show that European doctrines on such points are not at all
accepted by statesmen, politicians and jurists in North America. Without
the means of enforcing an authority which many of its own adherents, and
most of the neutral parties denied to it, Mr. Lincoln’s Administration
finds itself called upon to propound a policy and to proceed to vigorous
action. The demand is scarcely reasonable. The policy of such men
suddenly lifted to the head of affairs, which they cannot attempt to
guide, must be to wait and watch, and their action must be simply
tentative as they have no power to put forth with moderate hope of
success any aggressive force.
Be satisfied of this--the United States Government will give up no
power or possession which it has at present got. By its voluntary act it
will surrender nothing whatever. No matter what reports may appear in
the papers or in letters, distrust them if they would lead you to
believe that Mr. Lincoln is preparing either to abandon what he has now,
or to recover that which he has not.
The United States Government is in an attitude of protest; it cannot
strike an offensive blow. But, if any attack is made upon it, the
Government hopes that it will be strengthened by the indignation of the
North and West, to such an extent that it cannot only repel the
aggression, but possibly give a stimulus to a great reaction in its
favor.
On these principles Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens are held. They are
claimed as Federal fortresses. The Stars and Stripes still float over
them. Whatever may be said to the contrary, they will remain there till
they are removed by the action of the Confederate States. The
Commissioners of Mr. Jefferson Davis’s Government “have reason to say
that if any attempt be made to throw reënforcements into Fort Pickens,
unless they receive previous notice of it as promised, it will be a
breach of good faith.” From all I can learn, no intention of
strengthening the fort is at present entertained; but it may be doubted
if the attempt would not be made should any favorable opportunity of
doing so present itself. All “the movements of troops,” of which you
will see accounts, are preparations against--not for--aggression. At
most they amount to the march of a few companies and guns to various
forts, now all but undefended. Fort Washington, of which I shall have a
few words to say hereafter, was till lately held by a very inadequate
force. As a member of the Cabinet said to me, “I could have taken it
last week with a little whisky,” that potent artillery being applied to
the weak defences of the aged Irish artilleryman who constituted “the
garrison.” The “formidable military force concentrated in Washington,”
of which you may read in the American journals, consists of about 700
men of all arms, as far as I can see, and four brass field guns. There
is a good deal of drumming, fifing, marching, and music going on daily.
I look on and see a small band in gay uniforms, a small body of men in
sombre uniforms, varying from fifteen to thirty rank and file, armed,
however, with excellent rifles, and a very large standard, pass by; and
next day I read that such and such a company had a parade, and
“attracted much admiration by their efficient and soldierly appearance,
and the manner in which,” &c. But these military companies have no
intention of fighting for the Government. Their sympathies are quite
undetermined. Formidable as they would be in skirmishing in the open
country, they would be of comparatively little use against regular
troops at the outset of the contest, as they have never learnt to act
together, and do not aspire to form even battalions. But their existence
indicates the strong military tendencies of the people, and the danger
of doing anything which might turn them against the Government. Mr.
Lincoln has no power to make war against the South: the Congress alone
could give it to him; and that is not likely to be given, because
Congress will not be assembled before the usual time, unless under the
pressure of and imperious necessity.
Why, then, hold these forts at all? Why not give them up? Why not
withdraw the garrison, strike the flag, and cease to keep up a useless
source of irritation in the midst of the Southern Confederation? The
answer to these questions is: These forts are Federal property. The
Government does not acknowledge the existence of any right on the part
of the people of the States to seize them as appertaining to individual
States. The forts are protests against the acts of violence to which the
Federal authority has yielded elsewhere. They are, moreover, the _points
d’appui,_ small as they are, on which the Federal Government can rest
its resistance to the claims of the Southern Confederation to be
acknowledged as an independent republic. If they were surrendered
without attack, or without the existence of any pressure arising from
the refusal of the Southern authorities to permit them to get supplies,
which is an act of war, the case of the United States Government would
be, they consider, materially weakened. If it be observed that these
forts have no strategic value, it may readily be replied that their
political value is very great. But, serious as these considerations may
be, or may be thought to be, with respect to foreign relations, there
are in reference to domestic politics still more weighty inducements to
hold them. The effect produced in the North and Northwest by an attack
on the forts while the United States flag is floating over them, would
be as useful to the Government at Washington as the effect of abandoning
the forts or tamely surrendering them would be hurtful to them in the
estimation of the extreme Republicans. A desperate attack, a gallant
defense, the shedding of the blood of gallant men, whose duty it was to
defend that intrusted to their keeping, and who yielded only to
numbers--the outrage on the United States flag--would create an
excitement in the Union which the South, with all its determination and
courage, is unwilling to provoke, but which the Government would be
forced to use in its own service. Such an event must lead to war, a very
terrible and merciless war, and both parties pause before they resort to
that court of arms. Unless the Border States join the South, Mr.
Jefferson Davis could scarcely hope to carry out the grand projects
which are attributed to his military genius of marching northward, and
dictating terms on their own soil to the Republicans. He could scarcely
venture to leave the negro population unguarded in his rear, and his
flanks menaced by the sea-born northerners on the one side, and by such
operations as the water-sheds significantly indicate on the other. It is
idle to speculate on the incidents of that which may never occur, and
which, occurring, may assume the insignificant aspect of border
skirmishes, or the tremendous proportions of a war of races and creeds,
intensified by the worst elements of servile and civil conflict. The
Government of Mr. Lincoln hope and believe that the contest may be
averted. The Commissioners of the South are inclined to think, also,
there will be a peaceful solution, obtained, of course, by full
concession and recognition. But inaction cannot last on the part of the
South. Already they have begun the system of coercion. The supplies of
the garrison at Sumter will be cut off henceforth, if they are not
already forbidden. They do not fear the moral effect of this act, for
some of their leading men actually believe that nothing can stop the
progress of a movement which will, they fondly think, absorb all the
other States of the Union, and leave the New England States to form an
insignificant republic of its own, with a possible larger destiny in
Canada. Their opponents in the North are as fully satisfied that the
direst Nemesis will fall on the Montgomery Government in the utter ruin
of all their States the moment they are left to themselves.
The Government is elated at the success of the loan, and Mr. Chase has
taken high ground in refusing offers made to him yesterday, and in
resolving to issue Government securities for the balance of the amount
required to complete the amount. Mr. Forsyth, one of the Southern
Commissioners, who has just returned from New York here, is equally
satisfied with the temper of parties in that city, and seems to think
that the New Yorkers are preparing for a secession. But, though States
may be sovereign, it has never been ascertained that cities or portions
of States are so, and in the western and northern portions of the State
of New York there is a large agricultural population, which, with the
aid of Government, would speedily suppress any attempt to secede on the
part of the city, if men are to be believed who say they know the
circumstances of the case. Virginia is claimed by both sides, but
accounts this morning are to the effect that the Secessionists have been
defeated on a division by a vote of two to one in favor of the Union;
and although General Houston appears to be forced to accept the
situation for a time, there are many who think he will organize a strong
reaction against the dominant Secessionists.
Whatever may be these result of all the diverse actions, the Great
Republic is gone! The shape of the fragments is not yet determined any
more than their fate. They may reunite, but the cohesion can never be
perfect. The ship of the State was built of too many “platforms,” there
were too many officers on board, perhaps the principles of construction
were erroneous, the rigid cast-iron old constitution guns burst
violently when tried with new projectiles--any way, those who adhere
with most devotion to the vessel, admit that it is parted right
amidships, and that its _prestige_ has vanished. The more desperate of
these would gladly see an enemy, or go out of their way to find one, in
the hope of a common bond of union being discovered in a common
animosity and danger.
The naval preparations, of which you will hear a good deal, are intended
to make good existing deficiencies and to meet contingencies. At any
other time the action of Spain in St. Domingo would create a cry for
war. Now all the Federal Government can do is to demand and receive
explanations. In reply to Mr. Seward’s inquiries, the Spanish Minister
has possibly stated that the recent events in St. Domingo have been
caused by the acts and threats of Hayti, which forced the Dominicans to
call in the aid and claim the protection of Spain. There have been
several attempts from time to time to induce France to assume the
dominion of its former possession, and it is not unlikely that an
excellent understanding exists between the Court of Madrid and the
Emperor Napoleon in reference to the subject. The report that the
Mexicans have made, or contemplate making, an attack on Texas, is
scarcely worthy of credence.
As to the Morrill tariff, I can only repeat what I have already said. It
must be borne till results show that it cannot be persisted in. Then
only will it be repealed or modified. The theory of the Government is,
that the United States always takes far more from Europe than it can pay
for. “If the revenue is collected, there is no ground for complaint. The
English and French manufacturer will be satisfied, as well as the
northern population. If the revenue is not collected, then the tariff
must be repealed, and that will be done within the year, if the mischief
is serious.” Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Manchester must make the
best they can out of the doctrine.
LETTER III.
WASHINGTON, April 9, 1861.
THE critical position of the Federal Government has compelled its
members to preserve secrecy. Never before under any Administration was
so little of the councils of the Cabinet known to the public, or to
those who are supposed to be acquainted with the opinions of the
statesmen in office. Mr. Seward has issued the most stringent orders to
the officers and clerks in his department to observe the rules, which
heretofore have been much disregarded, in reference to the confidential
character of State papers in their charge. The sources of the fountain
of knowledge from which friendly journalists drew so freely are thus
stopped without fear, favor, or affection, toward any. The result has
been much irritation in quarters where such “interference” is regarded
as unwarrantable, or, at least, as very injurious. The newspapers which
enjoyed the privilege of free access to despatches are hatching
_canards_, which they let fly along the telegraph wires with amazing
productiveness and fertility of conception and incubation. Hence the
monstrous and ridiculous rumors which harden into type everyday--hence
the clamors for “a policy,” and hence the contending accusations that
the Government is doing nothing, and that it is also preparing to plunge
the country into civil war. Each member of the Cabinet has become a
Burleigh, every shake of whose head perplexes New York with a fear of
change; every Senator is watched by private reporters, who trace “the
day’s disasters in his morning’s face.” If a weak company of artillery
is marched on board a ship, its movements are chronicled in columns of
vivid description, and its footsteps are made to sound like the march of
a vast army. The telegraph from Washington has learnt its daily message
about Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens by heart, and the world has been
soothed daily by the assurance that General Braxton Bragg is ready, and
that the South Carolinians can no longer be restrained. But there is
always a secret understanding that Generals Bragg and Beauregard will be
more ready still the next day, and that the people will be more
unrestrainable by next telegram. When I landed in New York, the first
news I learnt was that Fort Sumter would be evacuated next day; and if
not, that the supplies would be cut off, and that the garrison would be
starved out. I have learnt how to distrust prophecy, and I am going
South in the hope that the end is not yet. The Southern Commissioners
state that the Government here has promised them that no efforts shall
be made to reënforce Fort Pickens without previous notice to them--a
very singular promise. The Government, however, denies that it has been
in communication with them. Fort Sumter must be considered as gone, for
there is no disposition, apparently, on the part of the Government to
hazard the loss of life and great risk which must inevitably attend any
attempt to relieve or carry off the garrison, now that the channels are
under the fire of numerous heavily armed batteries, which the people of
South Carolina were permitted to throw up without molestation. The
operations of a relieving force would have to be conducted on a very
large scale by troops disembarking on the shores and taking the
batteries in reverse, in conjunction with an attack from the sea; and,
after all, such an expedition would be futile, unless it were intended
to occupy Charleston, and try the fortune of war in South Carolina--an
intention quite opposed to the expressions and, I believe, the feelings
of the Cabinet of Washington, not to speak of the people of the Border
States and of large remnants of the Union. From your correspondent at
New York you will receive full particulars of the movements of troops,
and of the naval preparations which are reported in the papers, which
create more curiosity than excitement among the people I meet. My task
must be to describe what I see around me.
It may be as well to state in the most positive terms that the reports
which have appeared in the American papers of communications between the
English Minister and the American Government on the subject of a
blockade of the Southern ports, are totally and entirely destitute of
foundation. No communication of any kind has passed between Lord Lyons,
on the part of the English Government, and Mr. Seward, or any one else,
on behalf of the Government at Washington. It would be a most offensive
proceeding to volunteer any intimation of the course to be pursued by a
European Power respecting a contingency of action on the part of the
United States; nor would it be necessary, in case a blockade were
declared, to formulate a supererogatory notice that it must be such a
blockade as the law of nations recognizes. The importance of a distinct
understanding on that point is all the greater in connection with the
stories which are afloat that the naval
|
ida suffered a sad and thoughtful look to fall upon this handsome
young man who spoke to her in so gentle a voice, and withdrew without
further reply, that she might not humiliate his poverty.
The prince made great efforts to suppress a strong inclination towards
laughter, and, very well satisfied with this opening, turned his steps
towards the spot where he had left his servant. Trespolo, after having
emptied a bottle of lacryma with which he had provided himself for any
emergency, had looked long around him to choose a spot where the grass
was especially high and thick, and had laid himself down to a sound
sleep, murmuring as he did so, this sublime observation, "O laziness,
but for the sin of Adam you would be a virtue!"
The young girl could not close her eyes during the whole night after the
conversation that she had held with the stranger. His sudden appearance,
his strange dress and odd speech, had awakened in her an uncertain
feeling that had been lying asleep in the bottom of her heart. She was
at this time in all the vigour of her youth and of her resplendent
beauty. Nisida was not one of the weak and timid natures that are broken
by suffering or domineered over by tyranny. Far otherwise: everything
around her had contributed towards shaping for her a calm and serene
destiny; her simple, tender soul had unfolded in an atmosphere of peace
and happiness. If she had not hitherto loved, it was the fault, not of
her coldness but of the extreme timidity shown by the inhabitants of her
island. The blind depth of respect that surrounded the old fisherman had
drawn around his daughter a barrier of esteem and submission that no one
dared to cross. By means of thrift and labour Solomon had succeeded in
creating for himself a prosperity that put the poverty of the other
fishermen to the blush. No one had asked for Nisida because no one
thought he deserved her. The only admirer who had dared to show his
passion openly was Bastiano, the most devoted and dearest friend of
Gabriel; but Bastiano did not please her. So, trusting in her beauty,
upheld by the mysterious hope that never deserts youth, she had resigned
herself to wait, like some princess who knows that her betrothed will
come from a far country.
On the day of the Assumption she had left her island for the first time
in her life, chance having chosen her among the maidens of the kingdom
vowed by their mothers to the special protection of the Virgin. But,
overwhelmed by the weight of a position so new to her, blushing and
confused under the eyes of an immense crowd, she had scarcely dared to
raise her wondering looks, and the splendours of the town had passed
before her like a dream, leaving but a vague remembrance.
When she perceived the presence of this handsome young man, so slenderly
and elegantly built, whose noble and calm demeanour contrasted with the
timidity and awkwardness of her other admirers, she felt herself
inwardly disturbed, and no doubt she would have believed that her prince
had come, if she had been unpleasantly struck by the poverty of his
dress. She had, nevertheless, allowed herself to listen to him longer
than she ought to have done, and she drew back with her bosom heavy, her
cheek on fire, and her heart rent by an ache that was both dull and
sharp.
"If my father does not wish me to marry him," she said to herself,
tormented by the first remorseful feeling of her life. "I shall have
done wrong to speak to him. And yet he is so handsome!"
Then she knelt before the Virgin, who was her only confidante, the poor
child having never known her mother, and tried to tell her the torments
of her soul; but she could not achieve her prayer. The thoughts became
entangled within her brain, and she surprised herself uttering strange
words. But, assuredly, the Holy Virgin must have taken pity upon her
lovely devotee, for she rose with the impression of a consoling thought,
resolved to confide everything to her father.
"I cannot have a moment's doubt," she said to herself, as she unlaced
her bodice, "of my father's affection. Well, then, if he forbids me to
speak to him, it will be for my good. And indeed, I have seen him but
this once," she added, as she threw herself upon the bed, "and now I
think of it, I consider him very bold to dare to speak to me. I am
almost inclined to laugh at him. How confidently he brought out his
nonsense, how absurdly he rolled his eyes! They are really very fine,
those eyes of his, and so is his mouth, and his forehead and his hair.
He does not suspect that I noticed his hands, which are really very
white, when he raised them to heaven, like a madman, as he walked up and
down by the sea. Come, come, is he going to prevent my sleeping? I will
not see him again!" she cried, drawing the sheet over her head like an
angry child. Then she began to laugh to herself over her lover's dress,
and meditated long upon what her companions would say to it. Suddenly
her brow contracted painfully, a frightful thought had stolen into her
mind, she shuddered from head to foot. "Suppose he were to think someone
else prettier than me? Men are so foolish! Certainly, it is too hot, and
I shall not sleep to-night."
Then she sat up in her bed, and continued her monologue--which we will
spare the reader--till the morning. Scarcely had the first rays of light
filtered through the interlacing branches of jasmine and wavered into
the room, when Nisida dressed herself hurriedly, and went as usual to
present her forehead to her father's kiss. The old man at once observed
the depression and weariness left by a sleepless night upon his
daughter's face, and parting with an eager and anxious hand the
beautiful black hair that fell over her cheeks, he asked her, "What is
the matter, my child? Thou hast not slept well?"
"I have not slept at all," answered Nisida, smiling, to reassure her
father; "I am perfectly well, but I have something to confess to you."
"Speak quickly, child; I am dying with impatience."
"Perhaps I have done wrong; but I want you to promise beforehand not to
scold me."
"You know very well that I spoil you," said the old man, with a caress;
"I shall not begin to be stern to-day."
"A young man who does not belong to this island, and whose name I do not
know, spoke to me yesterday evening when I was taking the air at my
window."
"And what was he so eager to say to you, my dear Nisida?"
"He begged me to speak to you in his favour."
"I am listening. What can I do for him?"
"Order me to marry him."
"And should you obey willingly?"
"I think so, father," the girl candidly replied. "As to other things,
you yourself must judge in your wisdom; for I wanted to speak to you
before coming to know him, so as not to go on with a conversation that
you might not approve. But there is a hindrance."
"You know that I do not recognise any when it is a question of making my
daughter happy."
"He is poor, father."
"Well, all the more reason for me to like him. There is work here for
everybody, and my table can spare a place for another son. He is young,
he has arms; no doubt he has some calling."
"He is a poet."
"No matter; tell him to come and speak to me, and if he is an honest
lad, I promise you, my child, that I will do anything in the world to
promote your happiness."
Nisida embraced her father effusively, and was beside herself with joy
all day, waiting impatiently for the evening in order to give the young
man such splendid news. Eligi Brancaleone was but moderately flattered,
as you will easily believe, by the fisherman's magnanimous intentions
towards him; but like the finished seducer that he was, he appeared
enchanted at them. Recollecting his character as a fantastical student
and an out-at-elbows poet, he fell upon his knees and shouted a
thanksgiving to the planet Venus; then, addressing the young girl, he
added, in a calmer voice, that he was going to write immediately to his
own father, who in a week's time would come to make his formal proposal;
until then, he begged, as a favour, that he might not present himself to
Solomon nor to any person at all in the island, and assigned as a
pretext a certain degree of shame which he felt on account of his old
clothes, assuring his beloved that his father would bring him a complete
outfit for the wedding-day.
While the ill-starred girl was thus walking in terrifying security at
the edge of the precipice, Trespolo, following his master's wishes, had
established himself in the island as a pilgrim from Jerusalem. Playing
his part and sprinkling his conversation with biblical phrases, which
came to him readily, in his character of ex-sacristan, he distributed
abundance of charms, wood of the true Cross and milk of the Blessed
Virgin, and all those other inexhaustible treasures on which the eager
devotion of worthy people daily feeds. His relics were the more
evidently authentic in that he did not sell any of them, and, bearing
his poverty in a holy manner, thanked the faithful and declined their
alms. Only, out of regard for the established virtue of Solomon, he had
consented to break bread with the fisherman, and went to take meals with
him with the regularity of a cenobite. His abstinence aroused universal
surprise: a crust dipped in water, a few nuts or figs sufficed to keep
this holy man alive--to prevent him, that is to say, from dying.
Furthermore, he entertained Nisida by his tales of his travels and by
his mysterious predictions. Unfortunately, he only appeared towards
evening; for he spent the rest of the day in austerities and in
prayers--in other words, in drinking like a Turk and snoring like a
buffalo.
On the morning of the seventh day, after the promise given by the prince
to the fisherman's daughter, Brancaleone came into his servant's room,
and, shaking hint roughly, cried in his ear, "Up, odious marmot!"
Trespolo, awakened suddenly, rubbed his eyes in alarm. The dead,
sleeping peacefully at the bottom of their coffins, will be less annoyed
at the last day when the trump of Judgment comes to drag them from their
slumbers. Fear having, however, immediately dispersed the dark clouds
that overspread his countenance, he sat up, and asked with an appearance
of bewilderment--
"What is the matter, your excellency?"
"The matter is that I will have you flayed alive a little if you do not
leave off that execrable habit of sleeping twenty hours in the day."
"I was not asleep, prince!" cried the servant boldly, as he sprang out
of bed; "I was reflecting---"
"Listen to me," said the prince in a severe tone; "you were once
employed, I believe, in a chemist's shop?"
"Yes, my lord, and I left because my employer had the scandalous
barbarity to make me pound drugs, which tired my arms horribly."
"Here is a phial containing a solution of opium."
"Mercy!" cried Trespolo, falling on his knees.
"Get up, idiot, and pay great attention to what I am going to say to
you. This little fool of a Nisida persists in wanting me to speak to her
father. I made her believe that I was going away this evening to fetch
my papers. There is no time to lose. They know you very well at the
fisherman's. You will pour this liquid into their wine; your life will
answer for your not giving them a larger dose than enough to produce a
deep sleep. You will take care to prepare me a good ladder for to-night;
after which you will go and wait for me in my boat, where you will find
Numa and Bonaroux. They have my orders. I shall not want you in scaling
the fortress; I have my Campo Basso dagger."
"But, my lord---" stammered Trespolo, astounded.
"No difficulties!" cried the prince, stamping his foot furiously, "or,
by my father's death, I will cure you, once for all, of your scruples."
And he turned on his heel with the air of a man who is certain that
people will be very careful not to disobey his orders.
The unhappy Trespolo fulfilled his master's injunctions punctually. With
him fear was the guiding principle. That evening the fisherman's supper
table was hopelessly dull, and the sham pilgrim tried in vain to enliven
it by factitious cheerfulness. Nisida was preoccupied by her lover's
departure, and Solomon, sharing unconsciously in his daughter's grief,
swallowed but a drop or two of wine, to avoid resisting the repeated
urgency of his guest. Gabriel had set out in the morning for Sorrento
and was not to return for two or three days; his absence tended to
increase the old man's melancholy. As soon as Trespolo had retired, the
fisherman yielded to his fatigue. Nisida, with her arms hanging by her
sides, her head heavy and her heart oppressed by a sad presentiment, had
scarcely strength to go up to her room, and after having mechanically
trimmed the lamp, sank on her bed as pale and stiff as a corpse.
The storm was breaking out with violence; one of those terrible storms
seen only in the South, when the congregated clouds, parting suddenly,
shed torrents of rain and of hail, and threaten another deluge. The roar
of the thunder drew nearer and was like the noise of a cannonade. The
gulf, lately so calm and smooth that the island was reflected as in a
mirror, had suddenly darkened; the furiously leaping waves flung
themselves together like wild horses; the island quaked, shaken by
terrible shocks. Even the boldest fishermen had drawn their boats
ashore, and, shut within their cabins, encouraged as best they could
their frightened wives and children.
Amid the deep darkness that overspread the sea Nisida's lamp could be
seen gleaming clear and limpid, as it burned before the Madonna. Two
boats, without rudders, sails, or oars, tossed by the waves, beaten by
the winds, were whirling above the abyss; two men were in these two
boats, their muscles tense, their breasts bare, their hair flying. They
gazed haughtily on the sea, and braved the tempest.
"Once more, I beg you," cried one of these men, "fear not for me,
Gabriel; I promise you that with my two broken oars and a little
perseverance I shall get to Torre before daybreak."
"You are mad, Bastiano; we have not been able ever since the morning to
get near Vico, and have been obliged to keep tacking about; your skill
and strength have been able to do nothing against this frightful
hurricane which has driven us back to this point."
"It is the first time you have ever refused to go with me," remarked the
young man.
"Well, yes, my dear Bastiano, I do not know how it is, but to-night I
feel drawn to the island by an irresistible power. The winds have been
unchained to bring me back to it in spite of myself, and I will own to
you, even though it should make me seem like a madman in your eyes, that
this simple and ordinary event appears to me like an order from heaven.
Do you see that lamp shining over there?"
"I know it," answered Bastiano, suppressing a sigh.
"It was lighted before the Virgin one the day when my sister was born,
and for eighteen year it has never ceased to burn, night and day. It was
my mother's vow. You do not know, my dear Bastiano, you cannot know how
many torturing thoughts that vow recalls to me. My poor mother called me
to her deathbed and told me a frightful tale, a horrible secret, which
weighs on my soul like a cloak of lead, and of which I can only relieve
myself by confiding it to a friend. When her painful story was ended she
asked to see and to embrace my sister, who was just born; then with her
trembling hand, already chilled by the approach of death, she desired to
light the lamp herself. 'Remember,' these were her last words,
'remember, Gabriel, that your sister is vowed to the Madonna. As long as
this light shines before the blessed image of the Virgin, your sister
will be in no danger.' You can understand now why, at night, when we are
crossing the gulf, my eyes are always fixed on that lamp. I have a
belief that nothing could shake, which is that on the day that light
goes out my sister's soul will have taken flight to heaven."
"Well," cried Bastiano in an abrupt tone that betrayed the emotion of
his heart, "if you prefer to stay, I will go alone."
"Farewell," said Gabriel, without turning aside his eyes from the window
towards which he felt himself drawn by a fascination for which he could
not account. Bastiano disappeared, and Nisida's brother, assisted by the
waves, was drawing nearer and nearer to the shore, when, at all once, he
uttered a terrible cry which sounded above the noise of the tempest.
The star had just been extinguished; the lamp had been blown out.
"My sister is dead!" cried Gabriel and, leaping into the sea, he cleft
the waves with the rapidity of lightning.
The storm had redoubled its intensity; long lines of lightning, rending
the sides of the clouds, bathed everything in their tawny and
intermittent light. The fisherman perceived a ladder leaning against the
front of his home, seized it with a convulsive hand, and in three bounds
flung himself into the room. The prince felt himself strangely moved on
making his way into this pure and silent retreat. The calm and gentle
gaze of the Virgin who seemed to be protecting the rest of the sleeping
girl, that perfume of innocence shed around the maidenly couch, that
lamp, open-eyed amid the shadows, like a soul in prayer, had inspired
the seducer with an unknown distress. Irritated by what he called an
absurd cowardice, he had extinguished the obtrusive light, and was
advancing towards the bed, and addressing unspoken reproaches to
himself, when Gabriel swooped upon him with a wounded tiger's fierce
gnashing of the teeth.
Brancaleone, by a bold and rapid movement that showed no common degree
of skill and bravery, while struggling in the grasp of his powerful
adversary, drew forth in his right hand a long dagger with a fine barbed
blade. Gabriel smiled scornfully, snatched the weapon from him, and even
as he stooped to break it across his knee, gave the prince a furious
blow with his head that made him stagger and sent him rolling on the
floor, three paces away; then, leaning over his poor sister and gazing
on her with hungry eyes, by the passing gleam of a flash, "Dead!" he
repeated, wringing his arms in despair,--"dead!"
In the fearful paroxysm that compressed his throat he could find no
other words to assuage his rage or to pour forth his woe. His hair,
which the storm had flattened, rose on his head, the marrow of his bones
was chilled, and he felt his tears rush back upon his heart. It was a
terrible moment; he forgot that the murderer still lived.
The prince, however, whose admirable composure did not for a moment
desert him, had risen, bruised and bleeding. Pale and trembling with
rage, he sought everywhere for a weapon with which to avenge himself.
Gabriel returned towards him gloomier and more ominous than ever, and
grasping his neck with an iron hand, dragged him into the room where the
old man was sleeping.
"Father! father! father!" he cried in a piercing voice, "here is the
Bastard who Has just murdered Nisida!"
The old man, who had drunk but a few drops of the narcotic potion, was
awakened by this cry which echoed through his soul; he arose as though
moved by a spring, flung off his coverings, and with that promptitude of
action that God has bestowed upon mothers in moments of danger, event up
to his daughter's room, found a light, knelt on the edge of the bed, and
began to test his child's pulse and watch her breathing with mortal
anxiety.
All! this had passed in less time than we have taken in telling it.
Brancaleone by an unheard-of effort had freed himself from the hands of
the young fisherman, and suddenly resuming his princely pride, said in a
loud voice, "You shall not kill me without listening to me."
Gabriel would have overwhelmed him with Bitter reproaches, but, unable
to utter a single word, he burst into tears.
"Your sifter is not dead," said the prince, with cold dignity; "she is
merely asleep. You can assure yourself of it, and meanwhile I undertake,
upon my Honour, not to move a single step away."
These words were pronounced with such an accent of truth that the
fisherman was struck by them. An unexpected gleam of hope suddenly
dawned in his thoughts; he cast upon the stranger a glance of hate and
distrust, and muttered in a muffled voice, "Do not flatter yourself, in
any case, that you will be able to escape me."
Then he went up to his sister's room, and approaching the old man, asked
tremblingly, "Well, father?"
Solomon thrust him gently aside with the solicitude of a mother removing
some buzzing insect from her child's cradle, and, making a sign to
enjoin silence, added in a low voice, "She is neither dead nor poisoned.
Some philtre has been given to her for a bad purpose. Her breathing is
even, and she cannot fail to recover from her lethargy."
Gabriel, reassured about Nisida's life, returned silently to the ground
floor where he had left the seducer. His manner was grave and gloomy; he
was coming now not to rend the murderer of his sister with his hands,
but to elucidate a treacherous and infamous mystery, and to avenge his
honour which had been basely attacked. He opened wide the double
entrance door that admitted daylight to the apartment in which, on the
few nights that he spent at home, he was accustomed to sleep with his
father. The rain had just stopped, a ray of moonlight pierced the
clouds, and all at once made its way into the room. The fisherman
adjusted his dripping garments, walked towards the stranger, who awaited
him without stirring, and after having gazed upon him haughtily, said,
"Now you are going to explain your presence in our house."
"I confess," said the prince, in an easy tone and with the most insolent
assurance, "that appearances are against me. It is the fate of lovers to
be treated as thieves. But although I have not the advantage of being
known to you, I am betrothed to the fair Nisida--with your father's
approval, of course. Now, as I have the misfortune to possess very
hardhearted parents, they have had the cruelty to refuse me their
consent. Love led me astray, and I was about to be guilty of a fault for
which a young man like you ought to have some indulgence. Furthermore,
it was nothing but a mere attempt at an abduction, with the best
intentions in the world, I swear, and I am ready to atone for everything
if you will agree to give me your hand and call me your brother."
"I will agree to call you a coward and a betrayer!" replied Gabriel,
whose face had begun to glow, as he heard his sister spoken of with such
impudent levity. "If it is thus that insults are avenged in towns, we
fishers have a different plan. Ah! so you flattered yourself with the
thought of bringing desolation aid disgrace into our home, and of paying
infamous assassins to come and share an old man's bread so as to poison
his daughter, of stealing by night, like a brigand, armed with a dagger,
into my sister's room, and of being let off by marrying the most
beautiful woman in the kingdom!"
The prince made a movement.
"Listen," continued Gabriel: "I could break you as I broke your dagger
just now; but I have pity on you. I see that you can do nothing with
your hands, neither defend yourself nor work. Go, I begin to understand;
you are a braggart, my fine sir; your poverty is usurped; you have
decked yourself in these poor clothes, but you are unworthy of them."
He suffered a glance of crushing contempt to fall upon the prince, then
going to a cupboard hidden in the wall, he drew out a rifle and an axe.
"Here," said he, "are all the weapons in the house; choose."
A flash of joy illuminated the countenance of the prince, who had
hitherto suppressed his rage. He seized the rifle eagerly, drew three
steps backward, and drawing himself up to his full height, said, "You
would have done better to lend me this weapon at the beginning; for then
I would have been spared from witnessing your silly vapourings and
frantic convulsions. Thanks, young-man; one of my servants will bring
you back your gun. Farewell."
And he threw him his purse, which fell heavily at the fisherman's feet.
"I lent you that rifle to fight with me," cried Gabriel, whom surprise
had rooted to the spot.
"Move aside, my lad; you are out of your senses," said the prince,
taking a step towards the door.
"So you refuse to defend yourself?" asked Gabriel in a determined voice.
"I have told you already that I cannot fight with you."
"Why not?"
"Because such is the will of God; because you were born to crawl and I
to trample you under my feet; because all the blood that I could shed in
this island would not purchase one drop of my blood; because a thousand
lives of wretches like you are not equal to one hour of mine; because
you will kneel at my name that I, am now going to utter; because, in
short, you are but a poor fisherman and my name is Prince of
Brancaleone."
At this dreaded name, which the young nobleman flung, like a
thunderbolt, at his head, the fisherman bounded like a lion. He drew a
deep breath, as though he had lifted a weight that had long rested on
his heart.
"Ah!" he cried, "you have given yourself into my hands, my lord! Between
the poor fisherman and the all-powerful prince there is a debt of blood.
You shall pay for yourself and for your father. We are going to settle
our accounts, your excellency," he added, rising his axe over the head
of the prince, who was aiming at him. "Oh! you were in too great haste
to choose: the rifle is not loaded." The prince turned pale.
"Between our two families," Gabriel continued, "there exists a horrible
secret which my mother confided to me on the brink of the grave, of
which my father himself is unaware, and that no man in the world must
learn. You are different, you are going to die."
He dragged him into the space outside the house.
"Do you know why my sister, whom you wished to dishonour, was vowed to
the Madonna? Because your father, like you, wished to dishonour my
mother. In your accursed house there is a tradition of infamy. You do
not know what slow and terrible torments my poor mother endured-torments
that broke her strength and caused her to die in early youth, and that
her angelic soul dared confide to none but her son in that supreme hour
and in order to bid me watch over my sister."
The fisherman wiped away a burning tear. "One day, before we were born,
a fine lady, richly dressed, landed in our island from a splendid boat;
she asked to see my mother, who was as young and beautiful as my Nisida
is to-day. She could not cease from admiring her; she blamed the
blindness of fate which had buried this lovely jewel in the bosom of an
obscure island; she showered praises, caresses, and gifts upon my
mother, and after many indirect speeches, finally asked her parents for
her, that she might make her her lady-in-waiting. The poor people,
foreseeing in the protection of so great a lady a brilliant future for
their daughter, were weak enough to yield. That lady was your mother;
and do you know why she came thus to seek that poor innocent maiden?
Because your mother had a lover, and because she wished to make sure, in
this infamous manner, of the prince's indulgence."
"Silence, wretch!"
"Oh, your excellency will hear me out. At the beginning, my poor mother
found herself surrounded by the tenderest care: the princess could not
be parted from her for a moment; the most flattering words, the finest
clothes, the richest ornaments were hers; the servants paid her as much
respect as though she were a daughter of the house. When her parents
went to see her and to inquire whether she did not at all regret having
left them, they found her so lovely and so happy, that they blessed the
princess as a good angel sent them from God. Then the prince conceived a
remarkable affection for my mother; little by little his manners became
more familiar and affectionate. At last the princess went away for a few
days, regretting that she could not take with her her dear child, as she
called her. Then the prince's brutality knew no further barriers; he no
longer concealed his shameful plans of seduction; he spread before the
poor girl's eyes pearl necklaces and caskets of diamonds; he passed from
the most glowing passion to the blackest fury, from the humblest prayers
to the most horrible threats. The poor child was shut up in a cellar
where there was hardly a gleam of daylight, and every morning a
frightful gaoler came and threw her a bit of black bread, repeating with
oaths that it only depended upon herself to alter all this by becoming
the prince's mistress. This cruelty continued for two years. The
princess had gone on a long journey, and my mother's poor parents
believed that their daughter was still happy with her protectress. On
her return, having; no doubt fresh sins for which she needed
forgiveness, she took my mother from her dungeon, assumed the liveliest
indignation at this horrible treatment, about which she appeared to have
known nothing, wiped her tears, and by an abominable refinement of
perfidy received the thanks of the victim whom she was about to
sacrifice.
"One evening--I have just finished, my lord--the princess chose to sup
alone with her lady-in-waiting: the rarest fruits, the most exquisite
dishes, and the most delicate wines were served to my poor mother, whose
prolonged privations had injured her health and weakened her reason; she
gave way to a morbid gaiety. Diabolical philtres were poured into her
cup; that is another tradition in your family. My mother felt uplifted,
her eyes shone with feverish brilliance, her cheeks were on fire. Then
the prince came in--oh! your excellency will see that God protects the
poor. My darling mother, like a frightened dove, sheltered herself in
the bosom of the princess, who pushed her away, laughing. The poor
distraught girl, trembling, weeping, knelt down in the midst of that
infamous room. It was St. Anne's Day; all at once the house shook, the
walls cracked, cries of distress rang out in the streets. My mother was
saved. It was the earthquake that destroyed half Naples. You know all
about it, my lord, since your old palace is no longer habitable."
"What are you driving at?" cried Brancaleone in terrible agitation.
"Oh, I merely wish to persuade you that you must fight with me,"
answered the fisherman coldly, as he offered him a cartridge. "And now,"
he added, in an excited tone, "say your prayers, my lord; for I warn
you, you will die by my hand; justice must be done."
The prince carefully examined the powder and shot, made sure that his
rifle was in good condition; loaded it, and, eager to make an end, took
aim at the fisherman; but, either because he had been so much disturbed
by his opponent's terrible tale, or, because the grass was wet from the
storm, at the moment when he put forward his left foot to steady his
shot, he slipped, lost his balance and fell on one knee. He fired into
the air.
"That does not count, my lord," cried Gabriel instantly, and handed him
a second charge.
At the noise of the report Solomon had appeared at the window, and,
understanding what was going on, had lifted his hands to heaven, in
order to address to God a dumb and fervent prayer. Eligi uttered a
frightful inprecation, and hastily reloaded his rifle; but, struck by
the calm confidence of the young man, who stood motionless before him,
and by the old man, who, impassive and undisturbed, seemed to be
conjuring God in the name of a father's authority, disconcerted by his
fall, his knees shaking and his arm jarred, he felt the chills of death
running in his veins. Attempting, nevertheless, to master his emotion,
he took aim a second time; the bullet whistled by the fisherman's ear
and buried itself in the stem of a poplar.
The prince, with the energy of despair, seized the barrel of his weapon
in both hands; but Gabriel was coming forward with his axe, a terrible
foe, and his first stroke carried away the butt of the rifle. He was
still hesitating, however, to kill a defenceless man, when two armed
servants appeared at the end of the pathway. Gabriel did not see them
coming; but at the moment when they would have seized him by the
shoulders, Solomon uttered a cry and rushed to his son's assistance.
"Help, Numa! help, Bonaroux! Death to the ruffians! They want to murder
me."
"You lie, Prince of Brancaleone!" cried Gabriel, and with one blow of
the axe he cleft his skull.
The two bravoes who were coming to their master's assistance, when they
saw him fall, took flight; Solomon and his son went up to Nisida's room.
The young girl had just shaken off her heavy slumber; a slight
perspiration moistened her brow, and she opened her eyes slowly to the
dawning day.
"Why are you looking at me in that way, father?" she said, her mind
still wandering a littler and she passed her hand over her forehead.
The old man embraced her tenderly.
"You have just passed through a great danger, my poor Nisida," said he;
"arise, and let us give thanks to the Madonna."
Then all three, kneeling before the sacred image of the Virgin, began to
recite litanies. But at that very instant a noise of arms sounded in the
enclosure, the house was surrounded by soldiers, and a lieutenant of
gendarmes, seizing Gabriel, said in a loud voice, "In the name of the
law, I arrest you for the murder that you have just committed upon the
person of his excellency and illustrious lordship, the Prince of
Brancaleone."
Nisida, struck by these words, remained pale and motionless like a
marble statue kneeling on a tomb; Gabriel was already preparing to make
an unreasoning resistance, when a gesture from his father stopped him.
"Signor tenente," said the old man, addressing himself to the officer,
"my son killed the prince in lawful defence, for the latter had scaled
our house and made his way in at night and with arms in his hand. The
proofs are before your eyes. Here is a ladder set up against the window;
and here," he proceeded, picking up the two pieces of the broken blade,
"is a dagger with the Brancaleone arms. However, we do not refuse to
follow you."
The last words of the fisherman were drowned by cries of "Down with the
sbir
|
and the
family inhabiting the hut shown in the preceding
picture 321
The immaculate staff of the Cerro de Pasco hospital 321
The semi-weekly lottery drawing in the main plaza of
Lima 328
All aboard! A Sunday excursion that was not posed 328
The bleak mining town of Morococha, more than 16,000
feet above sea-level 336
The American miners of Morococha live in comfort for all
the altitude and bleakness of their surroundings 336
A typical miner of the high Peruvian Andes 340
Miners of Morococha,—a Welch foreman and two of his gang 340
A hint of what the second-class traveler on Peruvian
railways must put up with 349
The wide main street and a part of the immense market of
Huancayo, said to be the largest in Peru 349
A detail of the market of Huancayo, with a bit of
pottery like that of the days of the Incas 356
“Chusquito” descending one of the few remnants of the
old Inca highway I found from Quito to Cuzco 356
Huancavelica, one of the most picturesque and
least-visited provincial capitals of Peru 365
On the “road” to Ayacucho I overtook a lawyer who was
importing a piano 376
Carrying the piano across one of the typical bridges of
the Peruvian Andes 376
The striking headdress of the women of Ayacucho 385
The friendly and ingratiating waiters of our hotel in
Ayacucho 385
A religious procession in the main square of Ayacucho 392
A gala Sunday in the improvised “bullring” of Ayacucho 392
A familiar sight in the Andes—a recently butchered beef
hung in sheets along the clothes-line to sun-dry into
charqui 400
A typical “bed” in the guest-room provided for travelers
by many Peruvian _hacendados_ 400
The fatherless urchin who fell in with me beyond
Andahuaylas 405
My body-servant in Andahuaylas, and the sickle with
which he was supposed to cut all the alfalfa
“Chusquito” could eat 405
A view of Quito, capital of Ecuador, from the summit of
the Panecillo 408
View of Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, from the summit
of Sacsahuaman 408
Building a house in Peru 412
The patio of the “Hotel Progreso” of Abancay 412
A religious procession in Abancay 417
A _chola_ of Abancay, wearing the _dicclla_ which all
put on at the age of puberty 432
A chiefly-Indian woman of Abancay 432
The first view of Cuzco 437
An Indian of Cuzco, speaking only Quichua 444
Indian women of the market-place, wearing the “pancake”
hat of Cuzco 444
An Indian required to pay for the day’s mass proudly
clings to his staff of office 449
Youth from a village near Cuzco, each with a coca cud in
his cheek 449
Our party setting out for Machu Picchu across the high
plains about Cuzco 453
Ollantaytambo, the end of the first day’s journey, in
the valley of the Urubamba 453
Spring plowing in the Urubamba valley 460
As we rode eastward into the sunrise down the gorge of
the Urubamba, glacier-clad Piri above threw off its
night wraps of clouds 464
The semicircular tower and some of the finest
stone-cutting and fitting of Machu Picchu 464
We came out on the edge of things and Machu Picchu lay
before us 469
The resounding gorge of the Urubamba, with terraces of
the ancient inhabitants on the inaccessible left bank 472
One of the many stairways of Machu Picchu 472
The temple of the three windows, an unusual feature of
Inca architecture 476
“Rumiñaui” seated on the _intihuatana_, or sun-dial, at
the top of the town 476
The babies of Bolivia sit in a whole nest of finery on
nurse’s back 485
Arequipa is built of stones light as wood, cut from a
neighboring quarry 485
Indians plowing on the shores of Titicaca 492
Sunrise at Copacabana, the sacred city of Bolivia on the
shores of Titicaca 492
One of the two huge figures facing the grass-grown plaza
of modern Tiahuanaco at the entrance to the church 501
The ancient god of Tiahuanaco before which the Indian
woman, herding her pigs, bowed down in worship 501
Arequipa, second city of Peru, in its desert oasis,
backed by misty volcano 504
“Suddenly the bleak pampa falls away at one’s feet” 504
Llamas of La Paz patiently awaiting the return of their
driver 508
Down the valley below La Paz the pink and yellow soil
stands in fantastic, rain-gashed cliffs 508
_Cholas_ of La Paz, in their native garb 513
“Sandy” leading his train of carts loaded with
construction material for the railroad to Cochabamba 528
The “gringo bench” of Cochabamba,—left to right, “Old
Man Simpson”; Tommy Cox; Sampson, the Cockney; Owen;
and Scribner 528
The home and family of the alcalde who could not read 536
Our impromptu celebration of Christmas Eve in Pampa
Grande 536
A street of Santa Cruz de la Sierra after a shower 545
Conscripts of the Bolivian army practicing their first
maneuvers in the central plaza of Santa Cruz 545
Manuel Abasto, a native of Santa Cruz de la Sierra 552
Through the open doors of Santa Cruz one often catches a
glimpse of the patio, a garden gay with flowers 552
Konanz seated on our baggage in the _pelota de cuero_ 560
The force of one of the four _fortines_, or
“fortresses,” with which the Bolivian government
garrisons the Monte Grande against the savages 560
Jim and “Hughtie” Powell, Americans from Texas who have
turned Bolivian peons 564
A jungle hair-cut 564
The old stone and brick church and monastery of San José 573
The fatherly old cura of San José standing before the
Jesuit sun-dial 573
Henry Halsey, the American rancher, of tropical Bolivia,
and his family 577
Saddle-steers take the place of horses and mules in the
muddy parts of tropical Bolivia 577
A German of tropical Bolivia and his “housekeeper” 581
Santiago de Chiquitos, above the gnat-line, backed by
its reddish cliffs 581
“Don Cupertino,” chief adornment of eastern Bolivia,
with his family and dependents 589
The _tipoy_, a single loose gown, constitutes the entire
garb of most of the native women of tropical Bolivia 593
A girl of Santiago de Chiquitos selling a chicken to the
cook of “los americanos” 593
The shoemaker who lived next door to “los americanos” in
Santiago de Chiquitos, and his latest “wife” 597
A birthday dance in Santiago de Chiquitos, in honor of
the German in the center background 597
A view from the promenade-deck of the steamer 604
A Paraguayan landscape, with native cart 604
The mixture of types in the Argentine 608
MAP
The author’s itinerary 40
VAGABONDING
DOWN THE ANDES
CHAPTER I
UP TO BOGOTÁ
When we had “made a stake” as Canal Zone policemen, Leo Hays and I
sailed from Panama to South America. On board the Royal Mail steamer the
waist of the ship, to which our tickets confined us, was a screaming
pandemonium of West Indian negroes, homeward bound from canal digging,
and a veritable chaos of their baggage and household goods—and
gods—ranging from tin trunks to pet monkeys, from battered phonographs
to plush-bound Bibles. We preëmpted deck space for our suitcases and sat
down upon them. It chanced to be the same day on which, eight years
before, I had set out on a “vagabond journey” around the world.
Twenty-four hours after our last Zone handshake we marched down the
gangplank among the little brown policemen of Cartagena, Colombia, and
fought our way through a mob of dock loafers to the toy railroad train
that eventually creaked away into the city. Our revolvers and cartridge
belts we wore out of sight; uniforms and nightsticks no longer figured
in our equipment. But the campaign costume we had chosen,—broad felt
hats, Norfolk jackets and breeches of olive drab, and the leather
leggings common to the Zone—were evidently more conspicuous here than we
had suspected. For about us wherever we moved sounded awe-struck stage
whispers:
“Psst! Policía de la Zona!”
The ancient city and fortress of Cartagena—and for America it is old
indeed—squats on a sandy point jutting far out into the blue Caribbean,
with a beach curving inland on either hand. A sea-wall beside which that
of Panama seems a plaything, of massive weather-tarnished, ocean-lashed
stones, brown-gray with age, with stern, dignified old gateways,
encloses the city in irregular form. On its top is a promenade varying
in width from a carriage drive to a manoeuver field. Outside, down on
the languidly garrulous beach, little thatched huts have drifted
together under the cocoanut groves. Inside, the dust-deep streets have
long since lost most of the cobbled paving of their Spanish birthright;
the narrow, inadequate tile sidewalks are far from continuous, and the
rules of life are so lax that only the constant sweep of the sea air
accounts for old age amid conditions that should bring death early and
often.
Long before we reached our hotel we regretted our penuriousness in
scorning cabs and carriers. Not only did the weight of our suitcases
double every few yards in the leaden tropical air, and the labyrinthian
way through the city elude us at every turn, but at least a score of
ragged boys trailed respectfully but hopefully in our rear with the
anticipatory manner of an opera understudy waiting in the edge of the
wings for the principal to break down at the next note. A generous
percentage of the population crowded the doorways and children raced
ahead to summon forth their families to behold what was apparently the
most exciting thing that had taken place in Cartagena in months.
Evidently a _caballero_ bearing his own material burdens was a strange
sight in South America. The populace stared fixedly, in as impersonal a
way as ruminating oxen, and every few yards half-naked children,
evidently abetted by their elders, swarmed out upon us with shrill cries
of “Wan sheeling!”
We were soon reminded that we had left behind our power as well as our
emoluments. The proprietress whose oily Hebrew smile greeted us at the
hotel door was none other than one long “wanted” on the Zone on the
charge of running a disorderly house. The room she assigned us was
enormous, but the furnishings were scant and thin, the beds mere strips
of canvas, as befits a country of perennial midsummer. While we unpacked
and shaved, a ragged brown urchin slipped in with the Barranquilla
newspaper. In a characteristic burst of generosity Hays tossed him
double the price demanded—only to discover just after the vendor was out
of reach that the pauperise little sheet was twenty days old. It was a
“bunco game” so aged it had grown new again. Maria, the chambermaid,
already in the sear and yellow leaf, shuffled in frequently, supremely
indifferent to our scantiness of attire. Now and then several younger
females of decidedly African ancestry strolled by as nonchalantly, one
by one, to inquire whether we had any soiled clothes to wash, and
loitered about in a manner to suggest that the question was meant to be
taken figuratively. This friendliness was the general attitude of all
the town. Outwardly at least we were shown no discourtesy, and there was
little confirmation of the reputed hatred of Americans. Yet almost from
the moment of our landing we noted that Colombians seemed to avoid
speaking to us beyond the requirements of business or the cut and dried
forms of their habitual politeness. Still, with only an anemic candle to
flicker its pale shadows on the enclosing wall of the droning tropical
night, we settled down to the conclusion that Colombia, alleged the
deadly enemy of all things American and “heretical,” was less black than
she had been painted.
[Illustration:
One of the wood-burning steamers of the lower Magdalena, on the route
to Bogotá]
[Illustration:
Along the Magdalena we halted several times each day for fuel, the
villagers looking idly on while the crew carried many a woodpile on
board across a precarious gangplank]
We had reached the land of easy money. Merely to step into a bank with a
$5 bill was to emerge with a bulging roll of $500. We could not repress
a millionaire swagger when we tossed a hundred-dollar note on the
counter to pay for a pair of socks, though it quickly wilted when a few
nickel pieces were tendered in change. Hays dropped into a dingy little
hole-in-the-wall to buy a cigar, but though it was certainly the only $5
cigar he had ever strutted behind, he soon tossed it away in disgust.
The newcomer is apt to be startled when he hears a Colombian casually
mention paying $10,000 for a mule—until he realizes that the speaker is
really talking in cents. The Colombian notes, even those of the
intrinsic value of our copper coin, are elaborately engraved, and the
wonder grew how the Government could afford to print them.
For those who will exert themselves, even in the tropics, there is a
splendid view of all Cartagena from La Popa, a hill standing forth
Gibraltar-like above the inner harbor, on its nose a massive old church
and fortress combined. From it the cruder details of the town, the
startling pink and sky-blue of newer walls and balconies, fade to the
general inconspicuousness of the more age-mellowed houses. The ancient
red-tile roofs blend artistically into the patches of greensward and the
light pink of royal poinciana trees; the whole city, edged by the
landward-leaning cocoanut palms, is framed by a sea stretching away on
either hand to the world’s end.
The half-grown Colombian of forty in charge of La Popa and the telescope
and telephone by which incoming ships are reported, changed gradually
from canny distrust to garrulous curiosity and invited us to inspect his
entire domain. The purely academic dislike of Americans we soon found
was overcome with little effort by those who addressed men of his class
in their own tongue. Conversation at length drifted to sanitation in
Panama, Colombia’s “rebel province,” as he called it. The fort-keeper
listened to our tales in loose-jawed wonder and summed up his opinions
of such gringo superstitions with:
“But here we do none of those things, señores! The mosquitos prick us
every day, yet we are well.”
Our strange notion that disease could be carried by a mere insect was as
absurd to him as was to us his own habit of relying for health on the
plaster saint in the vaulted fortress church.
Even in Panama information on travel in Colombia had been almost as
lacking as trustworthy reports on the interior conditions of Mars. Only
once in my five months on the Canal Zone had I run across even an
ostensible source of knowledge. He was a native of Cali, and his answers
had been distinctly Latin-American.
“Does it rain much in your country?” I had asked him.
“Sí, señor, when it rains it is wet. When it doesn’t it is dry.”
“Is it cold?”
“Sí, señor, in the cold places it is cold, and in the hot places it is
hot. _No hay reglas fixas_—there are no fixed rules.”
“How far is it from Cali to Popayán?”
“Ah, it is not near, señor.”
“About a hundred miles, perhaps?”
“Sí, señor, just about that.”
“Isn’t it rather about three hundred?”
“Pués, sí, señor, perhaps just about that.”
There the matter had stood when we sailed.
Once arrived in Cartagena, however, we found that a toy train left next
day for Calamar on the Magdalena and that a second-class ticket to
Honda, wherever that was, cost $2000! We had barely crammed ourselves
into two seats of the little piano-box car next day when Hays started up
with a snort and thrust the morning newspaper across at me. Done into
English the item that had drawn his attention ran:
“SOME ONE
who merits our entire confidence, informs us that yesterday there
were in the city, taking photographic views of our forts and most
important edifices, two foreign individuals who wore clothing of
military cut of the cloth called _khaki_, and felt hats with wide
brim. This costume, as it has been described to us, is that of the
army of the United States! Can these really be American soldiers, or
has a great outward similarity caused the suspicious imagination to
see that which in reality did not exist? We cannot assure it!”
We had hardly aspired to be taken for a hostile invasion from the
dreaded “Colossus of the North.” It was characteristic of Latin-American
thinking processes for the paragrapher to fancy that spies—for such the
item covertly dubbed us—would appear in uniform. We had yet to learn,
however, that the makers of newspaper, and of public opinion, in so far
as it exists, in South America would often rank in our own land as
irresponsible and poorly trained school-boys.
The miniature train, ambling away in a morning unoppressive in spite of
the tropical sunshine, wound through a thin jungle, sometimes climbing,
more often stopping at languorous, staring, thatched villages, in a
region suffering from drought but of fertile appearance. By and by the
jungle gave way to what might almost have been called prairie, slightly
rolling and used only for grazing. Toward noon, beyond some swampy land,
we clattered into the carelessly whitewashed town of Calamar, drowsing
on the sandy bank of the Magdalena, here a half mile wide. Even before
we jolted to a halt, the car filled with a struggling mob of beggars,
shrill-voiced boys, and tattered men, eager, in their indolent tropical
way, for some easy errand. Such unwonted energy soon evaporated. The
population was of as mongrel a mixture as the yellow dogs that slunk
about in the shade of trees and house walls, and appeared to hold
identically the same attitude toward life.
At length, in the cool of the following evening, the “Alicia” began to
plow her way slowly upstream. She was a three-story craft with a huge
paddle-wheel at the stern, her lower deck crowded with unassorted
freight, domestic animals, engines and wood-piles, with deck hands,
native passengers, pots and pans and unattractive habits. Among the most
conspicuous of the latter were those of an open-air den that served as
general kitchen. Twice a day a small tub of rice, boiled plantains and
some meat mystery, all cooked in a single kettle, was carried out on one
of the barges alongside, where it was fallen upon not only by the
lower-deck passengers but by the even darker-skinned deck hands, dressed
in what had once been trousers and the wear-forever shirts so popular in
this region. A few owned spoons and others a piece of cocoanut shell,
but these were no handicap to the majority, armed only with the utensils
of nature. Little had we suspected the meaning of “second-class” on the
Magdalena!
Luckily the English agent of the line had been so shocked at sight of
our tickets, particularly, perhaps, in the hands of Hays, who was in
appearance the hero of any of our modern romantic novels stepping bodily
forth from the cardboard of any of our popular illustrators, that he had
ordered the steward to overlook the color thereof and treat us as cabin
passengers. On the upper deck the steamer was open from stem to stern, a
dining table stretching along her center and the sides lined by frail,
box-like “staterooms.” The little canvas cots, narrow as the _charpoys_
of India, used alike by passengers and the unlaundered youths that
passed for stewards, were dragged to any part of the craft that suited
the whims of the sleeper. Our drinking water was the native Magdalena,
sometimes carelessly filtered through a porous stone. There was even a
shower-bath—when the paddle-wheel was elevating enough of the
chocolate-colored river water to permit it to “function”—but it
generally took most of the morning and all the stewards to find the
misplaced key.
Frequently for days at a time there were only the two of us to occupy
the cane rocking-chairs that embellished the upper foredeck. Here day
after day we watched the monotonous yellow bank unroll with infinite
slowness, like a film clogged in the machine. The country, flat,
considerably wooded, and characterless, stood only a few feet above the
river, its soil sandy, though not without fertility, with occasional
clearings and many immense spreading trees. Here and there on the
extreme edge of the stream hung a few scattered thatched villages, all
apparently engaged in the favorite occupation of doing nothing, living
on the few fruits and vegetables that grew themselves and drinking the
yellow Magdalena pure.
At such times there was nothing left but to while away the languid hours
in perfecting our plans for the journey ahead. For once I had chanced
upon a traveling companion who had actually started when the hour of
departure came, and who bade fair to pursue the expedition to the bitter
end. Leo Hays had first seen the light—such as it is in Missouri—six
months later than I, but had overcome that initial handicap by
deflecting the sun’s rays in many a varying clime. The schools had early
scowled upon him—or he upon them—and he had retaliated by gathering in
his own way much that schools have never hoarded away in their
impregnable warehouses. The gleaning had carried him far afield, in
social strata as well as physical distance, but it had left him
unburdened with the bric-a-brac of life so dear to the bourgeois soul.
Wasteful of money and the petty things of life, he was never wasteful of
life itself. He was of those who look at the world through a wide-angle
lens. There is a breadth of vision gained in an existence varying from
“hobo” printer and editor in our pulsating Southwest to sugar estate
overseer in the Guianas, from the forecastle to the Moro villages of the
Philippines, that makes a formal education seem cramped and restricted
by comparison. To those who did not know the Canal Zone in its halcyon
days a mere corporal of police demanding of himself the ability to
converse intelligently a half hour on any subject from astronomy to
Norse literature, from heraldry to Urdu philosophy, may seem a fantastic
figure. To the experienced “Zoner” it is commonplace.
On Sunday morning the entire village of Zambrano, headed by its curate
and dressed in every imaginable misfit of sun-bleached gaiety, swarmed
on board and subjected us to a leisurely detailed examination that gave
us the sensation of being museum exhibits. The “Alicia” was soon off
again and we came to the conclusion that the town was migrating en
masse. A few hundred yards beyond, however, we tied up to the bank once
more and waited a long hour while all Zambrano took leave of the priest.
Every inhabitant under fifteen kissed his hand, which each of the women
pressed fervently, some several times over, after which the men
approached him in procession, padre and layman throwing an arm about
each other’s neck and slapping each other some seven times each between
the shoulder-blades. It was only the customary Colombian _abrazo_ and
the formality of seeing the curate a little way on his journey.
Meanwhile our half-Indian boy captain stood smilingly by, twisting the
two tiny sprigs of mustache that gave him so striking a resemblance to a
Chinese mandarin turned river pirate. He was far too good a Catholic to
cut short the leave-taking even had he guessed that anyone on board
chaffed at the delay. The day was much older before we crawled out into
the middle of the stream again. But no man journeys up to Bogotá
hastily. The Land of Hurry was behind us.
When we addressed him, the priest answered us courteously enough, then
dropped the conversation in a manner to suggest that he did not care to
pursue it further. Like his fellow-countrymen in general he seemed to
have no hunger for knowledge, no notion that he might learn from others.
The attitude of all the upper-deck passengers was as if an edict had
gone forth to dislike Americans. Individually none had any grievance
against us, collectively they seemed banded together in a species of
intellectual boycott, which none of them vented to the extent of losing
his reputation for politeness. Their manner suggested pouting children,
unwilling to declare their fancied grievances and fight them out like
men.
There were a half dozen of us at table that evening, with the priest in
the place of honor at the head. The meal passed without a spoken word,
at racehorse speed. It recalled a placard I had seen in a Texas
restaurant on my journey southward: “Eat first, THEN talk,” and amid the
opening chorus Hays’ memory harked back to a sign that once embellished
a Bowery institution: “Soup should be seen and not heard.” That we
paused for speech between mouthfuls seemed to fill our companions with a
mixture of disgust and amazement. It was perilous, too, for ragged,
barefooted waiters more numerous than the diners, hovered over us, quick
to snatch away the plate of anyone who dared raise his head. How unlike
the sociable meals of Spain was this silent wolfing!
Their own parents could not have distinguished one meal from another.
The soup was always of the general collection variety, the two
vegetables incessantly the same; the beef varied from the hopelessly
tough to the suspiciously tender; for the system on the river steamers
of the Magdalena is to slaughter a steer on the lower deck the first
morning of the voyage and serve it twice daily until passengers are
unanimous in leaving their plates untouched, then regretfully to lead
another gloomy, raw-boned animal forth to slaughter. Yet no one could
have complained on the score of quantity. We no longer wondered at the
sallow flabbiness of those about us in spite of their life in the open
air.
The voracious engines of the “Alicia” required more halting than
movement. Barely had we left the faint lights of Calamar astern when we
tied up for hours before a woodpile in the edge of the jungle, and never
did a half day pass without a long halt to replenish the fuel. The sight
of a bamboo hut or a cluster of thatched shacks crouched in a little
semicircular space gouged out of the immense forest was sure to bring a
shrill scream from the whistle and in the soft air of evening we crawled
up to a tiny clearing where perhaps thirty cords of wood lay awaiting a
purchaser. They were heavy slabs some three feet long, the piles
separated by upright poles into divisions called _burros_, the
conventional load, perhaps, of one ass. On the utter edge of the bank
hung a miserable little hut swarming with dogs and equally unwashed
human beings. There were the usual endless manoeuvers to a mooring, then
the entire crew went ashore on the heels of the captain, armed with his
measuring stick. He and the woodsman, a sturdy, bashful fellow, gave
each other the customary greeting pat on the shoulder, then stood a long
time, each with a hand on the woodpile, discussing the details of the
imminent financial transaction.
But they could not come to terms, and at length the steamer population
returned on board and for ten minutes with much ringing of bells and
screeching of whistles the “Alicia” went through the pretence of getting
under way. The woodsman held his ground, though his wood looked as if he
had already held it several years. At length we returned to the same
mooring and a wash-basin of boiled beef and plantains was carried ashore
as a peace offering. This time we struck a bargain, and the two
populations exchanged places. The countrymen, of all ages and both
sexes, many with evidences of loathsome diseases, one limping on a foot
white with leprosy, swarmed into every corner of the craft, gazing
open-mouthed at her unbelievable magnificence, sitting cautiously down
in the deck chairs, thrusting their fingers into the saucers of dessert
that had been set out an hour or two before meal time to give the flies
fair play, passing from hand to hand anything that caught their fancy.
Their protruding bellies suggested that the hookworm was prevalent. The
men wore over one shoulder a satchel-like pouch called a _garniel_, for
their clothing was not such as might safely have been entrusted with
their minor possessions.
Meanwhile we had taken advantage of the opportunity to stretch our legs
ashore, for whatever their faults these jungle people are not addicted
to thievery. Under the edge of the forest, into the dense green depths
of which we could wander a little way amid a wealth of woodland aromas
and the fitful songs of birds, was planted a little field of corn, the
stalks a full ten feet high, even the ears in many cases well above our
heads, though the jungle was thick between the rows and there was no
sign of other labor than the planting. A bit of sugarcane grew as
luxuriantly, and behind the hut stood a crude _trapiche_, or cane
crusher, a mere stump and lever above a dug-out trough. Palm, gourd,
mango, and papaya trees, the females of the latter heavy with fruit and
the males gay with yellow blossoms, suggested that the spot might have
been one of the most flourishing gardens on earth had the inhabitants
any other industry or desire than to roll about on their earth floors.
From a corner of the patch the stewards cut long reeds and made trumpets
of exactly the sound of army bugles.
The houses of the region are very simply built. Four posts, some six
inches in diameter and rising as many feet above the ground, are set at
the corners of the house to be. Halfway between these are set four
smaller upright poles, giving each wall three supports. Along the tops
of these, saplings about four inches in diameter are tied with green
vines, after which pole rafters are raised. Across these, six to eight
inches apart, are laid strips of split bamboo, also tied with vines. The
roof is then thatched with dried banana leaves, laid lengthwise with the
slope of the roof, those underneath secured by being bent over the
bamboo strips, and layer after layer of them piled on until the thatch
is a foot or more thick. Two poles, tied some distance apart with green
vines, are then thrown over the peak of the roof to keep a sudden gust
of wind from lifting the shelter off the dwellers’ heads, and the
residence is ready for occupancy.
The deck hands, each wearing on his head a grain sack split up one side,
stood in file beside the diminishing woodpile. When his turn came, each
grasped the end of his sack in the right hand and held the arm at full
length while others heaped it high with cordwood. As soon as he had what
he considered a reasonable amount, the carrier threw a rope held in his
left hand over the load, caught it deftly in the already burdened right
and, pulling it taut, marched down some twenty feet of perpendicular
sandy bank and across a wobbly eight-inch plank without a quiver. We
envied them the exercise at every landing, but even to have carried a
stick on board would have been not only to lose our own caste but to
jeopardize that of all our fellow-countrymen.
Nothing would be more futile than to attempt to describe the tropical
sunset, exceeded in beauty, if at all, only by sunrise, as it spread
across this flat jungle and forest country, the curving river and
woodlands. On into the night the languid wood loading continued, lighted
up in irregular patches by the lamps of the steamer and flickering oil
torches ashore. Long after dark, as the last of the _burros_ was
disappearing, the jungle dweller came on board in person and fixed upon
me to figure up how much he had coming, openly putting his faith in a
foreigner in preference to a native. There were 119 burros, for which he
was to receive fourteen cents each. It totalled $16.66, or, as it
sounded to him, $1666, and by and by the purser, who would no doubt have
beaten him a few hundred dollars in the multiplication but for my
pencil, came out of his cabin with an Australian gold sovereign and an
immense handful of Colombian bills. I asked the recipient how long he
had worked to get the pile together and received the expected South
American answer:
[Illustration:
The stewards of the “Alicia” in full uniform]
[Illustration:
Hays catches his first glimpse of the jungles of Colombia]
“Ay! Muchos soles, señor,—many suns,” which of course was as exact as he
could be about it. Strangely enough he resisted the wheedling of the
ragged stewards to exchange his fortune for the cheap straw hats and
brass rings they carried for sale and got safely ashore with the entire
handful of what, in these wilds, could not have been of any great
practical value.
As we pushed off, the captain announced that we had wood enough to last
until the following noon. One would have fancied we had enough to last
to the seventh circle and back. Here we could still “march” all night,
for the river was deep in spite of its great width. As we sat in
solitary glory on the upper deck watching the blood-red moon come up out
of the jungle, Hays suddenly broke off a dissertation on the philosophy
of life of Marcus Aurelius to exclaim:
“We ought to swear off on this. If we’re going to walk along the top of
the Andes we’ll need all the chest expansion we’ve got,” and suiting the
action to the word, he chucked his half-smoked $5 cigar overboard. It
was not until late next morning that I saw him light the next one.
“But I thought you’d sworn off?” I reminded him.
“That’s the great value of resolutions,” he answered, “you make them to
break them and feel the genuine freedom of life. But to-morrow I’ll
swear off in earnest”—which he did, almost daily as long as the journey
lasted. Meanwhile, my birthday making a good date for it, I gave up the
habit definitely myself, none too sure of its effect in
|
nodding her head, "it is a voice. It is a voice. A
little teaching, yes; this Barrett woman who was once my pupil, she will
be safe with her. Not too much; not too much singing. Finish your
school, my little one. Then you shall come over to me for a year, yes?
We shall see what we shall see!" She patted her cheek and sent her out
of the room ahead of Stephen.
"Well?" he wanted to know.
"But yes, a voice, as I have said. Send her to me when her schooling is
over."
"She has a future?"
The great contralto shrugged her thick shoulders. "I fear not. I think
not."
His face lengthened. "Why?"
"Because, my friend, she will care more for living. She will not care so
greatly to _get_, that large child. She will only _give_. She has not
the fine relentless selfishness to make the artist. Well, we shall see.
Life may break her. Send her to me. In two years, yes? No, no, I will
have no thanks. It is so small a thing to do.... One grows fat and old;
it is good to have youngness near. Now, go, my friend. I shall gargle my
throat and sleep." She gave him a hot, plump hand to kiss.
Honor was not especially impressed. She rather thought, when the time
came, she should prefer to go to Stanford, but she liked her music
lessons, meanwhile. It filled up her time, the business of singing, in
that last year when she was more or less marking time and helping Jimsy
through.
Her stepfather watched her with growing amazement. So far as any one
might judge, and to Mrs. Lorimer's tearful relief, Honor's attitude
toward the last of the "Wild Kings" was at seventeen what it had been at
twelve, at six.
"I was right, wasn't I?" Stephen wanted to know.
"Well... if you can only keep on being right about it! I'm so thankful
about her singing. That year abroad will be wonderful. She'll meet new
people... real men."
"Young Jimsy is exhibiting every known symptom of becoming a real man."
"Yes, but he's a King."
"That appears to be the universal opinion regarding him."
"Stephen _dear_, don't be ridiculous! You've always been as bewitched
about the boy as Honor herself." Mrs. Lorimer was dressed for a luncheon
and her husband, heavy-eyed and flushed of face, had cut short his late
morning sleep to drive her. She was still for him the everlasting Helen.
"Mildred," he said, quitting the battlefield for the eternal balcony,
"do you know that you are lovelier this instant than you were the day I
married you?"
Mrs. Lorimer knew it quite well. It was due somewhat to good management
as well as luck, and she liked having the results appreciated. She let
him kiss her, carefully, because she had her hat on.
The elder James King did not seem to age with the years. "He is,"
Stephen Lorimer said facetiously, "only too well preserved!" His manner
and mode of life remained the same, save that he lost more heavily at
cards. For the first time in its history the old King place was
mortgaged. In a day when every one who was any one, as Honor's mother
put it, was getting a motor car, the Kings had none. Jimsy, of course,
rode regally in every one else's. The Lorimers had two, an electric in
which Honor's mother glided softly with her little whirring bell from
clubs to luncheons and from luncheons to teas, and a rough and ready
seven-passenger affair into which the whole tribe might be piled, and
which Honor Carmody drove better than her stepfather, who was apt to
dream at the wheel. On Sundays Stephen Lorimer took them all, Jimsy,
Honor, Billy and Ted Carmody, the Lorimer twins and the last little
Lorimer, on motor picnics to the beach. They drove to Santa Monica, down
the Palisades, up the narrow, winding, wave-washed road to the Malibou
Ranch and built a fire and broiled chops and made coffee and baked
potatoes, after their swim, ate like refugees and slept like puppies on
the sand. In the afternoon, when they came back to the gracious old
house in its wide garden on South Figueroa Street Mildred Lorimer would
be waiting, in a frock he loved, to give her husband his tea, cool,
lovely, remote from the rougher fun of life.
In the evenings--Sunday evenings--Honor held her joyous At Homes. Three
or four favored girls and a dozen boys came to supper, a loud, hilarious
meal. Takasugi, the cook, and Kada, the second boy, were given their
freedom. Honor, in the quaint aprons her stepfather had picked up here
and there over the world, pink, capable, with the assistance of Jimsy
and her biggest brothers, got supper.
It was a lively feast. Jimsy King, in one of Kada's white jackets,
waited on the table. They ate enormously, and when they had finished
they pronounced their ungodly grace--a thunderous tattoo on the table
edge, begun with palms and finished with elbows--
None-but-the-righteous-shall-be-SAVED!--
followed, while the cups and plates were still leaping and shuddering,
with its secular second verse--
My-sister-Mary-walks-like-THIS!
"Well, Top Step," said Stephen one of those evenings, "eleven boys
beside the stand-by Jimsy. Fair to middling popularity, I should say!"
"Popularity?" She opened her candid eyes wide at him. "Why, Stepper, you
know it's not that! They don't come to see me! They don't mind me, of
course, but it's the eats, and meeting each other,--and mostly Jimsy, I
guess! Mercy,--the chocolate's boiling over!"
She clearly believed it, and it was more or less true. The Carmody home
of a Sunday night was a sort of glorified club house without rules or
dues or by-laws. It was the thing to do, if one were so lucky. It rather
placed a boy in the scheme of things to be one of "the Sunday-night
bunch." Jimsy was the Committee on Membership.
"Let's have that Burke boy out to supper Sunday, shan't we?" Honor would
say. "He's doing so well on the team."
"No," Jimsy would answer, definitely. "Not at the house, Skipper." Honor
accepted his judgments unquestioningly. Some way, with the deep wisdom
of boys, he knew, better than she could, that the young Burke person was
better on the field than in the drawing-room. There was nothing snobbish
in their gatherings; shabby boys came, girls who had made their own
little dimity dresses. It was the intangible, inexorable caste of the
best boyhood, and Honor knew, comfortably, that her particular King
could do no wrong.
The rooting section had a special yell for Jimsy, when he had sped down
the field to a touchdown or kicked a difficult goal. It followed the
regular High School yell, hair-lifting in its fierceness:
King! King! King!
K-I-N-G, King!
G-I-N-K, Gink!
He's the King Gink!
He's the King Gink!
He's the King Gink!
K-I-N-G, King! KING!
and Honor utterly agreed with them.
CHAPTER III
The house across the street from the Carmody place was suddenly sold.
People were curious and a little anxious. Every one on that block had
been there for a generation or so; there was a sense of permanence about
them all--even the Kings.
"Eastern people," said Mrs. Lorimer. "A mother, rather delicate-looking,
and one son, eighteen or nineteen I should say. He's frail-looking, too,
and he limps a little. I imagine they're very nice. Everything about
them"--her magazine reading had taken her quite reasonably to a front
window the day the newcomers' furniture was uncrated and carried
in--"seems very nice." She hoped, if it developed that they really were
desirable that they would be permanent. Los Angeles was coming to have
such a floating population....
Honor and Jimsy observed the boy from across the street, a slim, modish
person. "Gee," said Jimsy, "it must be fierce to be lame!--to have your
body not--not do what you tell it to! I wonder what he does? He can't do
_anything_, can he?" His eyes were deep with honest pity.
"Oh, I suppose he sort of fills in with other things," Honor conceded.
"I expect, if people can't do the things that count most, they go in for
other things. He seems awfully keen about his two cars."
"They're peaches, both of 'em," said Jimsy without envy.
"And of course he has time to be a wonder at school, if he wants to be."
"Yep. Looks as if he might be a shark at it." He grinned. "Slow on his
feet but fast in the head."
"Muzzie's going to call on his mother, and then we'd better ask him to
supper, hadn't we? He must be horribly lonesome."
"I'll float over and see him," the last King suggested, "and sort of
size him up. Give him the once-over. We don't want to start anything
unless he's O. K. Might as well go now, I guess."
"All right. Come in afterward and tell me what you think of him."
He nodded and swung off across the street. It was an hour before he came
back, glowing. "Gee, Skipper, I'm strong for that kid! Name's Van Meter,
Carter Van Meter. He's got a head on him, that boy! He's been
everywhere and seen everything--three times abroad--Canada, Mexico! You
ought to hear him talk--not a bit up-stagy, no side at all, but
interesting! I asked him for supper, Sunday night. You'll be crazy about
him--all the bunch will!" Thus Jimsy King on the day Carter Van Meter
limped into his life; thus Jimsy King through the years which followed,
worshiping humbly the things he did not have in himself, belittling his
own gifts, enlarging his own lacks, glorifying his friend. He had never
had a deeply intimate boy friend before; the team was his friend, the
squad; Honor had sufficed for a nearer tie. It was to be different, now;
a sharing. She was to resent a little in the beginning, before she, too,
came under the spell of the boy from the East.
Mrs. Lorimer came smiling back from her call. "_Very_ nice," she told
her husband and her daughter, "really charming. And her things are quite
wonderful... rare rugs... portraits of ancestors. A widow. Here for
her health, and the boy's health; he's never been strong. All she has in
the world... wrapped up in him. _Very_ Eastern!"--she laughed at the
memory. "She said, 'And from what part of the East do you come, Mrs.
Lorimer?' When I said I was born here in Los Angeles she almost
_gasped_, and then she flushed and said, 'Oh, really? Is it possible?
But I met some people on shipboard, once--the time before last when I
was crossing--who were natives, and they were _quite_ delightful.'"
"The word 'native' intrigues them," said Stephen, drawing off her long,
limp suede gloves and smoothing them. "I daresay she'll be looking for
war whoops and tomahawks. And if it comes to that, we can furnish the
former, especially Sunday night."
"Muzzie, did you meet the boy?" Honor wanted to know.
"Yes. He came in for tea with us. A beautifully mannered boy. Very much
at ease. We must have him here, Honor."
"Yes, Jimsy's already asked him for Sunday night, Muzzie. Jimsy likes
him."
"Well, he may. He has a something... I don't know what it is, exactly,
but he will be good for all of you."
"We'll be good for him, too," said her daughter, calmly. "It must be
fearfully dull for him, not knowing any one, and being lame."
He came to supper, a trim young glass of fashion, and it was he, the
stranger, who was entirely at his ease, and the "bunch," the gay,
accustomed bunch, which was a little shy and constrained. Jimsy stood
sponsor for him and Honor was an earnest hostess. He said he enjoyed
himself; certainly he made himself gently agreeable to Mrs. Lorimer, to
the girls. Honor's stepfather observed him with his undying curiosity.
He was a plain boy with a look of past pain in his colorless face, a
shadowed bitterness in his eyes, a droop at the corners of his mouth
when he was not speaking. For all his two motor cars and his rare old
rugs and the portraits of ancestors and his idolized only sonship, life
had clearly withheld from him the things he had wanted most. There was a
baffled imperiousness about him, Stephen decided.
"A clever youngster," he told his wife, watching him from across the
room. "Brains. But I don't like him."
"Stephen! Why not?"
He shook his head. "I don't know yet. But I know. I had a curious sense,
as he came limping into the room to-night, of '_Enter the villain_.'"
"My dear,--that poor, frail boy, with his lovely, gentle manners!"
"I know. It does sound rather piffle. Daresay I'm wrong. The kids will
size him up."
When Carter Van Meter came to tell his hostess good-by, he smiled
winningly. "This has been very jolly, Mrs. Lorimer. It was good of you
to let me come. Mother asked me to say how much she appreciated it.
But"--he hesitated--"May I come in some afternoon when--just you and
Miss Honor are here?" He looked wistful, and frailer at the end of the
evening than he had at the beginning.
"Of course you may, my dear boy!" Mrs. Lorimer gave him the glory of her
special smile. "Come soon!"
He came the next day but one, and as her mother was at a bridge
afternoon it was Honor who entertained him. She had just come home from
High School and she wore a middy blouse and a short skirt and looked
less than her years. "Let's sit in the garden, shan't we?--I hate being
indoors a minute more than I can help!" She led the way across the
green, springy lawn to the little rustic building over which the vivid
Bougainvillæa climbed and swarmed, and he followed at his halted pace.
"Besides, we can see Jimsy from here when he comes by from football
practice, and call him in. I just didn't happen to go to watch practice
to-day, and now"--she smiled at him,--"I'm glad I didn't." There was
something intensely pitiful about this lad to her mothering young heart,
for all his poise and pride.
He waited gravely until she had established herself on a bench before
he sat. "Tell me about this fellow King. Every one seems very keen about
him."
Honor leaned back and took a serge-clad knee between two tanned hands.
"Well, I don't know how to begin! He's--well, he's just Jimsy King,
that's all! But it's more than any other boy in the world."
"You're great friends, aren't you?"
"Jimsy and I? I should say we are! We've known each other ever
since--well, before we could walk or talk! Our nurses used to take us
out together in our buggies. We were born next door--in these two
houses, on the same day. Jimsy's just about an hour older than I am!"
"I have never had many friends," said Carter Van Meter. "I've been
moving about so much, traveling... other things have interfered." He
never referred, directly or indirectly, to his ill health or his limp.
"Well, you can have all you want now," said Honor, generously. "And
Jimsy likes you!" She bestowed that like a decoration. "Honestly, I
never knew him to take such a fancy to any one before in all his life.
He likes every one, you know,--I mean, he never dislikes anybody, but he
never gets crushes. So, it means something to have him keen about you.
If _he's_ for you, _everybody_ will be for you."
"Why do people like him so?"
"Can't help it," said Honor, briefly. "Even _teachers_. He's not
terribly clever at school, and of course he doesn't have as much time to
study as some do, but the teachers are all keen about him. They know
what he is. I expect that's what counts, don't you? Not what people
have, or do, or know; what they _are_. Why, one time I happened to be in
the Vice-Principal's office about something, and it was a noontime, and
there was a wild rough-house down in the yard. Honestly, you couldn't
hear yourself _think_! The Principal--he was a new man, just come--kept
looking out of the window, and getting more and more nervous, and
finally he said, 'Shouldn't we stop that, Mrs. Dalton?' And she looked
out and laughed and said, 'Jimsy King's in it, and he'll stop it before
we need to notice it!' _That's_ what teachers think of him, and the
boys--I believe they'd cut up into inch pieces for him."
"I suppose it's a good deal on account of his football. He's on the
team, isn't he?" His eyes disdained teams.
"On the team? He _is_ the team! Captain last year and this,--and next!
Wait till you see him play. He's the fastest full back we've ever had,
since anybody can remember. There'll be a game Saturday. We play
Redlands. Will you come, and sit with Stepper and me?"
"Thanks. I don't care very much for----" he stopped, held up by the
growing amaze in her face. "Yes, I'd like very much to go with you and
Mr. Lorimer. I don't care much about watching games where I don't know
the people"--he retrieved and amended his earlier sentence--"but you'll
explain everything to me."
She grinned. "I'm afraid I won't be very nice about talking to you. I
get simply wild, at games. I'm right down there, in it. I've never
gotten over not being a boy! But Jimsy's wonderful about letting me have
as much share in it as I can. You'll hear all sorts of tales about him,
when you come to know people,--plays he's made and games he's won, and
how he never, _never_ loses his head or his temper, no matter what the
other team does. If we should ever have another war, I expect he'd be a
great general." Her face broke into mirth again at a memory. "Once, we
were playing Pomona--imagine a high school playing a college and
_beating_ them!--and somebody was out for a minute, and Jimsy was
standing waiting, with his arms folded across his chest, and he had on
a head guard, and it was very still, and suddenly a girl's voice piped
up--'_Oh, doesn't he look just like Napoleon?_' He's never heard the
last of it; it fusses him awfully. I never knew anybody so modest. I
suppose it's because he's always been the leader, the head of things,
ever since he started kindergarten. He's _used_ to it; it seems just
natural to him."
The new boy shifted his position uneasily.
Honor thought perhaps he was suffering; his face looked pinched. "Shall
we go in the house? Would you be more comf"--she caught herself
up--"perhaps you're not used to being out of doors all the time? Eastern
people find this glaring sun tiresome sometimes."
"It's very nice here. You go to Los Angeles High School, too?" He didn't
care about changing his position but he wanted intensely to change the
subject, even if he had started it by his query. "Odd, isn't it, that
you don't go to a girls' school?"
Honor laughed. "That's what Muzzie thinks. She did want me to go, but I
didn't want to, and Stepper--my stepfather, you know,--stood up for me.
I never liked girls very much when I was little. I do now, of course.
I've two or three girl friends who are _wonders_. I adore them. But I
still like boys best. I suppose"--he saw that her mind came back like a
needle to the pole--"it's on account of Jimsy. Wait till you really know
him! You will be just the same. Honestly, he's the bravest, gamest
person in the world. Once, a couple of years ago, Stepper noticed that
he was limping, and he made him go to see the doctor. The doctor told us
about it afterwards--he's the doctor who took care of our mothers when
we were born. Jimsy came in and said, 'Doc, I've got a kind of a sore
leg.' And the doctor looked at it and said, 'You've got a broken leg,
that's what you've got! Go straight home and I'll come out and put it in
a plaster cast.' You see"--she illustrated by putting the tips of her
two forefingers together--"it was really broken, cracked through, but it
hadn't slipped by. Well, the doctor had to stay and finish his office
hours, and about an hour later he looked up and there was Jimsy, and he
said, 'Say, Doc, would you just as soon set this leg to-morrow? You see,
I've got a date to take Skipper--he always calls me Skipper--to a dance
to-night. I won't dance, but I'll just----' and the doctor just roared
at him and told him to go home that instant, and Jimsy went out, but
when the doctor got to his house he wasn't there, and he had to wait
about half an hour for him, and he was _furious_--he's got a terrible
temper but he's the dearest old thing, really. Pretty soon Jimsy came
wandering in with his arms full of books and games and puzzles and
things he'd got to amuse himself while he was laid up! Of course the
doctor expected him to keep perfectly still in bed, but he found he
could make a sort of a raft of two table extension boards and slide
downstairs to his meals. He had an awful time getting up again, but he
didn't care. The first day he was laid up he had exactly nineteen people
to see him, and he took the bandages off the leg and all the boys and
teachers wrote their autographs and sentiments on the cast. He called it
his Social Register and his Guest Book!" Honor was too happily deep in
her reminiscences to see that her new friend was a little bored.
He got suddenly to his feet. "Yes. He must be an unusual fellow. But I'd
like to hear you sing. Won't you come into the house and sing something
for me?"
"All right," said Honor. "I love to sing, but I haven't studied very
much yet, and I haven't any decent songs. Why doesn't somebody write
some?--Songs _about_ something? Not just maudling along about 'heart'
and 'part' and that kind of stuff! Come on! There's Stepper at the piano
now. He'll play for me."
It was mellow in the long living-room after the brazen afternoon sun
outside, a livable, lovable room. Stephen Lorimer had an open book on
the music rack and he was thumping some rather stirring chords.
"Stepper," said Honor, "here's Carter Van Meter, and he wants me to sing
for him, and I was just saying how I hated all these mushy old songs.
Can't you find me something different?"
"I have," said her stepfather. "I've got the words here and I'm messing
about for some music to go with them."
Honor looked out as she passed the window on her way to the piano. "Wait
a minute! Here's Jimsy! I'll call him!" She sped to the door and hailed
him, and he came swiftly in. "Hello! How was practice?"
"Fair. Burke was better. Tried him on the end. 'Lo, Mr. Lorimer. 'Lo,
Carter!"
"I've got a poem here you'll all like," said Stephen Lorimer. "No, you
needn't shuffle your feet, Jimsy. It's your kind. Sit down, all of you.
I'll read it."
"So long as it hasn't got any 'whate'ers' and yestereves' and
'beauteous,'" the last King grinned. "Shoot!"
"It's an English thing, by Henry Newbolt,--about cricket, but that
doesn't matter. It's the thing itself. I may not have the words
exactly,--I read it over there, and copied it down in my diary, from
memory." He looked at the boys and the girl; Honor was waiting eagerly,
sure of anything he might bring her; Jimsy King, fresh from the sweating
realities of the gridiron, was good-humoredly tolerant; Carter Van Meter
was courteously attentive, with his oddly mature air of social poise. He
began to read, to recite, rather, his eyes on their faces:
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night,
Ten to make and the match to win;
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in,
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote--
Play up! Play up! and--Play the Game!
Jimsy King, who was lolling on the couch, sat up, his eyes kindling.
"Gee...." he breathed. Honor's cheeks were scarlet and she was breathing
hard and fast. Only the new boy was unmoved, his pale face still pale,
his shadowed eyes calm. Stephen Lorimer kept that picture of them always
in his heart; it was, he came to think, symbol and prophecy. He swung
into the second verse, his voice warming:
The sand of the desert is sodden red;
Red with the wreck of a square that broke;
The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke:
The River of Death has brimmed his banks;
And England's far, and Honor a name,
But the voice of a school boy rallies the ranks--
Play up! Play up! and--Play the Game!
His own voice shook a little on the last line and he was a trifle amused
at his emotionalism. He tried to bring the moment sanely back to the
commonplace. "Corking for a song, Top Step. I'll hammer out some chords
... doesn't need much." He looked again through the strangely charged
atmosphere of the quiet room, at the three big children. Jimsy King was
on his feet, shaken out of the serene insolence of his young stoicism,
his hands opening and shutting, swallowing hard, and Honor, the
boy-girl, Jimsy's sturdy Skipper, was crying, frankly, unashamed,
unaware, the tears welling up out of her wide eyes, rolling down her
bright cheeks. Only Carter Van Meter sat as before, a little withdrawn,
a little aloof, in the shadow.
CHAPTER IV
When they told Marcia Van Meter (Mrs. Horace Flack) that her little boy
would always be lame, that not one of the great surgeon-wizards on
either side of the Atlantic--not all the king's horses and all the
king's men could ever weight or wrench or force the small, thin left leg
down to the length of the right, she vowed to herself that she would
make it up to him. She was a pretty thing, transparently frail and
ethereal-looking, who had always projected herself passionately into the
lives of those about her--her father's and mother's--the young husband's
who had died soon after her son was born--and now her boy's. While he
was less than ten years old it seemed to her that she compassed it; if
he could not race and run with his contemporaries he rode the smartest
of ponies and drove clever little traps; if he might not join in the
rough sports out of doors he had a houseful of brilliant mechanical
toys; he lived like a little Prince--like a little American Prince with
a magic bottomless purse at his command. But when he left his little
boyhood behind she discovered her futility; she discovered the small,
pitiful purchasing power of money, after all. She could not buy him
bodily strength and beauty; she could not buy him fellowship in the
world of boys; he was forever looking out at it, wistfully,
disdainfully, bitterly, through his plate glass window.
She spent herself untiringly for him,--playmates, gifts, tutors,
journeys. Her happiest moments were those in which he said, "Mother, I'd
like one of those wireless jiggers,"--or a new saddle-horse, or a new
roadster--and she was able to answer, "Dearest, I'll get it for you!
Mother'll get it for you to-morrow!"
But the days when she could spell omnipotence for him were fading away.
He wanted now, increasingly, things beyond her gift. He was a clever
boy, proud, poised. He learned early to wear a mask of indifference
about his lameness, to affect a coolness for sports which came,
eventually, to be genuine. He studied easily and well; he could talk
with a brilliancy beyond his years. He learned--astonishingly, at his
age--to get his deepest satisfactions from creature comforts--his
quietly elegant clothes, his food, his surroundings. Mrs. Van Meter had
high hopes of the move to Los Angeles; he was to be benefited, body and
brain. She was a little anxious at finding they had moved into a
neighborhood of boys and girls; Carter was happier with older people,
but he seemed to like these lively, robust creatures surprisingly.
Weeks, months, a year, went by. Carter, less than a year older than
Jimsy King but two years ahead of him in his studies, was doing some
special work at the University of Southern California, but his time was
practically his own--to spend with Honor and Jimsy. Honor and Jimsy
showed, each of them, the imprint of their association with him. They
had come to care more for the things he held high... books... theaters
... dinners at the Crafts Alexandria... Grand Opera records on the
victrola... more careful dress.
"Carter has really done a great deal for those children," Mildred
Lorimer told her husband, complacently.
"Yes," Stephen admitted. "It's true. He has. And"--he sighed--"they
haven't done a thing for him."
"Stephen dear,--what could they do--crude children that they are, beside
a boy with his advantages? What could they do for him?--Make him play
football? What did you expect them to do?"
"I don't know," he said, moodily, "but at any rate they haven't done
it."
Jimsy King was going--by the grace of his own frantic eleventh hour
efforts and his teachers' clemency and Honor Carmody--to graduate.
Barring calamities, he would possess a diploma in February. Honor was
tremendously earnest about it; Carter, to whom learning came as easily
as the air he breathed, faintly amused. She thought, sometimes, for
brief, traitorous moments, that Carter wasn't always good for Jimsy.
"You see," she explained to her stepfather, "Carter doesn't realize how
hard Jimsy has to grind for all he gets. Even now, Stepper, after being
here a year, he actually doesn't realize the importance of Jimsy's
getting signed up to play. It's a strange thing, with all his
cleverness, but he doesn't, and he's always taking Jimsy out on parties
and rides and things, and he gets behind in everything. I think I'll
just have to speak to him about it."
He nodded. "That's a good idea, Top Step. Do that."
She grew still more sober. "Another thing, Stepper... about--about Mr.
King's--trouble. Of course, you and I have never believed that Jimsy
_had_ to inherit it, have we?"
"No. Not if people let him alone. His life, his training, his
environment, are very different--more wholesome, vital. The energy which
his grandfather and his uncles and his father had to find a vent for in
cards and drink Jimsy's sweated out in athletics."
"Yes. But--just the same--isn't it better for Jimsy to keep away
from--from those things?"
"Naturally. Better for anybody."
She sighed. "Carter doesn't think so. He says the world is full of
it--Jimsy must learn to be near it and let it alone."
"That's true, in a sense, T. S...."
"I know. But--sometimes I think Carter deliberately takes Jimsy places
to--test him. Of course he thinks he's doing right, but it worries me."
Stephen Lorimer smoked in silence. He had his own ideas. "Better have
that talk with him," he said.
Honor found the talk oddly disturbing. Carter was very sweet about it as
he always was with her, but he held stubbornly to his own opinion.
"Look here, Honor, you can't follow Jimsy through the world like a
nursemaid, you know."
"Carter! I don't mean----"
"He's got to meet and face these things, to fight what somebody calls
'the battle of his blood.' You mustn't wrap him up in cotton wool. If
he's going, to be bowled over he might as well find it out. He must take
his chances--just as any other fellow--just as I must."
"Oh, but, Carter, you know you're strong, and----"
Suddenly his pale face was stung with hot color. "Honor," he leaned
forward, "you think I'm strong, in _any_ way? You don't consider me
an--utter weakling?"
She looked with comprehending tenderness at his crimson face. "Why,
Carter, dear! You know I've never thought you that! There are more ways
of being--being strong than--than just with muscles and bones!"
He reached out and took one of her firm, tanned hands in his, and she
had never seen him so winningly wistful, so wistfully winning. "I
thought," he said, very low, "that was the only kind of strength that
counted with you. Then--I do count with you, Honor? I do?"
She was a little startled, a little frightened, wholly uncomfortable.
There was something in Carter's voice she didn't understand... something
she didn't want to understand. She pulled her hand away and managed her
boyish grin. "Of course you do,--goose! And you'll count more if you'll
help me to look after Jimsy and have him graduate on time!" She got up
quickly as her stepfather came into the room, and Carter went home,
crossing the street with the rather pathetic arrogance of his halting
gait, his head held high, tilted a little back, which gave him the
expression of looking down on a world of swift striders.
He found his mother reading before a low fire. "Well, dearest?" She
smiled up at him, yearningly.
He stood looking down at her, his face working. "Mother, I want Honor
Carmody."
"Carter!"
"I
|
his conception of the
imagination includes judgment, celerity, and innovation. All three
functions are basic to the imaginative act. It is the last, however,
which he most emphasizes; and it is apparent, I think, that one
intention of his argument is to refute the assumption that the sublime
is the principal object of the poetic imagination. It is clear also that
Ogilvie is attentive to the excesses of imagism, even as he makes the
variety of a poet’s images (along with the boldness of his transitions
and the picturesque vivacity of his descriptions) one of the major terms
of critical assessment. Especially, he is attentive to that which
detracts from the principal object, and thus a kind of concentration of
purpose emerges as a tacit poetic value, a concentration to which he
refers as a “succession of sentiments which resemble... the subject of
his Poem” (lii). Here again Ogilvie has not so much a unity of structure
in view as a unity of the passions, and it is this particular theme
which generally guides his discourse; it is the general premise upon
which his inquiry depends and on which his major justification of lyric
poetry is based. In more modern terms we might here speak of the
principle of the correlative, which Ogilvie rehearses in his treatment
of the correspondence of subject and metaphor, and even indeed of
metaphor as a mode of vision. Poetic discourse, for Ogilvie, does not
depend upon metaphor, but without metaphor such discourse would be
impossible.
What is important, then, is the principle of propriety, a neat accord
between the figure and the subject, a kind of aperçu. Thus, metaphors
properly employed are “generally short, expressive, and fitted to
correspond with great accuracy to the point which requires to be
illustrated” (pp. liii-liv). Second only to this consideration is that
of color, by which he means tone or emphasis, and here again with a view
toward the overall unity of the passions. It is perhaps worth noting
that both considerations are relevant to Ogilvie’s sense of the
imagination as a judicious faculty operating independently of the
reason, but nevertheless obedient to the laws of logical form, organic
relationships, and proper successions, all of which imply an idea of
structure.
Much of the time Ogilvie is occupied with quite familiar and
conventional critical problems. The relation between regularity and
irregularity is one that he particularly stresses, and his resolutions
tend to allow a certain wildness as natural to the imagination, even as
evidence of the faculty. He is, however, more inclined to permit bold
and spirited transitions in the shorter ode than in the longer ode. As
usual Ogilvie’s critical principles are related to the nature of the
work in question, and a greater irregularity is natural to the shorter
ode since it presumes the imitation of the passions. But it is important
to recognize that Ogilvie stresses not only the imitation of the
passions, but the exercise of them as well; and the relation between the
one and the other forms at bottom the larger principles on which his
second letter is based. We might wish to say that he has in view the
education of the passions, not merely by imitating them, but, as it
were, by drawing from the reader his own possibilities for sensible
response. It does not at all imply pre-romantic values to suggest that
Ogilvie’s criticism is directed toward a frank exploitation of the
reader’s emotion. As Maclean makes clear,[3] such interests are hardly
unique to romantic criticism. Bishop Lowth, for example, distinguished
between the internal source and the external source of poetry,
preferring the former because through it the mind is immediately
conscious of itself and its own emotions.[4] Ogilvie does not quite make
the same statement, but his position easily coincides with it; and if,
with John Crowe Ransom,[5] we consider romantic poetry as uniquely
directed toward the exploitation of the feelings, we shall be surprised
by any number of minor eighteenth-century critics who are unabashedly
interested in similar values. Ogilvie’s position very much resembles
Thomas Twining’s view that the “description of passions and emotions by
their sensible effects... [is what] principally deserves the name of
imitative.”[6]
In accord with the psychological bias informing his essay, Ogilvie tends
to reduce the importance of narrative events in favor of vivid and
picturesque descriptions, for the latter most immediately communicate
themselves to the reader and most expressly realize the translation from
thought to feeling. Once again it is the uniqueness of rendering that he
has in mind, the innovative cast of the poet’s mind which transforms the
familiar and by so doing gives it a newly affective power. It is
important to recognize that Ogilvie shares with his contemporaries a
more limited sense of the varieties of subject-matter than we are likely
to grant. But as this is so for him, and as indeed this condition is a
function of eighteenth-century historiography, it helps to explain the
emphasis he places upon the uniqueness with which the subject is
realized. Over and again such an interest shapes his inquiries and
becomes both an attribute and a test of a poet’s capacity. These remarks
need to be qualified only by his inquiry into personification: for here
it is the expectation of the mind that must not be disappointed, and
that which is iconographically established (the figure of Time, for
example) should not be violated.
While Ogilvie is not a major critic a good part of his charm and
interest for us stems from a mind that is not in the least doctrinaire.
His method is inductive, his appeal is always to the human psychology as
that can be known experientially, and his standards are Aristotelian (if
by such a reference we mean to signify a procedure based upon the known
effects of known works). While there is nothing in these letters that
deviates from the psychological tradition in later eighteenth-century
criticism, it is also evident that Ogilvie is not really an
associationist, and that he is less interested in the creative
functioning of the poet’s imagination than in the precepts of a
psychological humanism which underscore his criteria and give validity
to his remarks on the range and appeal of lyric poetry. In sum, his
historicism exists as a justification for his defense of lyric poetry
and is intended to provide a basis for the psychological bias of his
argument.
Duke University
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[Footnote 1: _Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen_
(Glasgow, 1855), Vol. IV. For a list of Ogilvie’s works consult
Stephen and Lee, _Dictionary of National Biography_ (Oxford,
1921-22), Vol. XIV. For an estimation of Ogilvie’s relation to the
theology of his own day consult James McCosh, _The Scottish
Philosophy_ (London, 1875).]
[Footnote 2: _Life of Samuel Johnson_, ed. George Birkbeck Hill
(Oxford, 1887), I., 421, 425.]
[Footnote 3: Norman Maclean, “From Action to Image: Theories of
the Lyric in the Eighteenth Century,” in _Critics and Criticism
Ancient and Modern_, ed. R. S. Crane (Chicago, 1952), pp.
408-463.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 439.]
[Footnote 5: John Crowe Ransom, _The New Criticism_ (New York,
1941), p. 15.]
[Footnote 6: _An Inquiry into the Fine Arts_ (London, 1784),
p. 6.]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
This facsimile of _An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients_ (1762)
is reproduced from a copy in the Duke University Library.
POEMS
on
SEVERAL SUBJECTS.
To Which Is Prefix’d,
AN ESSAY
on the
LYRIC POETRY of the ANCIENTS;
In TWO LETTERS inscribed to
The Right Honourable JAMES Lord DESKFOORD.
By _JOHN OGILVIE_, A.M.
[Illustration]
_LONDON:_
Printed for G. KEITH, at the _Bible-and-Crown_
in _Gracechurch-Street_.
M. DCC. LXII.
CONTENTS.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Although the facsimile includes this full Table of Contents,
only the introductory section-- the Essay on Lyric Poetry--
was reprinted.]
An ESSAY on the LYRIC POETRY of the ANCIENTS.
LETTER I. Page iii
LETTER II. xxxix
ODES, &c.
_To MELANCHOLY_ 1
_To the GENIUS OF SHAKESPEAR_ 8
_To TIME_ 16
_To SLEEP_ 23
_To EVENING_ 29
_To INNOCENCE_ 36
_The DAY OF JUDGMENT. A Poem._
BOOK I. 49
BOOK II. 79
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
The 148th PSALM paraphrased 107
VERSES to a Lady,
with VOLTAIRE’S _Temple of Taste_ 112
A TOWN ECLOGUE 116
JUPITER and the CLOWN. A Fable 120
An Elegy on the DEATH of a LINNET 128
An EVENING PIECE 131
To Miss ---- with a Flower 134
SAPPHO’s Ode to VENUS translated 136
To the Memory of Mrs. ---- 138
To the Memory of Mr. H*** M***. An Elegy 143
To the Memory of the late
pious, and ingenious Mr. HERVEY 147
The Third Chapter of HABAKKUK paraphrased 152
An
ESSAY
on the
LYRIC POETRY
of the
ANCIENTS.
Humbly Inscribed
to the
RIGHT HONOURABLE
JAMES Lord DESKFOORD.
An
E S S A Y
on the
LYRIC POETRY of the ANCIENTS.
LETTER I.
MY LORD,
It is an observation, no doubt, familiar to your Lordship, that Genius
is the offspring of Reason and Imagination properly moderated, and
co-operating with united influence to promote the discovery, or the
illustration of truth. Though it is certain that a separate province is
assigned to each of these faculties, yet it often becomes a matter of
the greatest difficulty to prevent them from making mutual
encroachments, and from leading to extremes which are the more
dangerous, because they are brought on by an imperceptible progression.
--Reason in every mind is an uniform power, and its appearance is
regular, and invariably permanent. When this Faculty therefore
predominates in the sphere of composition, sentiments will follow each
other in connected succession, the arguments employed to prove any point
will be just and forcible; the stability of a work will be principally
considered, and little regard will be payed to its exterior ornament.
Such a work however, though it may be valued by a few for its intrinsic
excellence, yet can never be productive of general improvement, as
attention can only be fixed by entertainment, and entertainment is
incompatible with unvaried uniformity[1].
[Footnote 1: Neque ipsa Ratio (says the elegant and sensible
Quintilian speaking of Eloquence) tam nos juvaret, nisi quæ
concepissemus mente, promere etiam loquendo possemus,--ita, ut non
modo orare, sed quod Pericli contigit fulgerare, ac tonare
videamur. Institut. Orat. Lib. XI. c. 16.]
On the contrary, when Imagination is permitted to bestow the graces of
ornament indiscriminately, we either find in the general that sentiments
are superficial, and thinly scattered through a work, or we are obliged
to search for them beneath a load of superfluous colouring. Such, my
Lord, is the appearance of the superior Faculties of the mind when they
are disunited from each other, or when either of them seems to be
remarkably predominant.
Your Lordship is too well acquainted with this subject not to have
observed, that in composition, as in common life, extremes, however
pernicious, are not always so distant from each other, as upon
superficial inspection we may be apt to conclude. Thus in the latter,
an obstinate adherence to particular opinions is contracted by observing
the consequences of volatility; indifference ariseth from despising the
softer feelings of tenderness; pride takes its origin from the disdain
of compliance; and the first step to avarice is the desire of avoiding
profusion. Inconveniencies similar to these are the consequences of
temerity in canvassing the subjects of speculation. The mind of an
Author receives an early bias from prepossession, and the dislike which
he conceives to a particular fault precipitates him at once to the
opposite extreme. For this reason perhaps it is, that young authors who
possess some degree of Genius, affect on all occasions a florid
manner[2], and clothe their sentiments in the dress of imagery. To them
nothing appears so disgusting as dry and lifeless uniformity; and
instead of pursuing a middle course betwixt the extremes of profusion
and sterility, they are only solicitous to shun that error of which
Prejudice hath shown the most distorted resemblance. It is indeed but
seldom, that Nature adjusts the intellectual balance so accurately as
not to throw an _unequal weight_ into either of the scales. Such
likewise is the situation of man, that in the first stage of life the
predominant Faculty engrosseth _his attention_, as the predominant
Passion influenceth _his actions_. Instead therefore of strengthening
the weaker power by assisting its exertions, and by supplying its
defects, he is adding force to that which was originally too strong; and
the same reflection which discovers _his error_, shows him likewise the
difficulty of correcting it. Even in those minds, in which the
distribution was primarily equal, education, habit, or some early bias
is ready to break _that perfect poise_ which is necessary to constitute
consummate excellence.
[Footnote 2: This is the manner which Quintilian appropriates
particularly to young persons. --In juvenibus etiam uberiora paulo
& pene periclitantia feruntur. At in iisdem siccum, & contractum
dicendi propositum plerunque affectatione ipsa severitatis invisum
est: quando etiam morum senilis autoritas immatura in
adolescentibus creditur. Lib. II. c. 1.]
From this account of the different manners, in which the faculties of
the mind exert themselves in the sphere of competition, your Lordship
will immediately observe, that the Poet who attempts to combine distant
ideas, to catch remote allusions, to form vivid and agreeable pictures;
is more apt from the very nature of his profession to set up a _false
standard_ of _excellence_, than the cool and dispassionate Philosopher
who proceeds deliberately from position to argument, and who employs
Imagination only as the Handmaid of a superior faculty. Having gone thus
far, like persons who have got into a track from which they cannot
recede, we may venture to proceed a step farther; and affirm that the
_Lyric Poet_ is exposed to this hazard more nearly than any other, and
that to prevent him from falling into the extreme we have mentioned,
will require the exercise of the closest attention.
That I may illustrate this observation as fully as the nature of the
subject will permit, it will be expedient to enquire into the end which
Lyric Poetry proposeth to obtain, and to examine the original standards
from which the rules of this art are deduced.
Aristotle, who has treated of poetry at great length, assigns two causes
of its origin,--_Imitation_ and Harmony; both of which are natural to
the human mind[3]. By Imitation he understands, “whatever employs means
to represent any subject in a natural manner, whether it hath a real or
imaginary existence[4].” The desire of imitating is originally stamped
on the mind, and is a source of perpetual pleasure. “Thus” (says the
great Critic) “though the figures of wild beasts, or of dead men, cannot
be viewed as they naturally are without horror and reluctance; yet the
Imitation of these in painting is highly agreeable, and our pleasure is
augmented in proportion to that degree of resemblance which we conceive
to subsist betwixt the Original and the Copy[5].” By Harmony he
understands not the numbers or measures of poetry only, but that music
of language, which when it is justly adapted to variety of sentiment or
description, contributes most effectually to unite the pleasing with the
instructive[6]. This indeed seems to be the opinion of all the Ancients
who have written on this subject. Thus Plato says expressly, that those
Authors who employ numbers and images without music have no other merit
than that of throwing prose into measure[7].
[Footnote 3: Εοικασι δε γεννησαι μεν ὁλως την Ποιητικην, αιτιαι
δυο και αυται φυσικαι. Το μιμεισθαι συμφυτον τοις ανθρωποις, &c.
Και Ἁρμονια και ρυθμος εξ αρχης οἱ πεφυκοτες προς αυτα μαλιστα
κατα μικρον προαγοντες εγεινησαν την Ποιησιν‧ Arist. Poet. c. 4.]
[Footnote 4: The Reader of curiosity may see this subject
particularly discussed in Dacier’s Remarks on the Poeticks of
Aristotle, c. 4.]
[Footnote 5: Ἁ γαρ αυτα λυπηρως ὁρωμεν, τουτων τας εικωνας τας
μαλιστα ηκριβωμενας, χαιρομεν θεωρουντες, οἱτινες θηρεων τε μορφας
των αγριοτατων και νεκρων, &c. Poet. c. 4.]
[Footnote 6: Τα γαρ μετρα ὁτι μοιρον των ρυθμων εστι, φανερον. Ub.
sup.]
[Footnote 7: Ρυθμον μεν και σχηματα μελους χωρις λογους ψιλους εις
μετρα τιθεντες. The persons who do this, he compares to Musicians.
Μελος δε αυ και ρυθμους ανευ ρημα{των} ψιλη κιθαριξει τε και
αυλησει προσχρωμενοι. Plat. de Legib. Lib. XI.]
You will no doubt be of opinion, my Lord, upon reflecting on this
subject, that Poetry was originally of an earlier date than Philosophy,
and that its different species were brought to a certain pitch of
perfection before that Science had been cultivated in an equal degree.
Experience informs us on every occasion, that Imagination shoots forward
to its full growth, and even becomes wild and luxuriant, when the
reasoning Faculty is only beginning to open, and is wholly unfit to
connect the series of accurate deduction. The information of the senses
(from which Fancy generally borrows her images) always obtains the
earliest credit, and makes for that reason the most lasting impressions.
The sallies of this irregular Faculty are likewise abrupt and
instantaneous, as they are generally the effects of a sudden impulse
which reason is not permitted to restrain. As therefore we have already
seen, that the desire of imitating is _innate_ to the mind (if your
Lordship will permit me to make use of an unphilosophical epithet) and
as the first inhabitants of the world were employed in the culture of
the field, and in surveying the scenery of external Nature, it is
probable that the first rude draughts of Poetry were extemporary
effusions, either descriptive of the scenes of pastoral life, or
extolling the attributes of the Supreme Being. On this account Plato
says that Poetry was originally Ενθεος Μιμησις[8], or an inspired
imitation of those objects which produced either pleasure or admiration.
To paint those objects which produced pleasure was the business of the
pastoral, and to display those which raise admiration was the task
consigned to the Lyric Poet. --To excite this passion, no method was so
effectual as that of celebrating the perfections of the Powers who were
supposed to preside over Nature. The Ode therefore in its first
formation was a song in honour of these Powers[9], either sung at solemn
festivals or after the days of Amphion who was the inventor of the Lyre,
accompanied with the musick of that instrument. Thus Horace tells us,
_Musa dedit fidibus Divos, puerosque Divorum_[10],
The Muse to nobler subjects tun’d her lyre,
Gods, and the sons of Gods her song inspire. FRANCIS.
[Footnote 8: Plat. Io.]
[Footnote 9: Nec prima illa post secula per ætates sane complures
alio Lyrici spectarunt, quam ut Deorum laudes ac decora, aut
virorum fortium res preclare gestas Hymnis ac Pæanibus, ad templa
& aras complecterentur;--ut ad emulationem captos admiratione
mortales invitarent. Strad. Prolus. 4 Poet.]
[Footnote 10: Hor. de Art. Poet.]
In this infancy of the arts, when it was the business of the Muse,
as the same Poet informs us,
_Publica privatis secernere, sacra prophanis;
Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis,
Oppida moliri, leges includere ligno[11]._
Poetic Wisdom mark’d with happy mean,
Public and private, sacred and profane,
The wandering joys of lawless love supprest,
With equal rites the wedded couple blest,
Plann’d future towns, and instituted laws, &c. FRANCIS.
your Lordship will immediately conclude that the species of Poetry which
was first cultivated (especially when its end was to excite admiration)
must for that reason have been the _loosest_ and the most
_undetermined_. There are indeed particular circumstances, by the
concurrence of which one branch of an Art may be rendered perfect, when
it is first introduced; and these circumstances were favourable to the
Authors of the Eclogue. But whatever some readers may think, your
Lordship will not look upon it as a paradox, to affirm that the same
causes which produced this advantage to pastoral poetry, contributed in
an equal degree to make the first Lyric Poems the most vague, uncertain,
and disproportioncd standards.
[Footnote 11: Id. ibid.]
In general it may be observed, that the difficulty of establishing rules
is always augmented in proportion to the variety of objects which an Art
includes. Pastoral Poetry is defined by an ingenious Author, to be an
imitation of what may be supposed to pass among Shepherds[12]. This was
accomplished the more easily by the first performers in this art,
because they were themselves employed in the occupation which they
describe, and the subjects which fell within their sphere must have been
confined to a very narrow circle. They contented themfelves with
painting in the simplest language the external beauties of nature, and
with conveying an image of that age in which men generally lived on the
footing of equality, and followed the dictates of an understanding
uncultivated by Art. In succeeding ages, when manners became more
polished, and the refinements of luxury were substituted in place of the
simplicity of Nature, men were still fond of retaining an idea of this
happy period (which perhaps originally existed in its full extent, only
in the imagination of Poets) and the character of a perfect pastoral was
justly drawen from the writings of those Authors who first attempted to
excel in it[13].
[Footnote 12: Toute Poesie est une imitation. La Poesie Bucolique
a pour but d’imiter ce qui a passe et ce qui ce dit entre les
Bergers. Mem. de Lit. V. III. p. 158.]
[Footnote 13: Elle ne doit pas s’en tenir a la simple
representation du vrai reel, qui rarement seroit agreable; elle
doit s’elever jusqu’au _vrai ideal_, qui tend’ a embellir le vrai,
tel qu’il est dans la nature, et qui produit dans la Poesie comme
dans la Peinture, le derniere point de perfeftion, &c. Mem. de
Lit. ub. sup.]
Though we must acknowledge, that the poetic representations of a _golden
age_ are chimerical, and that descriptions of this kind were not always
measured by the standard of truth; yet it must be allowed at the same
time, that at a period when Manners were uniform and natural, the
Eclogue, whose principal excellence lies in exhibiting simple and lively
pictures of common objects and common characters, was brought at once to
a state of greater perfection by the persons who introduced it, than it
could have arrived at in a more improved and enlightned aera.
You will observe, my Lord, that these circumstances were all of them
unfavourable to Lyric Poetry. The Poet in this branch of his Art
proposed as his principal aim to excite Admiration, and his mind without
the assistance of critical skill was left to the unequal task of
presenting succeeding ages with the rudiments of Science. He was at
liberty indeed to range through the ideal world, and to collect images
from every quarter; but in this research he proceeded without a guide,
and his imagination like a fiery courser with loose reins was left to
pursue that path into which it deviated by accident, or was enticed by
temptation. In short, Pastoral Poetry takes in only a few objects, and
is characterized by that simplicity, tenderness, and delicacy which were
happily and easily united in the work of an ancient Shepherd. He had
little use for the rules of criticism, because he was not much exposed
to the danger of infringing them. The Lyric Poet on the other hand took
a more diversified and extensive range, and his imagination required a
strong and steady rein to correct its vehemence, and restrain its
rapidity. Though therefore we can conceive without difficulty, that the
Shepherd in his poetic effusions might contemplate only the _external
objects_ which were presented to him, yet we cannot so readily believe
that the mind in framing a Theogony, or in assigning distinct provinces
to the Powers who were supposed to preside over Nature, could in its
first Essays proceed with so calm and deliberate a pace through the
fields of invention, as that its work should be the perfect pattern of
just and corrected composition.
From these observations laid together, your Lordship will judge of the
state of Lyric Poetry, when it was first introduced, and will perhaps be
inclined to assent to a part of the proposition laid down in the
beginning, “that as Poets in general are more apt to set up a false
standard of excellence than Philosophers are, so the Lyric Poet was
exposed to this danger more immediately than any other member of the
same profession.” Whether or not the preceding Theory can be justly
applied to the works of the first Lyric Poets, and how far the Ode
continued to be characterised by it in the more improved state of
ancient Learning, are questions which can only be answered by taking a
short view of both.
It is indeed, my Lord, much to be regretted, that we have no _certain
guide_ to lead us through that labyrinth in which we _grope for the
discovery_ of Truth, and are so often _entangled in the maze_ of Error
when we attempt to explain the origin of Science, or to trace the
manners of remote antiquity. I should be at a loss to enter upon this
perplexed and intricate subject, if I did not know, that History has
already familiarized to your Lordship the principal objects which occur
in this research, and that it is the effect of extensive knowledge and
superior penetration to invigorate the effort of Diffidence, and to
repress the surmises of undistinguishing Censure.
The Inhabitants of Greece who make so eminent a figure in the records of
Science, as well as in the History of the progression of Empire, were
originally a savage and lawless people, who lived in a state of war with
one another, and possessed a desolate country, from which they expected
to be driven by the invasion of a foreign enemy[14]. Even after they had
begun to emerge from this state of absolute barbarity, and had built a
kind of cities to restrain the encroachments of the neighbouring
nations, the inland country continued to be laid waste by the
depredations of robbers, and the maritime towns were exposed to the
incursions of pirates[15]. Ingenious as this people naturally were, the
terror and suspence in which they lived for a considerable time, kept
them unacquainted with the Arts and Sciences which were flourishing in
other countries. When therefore a Genius capable of civilizing them
started up, it is no wonder that they held him in the highest
estimation, and concluded that he was either descended from, or inspired
by some of those Divinities whose praises he was employed in rehearsing.
[Footnote 14: Thucyd. Lib. I.]
[Footnote 15: Id. ibid.]
Such was the situation of Greece, when Linus, Orpheus, and Museus, the
first Poets whose names have reached posterity, made their appearance on
the theatre of life. These writers undertook the difficult task of
reforming their countrymen, and of laying down a theological and
philosophical system[16]. --We are informed by Diogenes Laertius, that
Linus, the Father of Grecian Poetry, was the son of Mercury and the Muse
Urania, and that he sung of the Generation of the world, of the course
of the sun and moon, of the origin of animals, and of the principles of
vegetation[17]. He taught, says the same Author, that all things were
formed at one time, and that they were jumbled together in a Chaos, till
the operation of a Mind introduced regularity.
[Footnote 16: Authors are not agreed as to the Persons who
introduced into Greece the principles of philosophy. Tatian will
have it that the Greek Philosophy came originally from Ægypt.
Orat. con. Graec. While Laertius (who certainly might have been
better informed) will allow Foreigners to have had no share in it.
He ascribes its origin to Linus, and says expressly, Αφ’ Ἑλληνων
ηρξε φιλοσοφια ἡς και αυτο το ονομα την Βαρβαρον απεστραπτε
προσηγοριαν. Laer. in Prœm.]
[Footnote 17: This account of the subjects on which Linus wrote,
suggests a further prejudice in favour of Laertius’s opinion as to
the origin of Greek Philosophy. He has preserved the first line of
his Poem.
Ην ποτε χρονος οὑτος εν ὡ ἁμα παντ’ επεφυκει. Id. ibid.]
After all, however, we must acknowledge, that so complex, so
diversified, and so ingenious a system as the Greek Theology, was too
much for an _uninstructed_ Genius, however exuberant, to have conceived
in its full extent. Accordingly we are told, that both Orpheus and
Museus travelled into Ægypt, and infused the traditionary learning of a
cultivated people into the minds of their own illiterate countrymen[18].
To do this the more effectually, they composed Hymns, or short sonnets,
in which their meaning was couched under the veil of beautiful allegory,
that their lessons might at once arrest the imagination, and be
impressed upon the Memory[19]. This, my Lord, we are informed by the
great Critic, was the first dress in which Poetry made its
appearance[20].
[Footnote 18: Herod. Lib. I. c. 49.]
[Footnote 19: Univ. Hist. Vol. VI. p. 221.]
[Footnote 20: Οἱ μεν γαρ σεμνοτεροι τας καλας εμιμουντο πραξεις
και τας των τοιουτων τυχας‧ οἱ δε ευτελεστεροι τας των φαυλων
πρωτον ψογους ποιουντες, ὡσπερ ἑτεροι ὙΜΝΟΥΣ και ΕΓΚΩΜΙΑ. Arist.
Poet. c. 4.]
Of Orpheus we know little more with certainty, than that the subjects of
his poems were the formation of the world, the offspring of Saturn, the
birth of the Giants, and the origin of man[21]. These were favourite
topics among the first Poets, and the discussion of them tended at once
to enlarge the imagination, and to give the reasoning faculty a proper
degree of exercise. This Poet however, though he obtained the highest
honours from his contemporaries, yet seems to have managed his subjects
in so loose a manner, that succeeding Writers will not allow him to have
been a Philosopher[22]. At present we are not sufficiently qualified to
determine his character, as most of the pieces which pass under his name
are ascribed to one Onomacritus, an Athenian who flourished about the
time of Pisistratus. That the writings of Orpheus were highly and
extensively useful, is a truth confirmed by the most convincing
evidence. The extraordinary effects which his Poetry and Music are said
to have produced, however absurd and incredible in themselves, are yet
unquestioned proofs that he was considered as a superior Genius, and
that his countrymen thought themselves highly indebted to him. Horace
gives an excellent account of this matter in very few words.
_Sylvestres homines, Sacer, Interpresque Deorum
Cædibus, & victu fœdo deterruit Orpheus,
Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones._[23]
The wood-born race of men when Orpheus tam’d,
From acorns, and from mutual blood reclaim’d.
The Priest divine was fabled to assuage
The tiger’s fierceness, and the lion’s rage. FRANCIS.
[Footnote 21: Orph. Argonaut.]
[Footnote 22: Εγω δε ει τον περι θεων εξαγορευσαντα τοιαυτα‧ χρη
φιλοσοφον καλειν ουκ οιδα τινα δει προσαγορευιν τον το ανθρωπειον
παθος αφειδουντο τοις θεοις προστριψαι, και τα σπασιως ὑπο τοιων
ανθρωπων αισχρουργουμενα, και τω ταυτης φωνης οργανω. Laer. ub.
sup.]
[Footnote 23: Hor. de Art. Poet.]
Museus, the Pupil of Orpheus, is as little known to posterity as his
Master. His only genuine production which has reached the present times
is an Ode to Ceres, a piece indeed full of exuberance and variety[24].
The Ancients in general seem to have entertained a very high opinion of
his Genius and writings, as he is said to have been the first person who
composed a regular Theogony, and is likewise celebrated as the inventor
of the Sphere[25]. His principle was that all things would finally
resolve into
|
the green slopes, the gulches, and
fern-clad hills, which here and there sparkle with silvery streamlets.
The gentle morning breeze blowing off the land brings us the dewy
fragrance of the flowers, which has been distilled from a wilderness of
tropical bloom during the night. The land forms a shelter for our
vessel, and we glide noiselessly over a perfectly calm sea. As we draw
nearer to the shore, sugar plantations, cocoanut groves, and verdant
pastures come clearly into view. Here and there the shore is dotted with
the low, primitive dwellings of the natives, and occasionally we see
picturesque, vine-clad cottages of American or European residents.
Approaching still nearer to the city of Honolulu, it seems to be
half-buried in a cloud of luxuriant foliage, while a broad and beautiful
valley stretches away from the town far back among the lofty hills.
The steamer glides at half speed through the narrow channel in the coral
reef which makes the natural breakwater of the harbor. This channel is
carefully buoyed on either side, and at night safety-lamps are placed
upon each of these little floating beacons, so that a steamship can find
her way in even after nightfall. Though the volcanic origin of the land
is plain, it is not the sole cause of these reefs and islands appearing
thus in mid-ocean. Upon the flanks of the upheaval the little coral
animal, with tireless industry, rears its amazing structure, until it
reaches the surface of the waves as a reef, more or less contiguous to
the shore, and to which ages finally serve to join it. The tiny creature
delegated by Providence to build these reefs dies on exposure to the
air, its work being then completed. The far-reaching antiquity of the
islands is established by these very coralline formations, which could
only have attained their present elevation, just below the surface of
the surrounding sea, by the growth of thousands of years. This coral
formation on the shores of the Hawaiian group is not peculiar to these
islands, but is found to exist in connection with nearly all of those
existing in the Pacific Ocean.
The lighthouse, placed on the inner side of the coral reef, is a
structure not quite thirty feet in height. After reaching the inside of
the harbor of Honolulu, the anchorage is safe and sheltered, with ample
room for a hundred large vessels at the same time, the average depth of
water being some sixteen fathoms. The wharves are spacious and
substantial, built with broad, high coverings to protect laborers from
the heat of a tropical sun. Honolulu is the commercial port of the whole
group of islands,--the half-way house, as it were, between North America
and Asia,--California and the new world of Australasia.
CHAPTER II.
Upon landing at Honolulu we find ourselves in a city of some twenty
thousand inhabitants, presenting all the modern belongings of a
metropolis of the nineteenth century, such as schools, churches,
hospitals, charitable institutions, gas, electric lights, and the
telephone. Nearly all of the rising generation can read and write, and
the entire population are professed Christians. Great is the contrast in
every respect between these islands as discovered by Captain Cook in
1778, and their present condition. Originally they exhibited the same
barbarous characteristics which were found to exist in other islands of
the Pacific Ocean. They had no sense of domestic virtue, and were
victims of the most egregious superstitions. "The requisitions of their
idolatry," says the historian Ellis, "were severe, and its rites cruel
and bloody." Their idolatry has been abandoned since 1819. In the early
days the several islands of the group had each a separate king, and wars
were frequent between them, until King Kamehameha finally subjected them
all to his sway, and formed the government which has lasted to the
present time.
Many of the streets of Honolulu afford a grateful shade, the sidewalks
being lined by ornamental trees, of which the cocoanut, palm,
bread-fruit, candle-nut, and some others, are indigenous, but many have
been introduced from abroad and have become domesticated. The tall
mango-tree, with rich, glossy leaves, the branches bending under the
weight of its delicious fruit, is seen growing everywhere, though it is
not a native of these islands. Among other fruit-trees we observe the
feathery tamarind, orange, lime, alligator-pear, citron-fig, date, and
rose apple. Of all the flowering trees, the most conspicuous and
attractive is one which bears a cloud of brilliant scarlet blossoms,
each cluster ball-shaped and as large as a Florida orange. Some of the
thoroughfares are lined by pretty, low-built cottages, standing a few
rods back from the roadway, with broad, inviting verandas, the whole
festooned and nearly hidden by tropical and semi-tropical plants in full
bloom. If we drive out to the race-course in the environs, we shall be
pretty sure to see King Kalakaua, who is very fond of this sort of
sport. He is a man of intelligence and of considerable culture, but
whose personal habits are of a low and disgraceful character. He has
reached his fifty-second year.
It will be observed that the women ride man-fashion here,--that is,
astride of their horses,--and there is a good reason for this. Even
European and American ladies who become residents also adopt this mode
of riding, because side-saddles are not considered to be safe on the
steep mountain roads. If one rides in any direction here, mountains must
be crossed. The native women deck themselves in an extraordinary manner
with flowers on all gala occasions, while the men wear wreaths of the
same about their straw hats, often adding braids of laurel leaves across
the shoulders and chest. The white blossoms of the jasmine, fragrant as
tuberoses, which they much resemble, are generally employed for this
decorative purpose. As a people the Hawaiians are very courteous and
respectful, rarely failing to greet all passing strangers with a softly
articulated "alo-ha," which signifies "my love to you."
A drive up the Nuuanu valley, which opens with a broad entrance near the
city, introduces us to some grand scenery. In ascending this beautiful
valley one is constantly charmed by the discovery of new tropical trees,
luxurious creepers and lovely wild-flowers. The strangers' burial-ground
is passed just after crossing the Nuuanu stream, and close at hand is
the Royal Mausoleum,--a stone structure in Gothic style, which contains
the remains of the Hawaiian kings, as well as those of many of the high
chiefs who have died since the conquest. Some shaded bathing-pools are
formed by the mountain streams, lying half hidden in the dense foliage.
Here we pass the residence of the late Queen Emma, pleasantly located
and flower-embowered. This valley is classic ground in the history of
these islands, being the spot where the fierce and conquering invader,
King Kamehameha I., fought his last decisive battle, the result of which
confirmed him as sole monarch of the Hawaiian group. Here the natives of
Oahu made their final stand and fought desperately, resisting with clubs
and spears the savage hordes led by Kamehameha. But they were defeated
at last, and with their king Kaiana, who led them in person, were all
driven over the abrupt and fatal cliff fifteen hundred feet high,
situated at the upper end of the valley.
In the environs of the city one passes upon the roadsides large patches
measuring an acre or more of submerged land, where is grown the Hawaiian
staff of life,--the _taro_, a root which is cultivated in mud and mostly
under water, recalling the rice-fields of China and Japan. The vegetable
thus produced, when baked and pounded to a flour, forms a nutritious
sort of dough called _poi_, which constitutes the principal article of
food for the natives, as potatoes do with the Irish or macaroni with the
Italians. This poi is eaten both cooked and in a raw state mixed with
water.
[Illustration: HAWAIIANS EATING POI.]
Though Oahu is quite mountainous, like the rest of the islands which
form the Hawaiian group, still none of these reach the elevation of
perpetual snow. The six inhabited islands of the group are Kauai, Oahu,
Molokai, Lanai, Maui, and Hawaii, the last containing the largest active
volcano of which we have any knowledge; namely, that of Kilauea, to
visit which persons cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and also the
American continent, between the two. Honolulu was chosen for the capital
because it forms the best and almost the only harbor worthy of the name
to be found among these islands. In the olden times Lahaina, on the
island of Maui, was the city of the king, and the recognized capital in
the palmy days of the whale fishery. This settlement is now going to
ruin, tumbling to pieces by wear and tear of the elements, forming a
rude picture of decay. Should the Panama Canal be completed, it would
prove to be of great advantage to these islands, as they lie in the
direct course which a great share of navigation must follow. The
aggregate population of the group is now about sixty thousand, of whom
some thirty-eight thousand are natives. History tells us that Captain
Cook estimated these islands to contain over three hundred thousand
inhabitants when he discovered them. Perhaps this was an exaggeration,
though it is a fact that they are capable of sustaining a population of
even much greater density than this estimate would indicate.
The ubiquitous Chinamen are found here as gardeners, laborers,
house-servants, fruit-dealers, and poi-makers. What an overflow there
has been of these Asiatics from the "Flowery Land!" Each one of the race
arriving at the Sandwich Islands is now obliged to pay ten dollars as
his landing fee, in default of which the vessel which brings him is
compelled to take him away. This singular people, who are wonderfully
industrious, notwithstanding their many faults, are equally disliked in
these islands by the natives, the Americans, and the Europeans; yet the
Chinamen steadily increase in numbers, and it is believed here that they
are destined eventually to take the place of the aborigines. The
aggregate number now to be found in the group is over twelve thousand.
It is evident that many branches of small trade are already monopolized
by them, as is the case at Penang, Singapore, and other Pacific islands.
On Nuuanu Street every shop is occupied by a Chinaman, dealing in such
articles as his own countrymen and the natives are likely to purchase.
It does certainly appear as though the aboriginal race would in the near
future be obliterated, and their place filled by the Anglo-Saxons and
the Chinese, the representative people of the East and the West. The
taro-patches of the Hawaiians will doubtless ere long become the
rice-fields of the Mongolians.
In the year 1887 there was raised upon these islands a very large amount
of sugar, over one hundred thousand tons in all. The entire product,
except what was consumed for domestic use, was shipped to this country.
Three-quarters of the money invested in sugar-raising here is furnished
by American capitalists, and American managers carry on the plantations.
A reciprocity treaty between the Sandwich Islands and this country
(that is, a national agreement upon matters of mutual interest), and
their proximity to the shores of America, have brought this people
virtually under the wing of our Government, concentrating their foreign
trade almost entirely in the United States, while the youth of the
islands, of both sexes, are sent hither for educational purposes. There
is no other foreign port in the world where the American flag is so
often seen, or more respected than in that of Honolulu.
The Hawaiian Islands are not on the direct route to Japan, and we
therefore find it better to return to San Francisco and embark from
there, than to await the arrival of a chance steamer bound westward. Our
course is not in the track of general commerce, and neither ship nor
shore is encountered while crossing this vast expanse of water. Storms
and calms alternate; sometimes the ocean is as smooth as an inland lake,
and at others in its unrest it tossed our iron hull about as though it
were a mere skiff, in place of a ship of three thousand tons'
measurement. The roughness of the water is exhibited near the coast and
in narrow seas by short, chopping waves; but in the open ocean these are
changed to long, heavy swells, covering the expanse of waters with vast
parallels separated by deep valleys, the distance from crest to crest
being from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet during a heavy
gale. The height of the waves is measured from the trough to the crest,
and is of course conjecture only, but in heavy weather it may safely be
set down at thirty feet.
Every steamship on the trip westward carries more or less Chinamen, who,
having acquired a certain sum of money by industry and self-denial, are
glad to return to their native land and live upon its income. Interest
is very high in China, and money is scarce. It is curious to watch
these second-class passengers. In fine weather they crowd the forward
deck, squatting upon their hams in picturesque groups, and playing cards
or dominos for small stakes of money. The Chinese are inveterate
gamblers, but are satisfied generally to play for very small stakes.
When the sea becomes rough and a storm rages, they exhibit great
timidity, giving up all attempts at amusement. On such occasions, with
sober faces and trembling hands, they prepare pieces of joss-paper
(scraps with magic words), bearing Chinese letters, and cast them
overboard to propitiate the anger of the special god who controls the
sea. The dense, noxious smell which always permeates their quarters, in
spite of enforced ventilation and the rules of the ship, is often wafted
unpleasantly to our own part of the vessel, telling a significant story
of the opium pipe, and a certain uncleanliness of person peculiar to
Africans and Mongolians.
After a three weeks' voyage we reach Yokohama, the commercial capital of
Japan. When Commodore Perry opened this port in 1854 with a fleet of
American men-of-war, it was scarcely more than a fishing village, but it
has now a population of a hundred and thirty thousand, with well-built
streets of dwelling-houses, the thoroughfares broad and clean, and all
macadamized. The town extends along the level shore, but is backed by a
half-moon of low, wooded hills, known as the Bluff, among which are the
dwellings of the foreign residents, built after the European and
American style. A deep, broad canal surrounds the city, passing by the
large warehouses, and connected with the bay at each end, being crossed
by several handsome bridges. If we ascend the road leading to the Bluff
we have a most charming and extended view. In the west, seventy miles
away, the white, cloud-like cone of Fujiyama, a large volcanic mountain
of Japan, can clearly be discerned, while all about us lie the pretty
villas of the foreign settlers.
[Illustration: MODE OF TRAVELLING IN JAPAN. A JINRIKSHA.]
In looking about this commercial capital everything strikes us as
curious; every new sight is a revelation, while in all directions
tangible representations of the strange pictures we have seen upon fans
and lacquered ware are presented to view. One is struck by the partial
nudity of men, women, and children, the extremely simple architecture of
the dwelling-houses, the peculiar vegetation, the extraordinary
salutations between the common people who meet each other upon the
streets, the trading bazaars, and the queer toy-like articles which fill
them; children flying kites in the shape of hideous yellow monsters.
Each subject becomes a fresh study. Men drawing vehicles, like horses
between the shafts, and trotting off at a six-mile pony-gait while
drawing after them one or two persons, is a singular sight to a
stranger. So are the naked natives, by fours, bearing heavy loads swung
from their shoulders upon stout bamboo poles, while they shout a
measured chant by means of which to keep step. No beggars are seen upon
the streets; the people without exception are all neat and cleanly. The
houses are special examples of neatness, and very small, being seldom
more than twenty feet square, and one story in height. All persons,
foreigners or natives, take off their shoes before entering upon the
polished floors, not only out of respect to the customs of the country,
but because one does not feel like treading upon their floors with
nailed heels or soiled soles. The conviction forces itself upon us that
such universal neatness and cleanliness must extend even to the moral
character of the people. A spirit of gentleness, industry, and thrift
are observable everywhere, imparting an Arcadian atmosphere to these
surroundings. In the houses which we enter there are found neither
chairs, tables, nor bedsteads; the people sit, eat, and sleep upon the
floors, which are as clean as a newly laid tablecloth.
Here and there upon the roadsides moss-grown shrines bearing sacred
emblems are observed, before which women, but rarely men, are seen
bending. The principal religions of Japan are Shinto and Buddhism,
subdivided into many sects. The Shinto is mainly a form of hero worship,
successful warriors being canonized as martyrs are in the Roman Catholic
Church. Buddhism is another form of idolatry, borrowed originally from
the Chinese. The language of the country is composed of the Chinese and
Japanese combined. As we travel inland, places are pointed out to us
where populous cities once stood, but where no ruins mark the spot. A
dead and buried city in Europe or in Asia leaves rude but almost
indestructible remains to mark where great communities once built
temples and monuments, and lived and thrived, like those historic
examples of mutability, Memphis, Pæstum, Cumæ, or Delhi; but not so in
Japan. It seems strange indeed that a locality where half a million of
people have made their homes within the period of a century, should now
present the aspect only of fertile fields of grain. But when it is
remembered of what fragile material the natives build their
dwellings,--namely, of light, thin wood and paper,--their utter
disappearance ceases to surprise us. It is a curious fact that this
people, contemporary with Greece and Rome at their zenith, who have only
reared cities of wood and temples of lacquer, have outlived the classic
nations whose half-ruined monuments are our choicest models. The Greek
and Latin races have passed away, but Japan still remains, without a
change of dynasty and with an inviolate country.
In journeying inland we are struck with many peculiarities showing how
entirely opposite to our own methods are many of theirs. At the
post-stations the horses are placed and tied in their stalls with their
heads to the passage-way, and their tails where we place their heads.
Instead of iron shoes, the Japanese pony is shod with close-braided
rice-straw. Carpenters, in using the fore-plane, draw it towards them
instead of pushing it from them. It is the same in using a saw, the
teeth being set accordingly. So the tailor sews from him, not towards
his body, and holds his thread with his toes. The women ride astride,
like the Hawaiians.
A trip of fifteen miles from Yokohama will take us to the town of
Kamakura, where we find the remarkable idol of Dai-Butsu. This great
Buddha image, composed of gold, silver, and copper, forms a bronze
figure of nearly sixty feet in height, within which a hundred persons
may stand together, the interior being fitted at the base as a small
chapel. A vast number of little scraps of paper bearing Japanese
characters, flutter from the interior walls of the big idol, fastened
there by pious pilgrims, forming petitions to the presiding deity. As we
enter, these scraps, agitated by the winds, rustle like an army of white
bats. This sacred figure is as remarkable as the Sphinx, which presides
so placidly at the feet of the great Pyramids. As a work of art, its
only merits consist in the calm dignity of expression and repose upon
its colossal features. It is many centuries old, and how such an
enormous amount of bronze metal was ever cast, or how set up in such
perfect shape when finished, no one can say. It must have been
completed in sections and put together in the place where it stands, the
joints being so perfectly welded as not to be obvious. It was formerly
covered by a temple which has long since mouldered to dust, but it is
certainly none the less effective and impressive, as it now sits
surrounded by the natural scenery and the thick woods.
Japanese art, of which we have all seen such laughable specimens, is not
without some claims to excellence; otherwise we should not have the
myriads of beautifully ornamented articles which are produced by them,
exhibiting exquisite finish and perfection of detail. Of perspective
they have no idea whatever; the play of light and shade they do not
understand; there is no distinction of distances in their pictures.
Their figures are good, being also delicately executed, and their choice
of colors is admirable. Thus in profile work they get on very well, but
in grouping, they pile houses on the sea, and mountains on the houses.
In caricature they greatly excel, and, indeed, they scarcely attempt to
represent the human face and figure in any other light.
Tokio is the political capital of Japan, and is situated about twenty
miles from Yokohama, containing over half a million of people. It has
broad streets and good roadways, having adopted many American ideas of
city customs and government. The Bridge of Japan is situated in this
city, crossing the river which intersects the capital, and is here what
the golden milestone was in the Forum at Rome--all distances in the
Empire are measured from it. There are many elaborate temples within the
city, containing rare bronzes of great value. Priests are constantly
seen writing upon slips of paper, inside of the temples, at the request
of devotees, which the suppliants pin upon the walls of the temple as a
form of prayer. The renowned temple of Shiba is one of the greatest
attractions to strangers in Tokio. Here lie buried most of the bygone
Tycoons (sovereigns of Japan). The grounds are divided into many
departments, tombs, shrines, and small temples. In the main temple there
is an amount of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments of fabulous value,
leading us to wonder where the raw material could have come from.
History knows nothing of the importation of the precious metals, but it
is true that they are found in more or less abundance all over the
country. Copper of the purest quality is a native product, the
exportation of which is prohibited, and mining for the precious metals
is carried on to but a very limited extent. The temple of Shiba is
situated near the centre of the population, occupying many acres of
ground, walled in, and shaded by a thick grove of trees, whose branches
are black with thousands of undisturbed rooks and pigeons which are
considered sacred. The principal characteristic of the architecture is
its boldness of relief, overhanging roofs, heavy brackets, and elaborate
carvings. The doors are of solid bronze in bas-relief.
In the suburbs is a hill known as Atago-Yama, from whence there is a
grand, comprehensive view of the capital. A couple of miles to the
southeast lies the broad, glistening Bay of Tokio, and round the other
points of the compass the imperial city itself covers a plain of some
eight miles square, divided by water-ways, bridges, and clumps of
graceful trees looming conspicuously above the low dwellings. The whole
is as level as a checker-board; but yet there is relief to the picture
in the fine open gardens, the high-peaked gable roofs of the temples,
and the broad white roadways.
A visit to Kioto, which is called the City of Temples, shows us some
prominent local peculiarities. The Japanese character presents as much
unlikeness to the Oriental as to the European type, and is comparable
only to itself. A native believes that the little caricature in ivory or
wood which has, perhaps, been manufactured under his own eyes, or even
by his own hands, is sacred, and he will address his prayers to it with
a solemn conviction of its power to respond favorably. His most revered
gods are effigies of renowned warriors and successful generals. African
superstition is no blinder than is such adoration, though it be
performed by an intelligent people. Some of the native animals, such as
foxes, badgers, and snakes, are protected with superstitious reverence.
Before one of the temples we see a theatrical performance in progress,
which seems rather incongruous, but upon inquiry the object of this is
found to be a desire to appease the special gods of this individual
temple; in fact, to entertain and amuse them so that they will receive
the prayers of the people with favor. The exhibition consists of dancing
and posturing by professionals of both sexes, accompanied by the noise
of whistles, gongs, bells, and fifes.
At Koby we embark for Nagasaki, sailing the whole length of the famous
Inland Sea, a most enchanting three days' voyage among lovely islands,
terraced and cultivated here and there like vineyards on the Rhine. The
course is characterized by narrow and winding passages, losing
themselves in creeks and bays after a most curious fashion, while brown
hamlets here and there fringe the coast line. Nagasaki is in the
extreme south of Japan, a city second only to Yokohama in commercial
importance. A sad interest attaches to the small but lofty island of
Pappenburg, which stands like a sentinel guarding the entrance to the
harbor. It is the Tarpeian Rock of the far East. During the persecution
of the Christians in the seventeenth century, the steep cliff which
forms the seaward side of the island was an execution point, and from
here men and women who declined to abjure their faith were cast headlong
on the sea-washed rocks five hundred feet below. The harbor is
surrounded by lofty elevations. Tall, dark pines and a verdant
undergrowth mark the deep ravines and sloping hillsides, upon which
European dwellings are seen overlooking the bay. If we climb the path
among these hills we occasionally pass a Buddhist temple, and come upon
many wild-flowers, shaded by oaks and camphor-trees of great size and
beautiful foliage, with occasional specimens of the Japanese wax-tree.
Still further up, the hills are covered with dark, moss-grown
gravestones, bearing curious characters engraven upon them, and marking
the sleeping-places of bygone generations. The unbroken quiet of this
city of the dead contrasts vividly with the hum of busy life which comes
up to us from the town with its population of a hundred thousand souls.
As to the products of this locality, they are mostly figured porcelain,
embroidered silks, japanned goods, ebony and tortoise-shell finely
carved and manufactured into toy ornaments. Every small, low house has a
shop in front quite open to the street; but small as these houses are,
room is nearly always found in the rear or at the side for a little
flower-garden, fifteen or twenty feet square, where dwarf trees flourish
amid hillocks of turf and ferns, with here and there a tub of goldfish.
Azaleas, laurels, and tiny clumps of bamboos, are the most common plants
to be seen in these charming little spots of greenery.
Botanists declare Japan to be one of the richest of all countries in its
vegetation. The cultivation of the soil is thoroughly and skilfully
systematized, the greatest possible results being obtained from a given
area of land. This is partly due to the careful mode of enrichment
applied in liquid form. Its flora is spontaneous and magnificent,
repaying the smallest attention by a development which is surprising.
Next in importance to the production of rice, which is the staple food
of the people, come the mulberry and tea plants, one species of the
former not only feeding the silkworm, but it also affords the fibre of
which Japanese paper is made, as well as forming the basis of their
cordage and some descriptions of dress material. In usefulness the
bamboo is most remarkable, growing to a height of sixty feet, and
entering into the construction of house-frames, screens, many household
articles, mats, pipes, and sails. The camphor-tree, which is seen in
such abundance, is a grand ornament in the landscape, lofty and
broad-spread. The camphor of commerce is extracted from both the stem
and the roots of the tree, which, being cut into small pieces, are
subjected to a process of decoction.
No sooner have the Japanese been fairly introduced to American and
European civilization, than they have promptly taken a stride of four or
five centuries at a single leap, from despotism in its most ultra form
to constitutional government. When America opened the port of Yokohama
to the commerce of the world, it also opened that hermetically sealed
land to the introduction of progressive ideas; and though,
unfortunately, the elements of civilization which are most readily
assimilated are not always the most beneficial, still the result, taken
as a whole, has been worthy of the admiration of the world at large.
The natural intelligence of the Japanese has no superior among any race,
however much it may have been perverted, or have lain dormant. There is
evidence enough of this in the fact that the young men of that country
who are sent here for educational purposes, so frequently win academic
prizes and honors over our native scholars, notwithstanding the
disadvantages under which a foreigner is inevitably placed.
When we speak of the progress of the Japanese as a nation, we must not
forget that the national records of the country date from nearly seven
hundred years before the birth of Christ, and that a regular succession
of Mikados (supreme rulers), in lineal descent from the founders of
their dynasty and race, has since that remote date been carefully
preserved.
CHAPTER III.
From Nagasaki, in following our proposed course, we sail for Hong Kong,
through the Yellow and Chinese seas, a distance of eleven hundred miles.
This is very sure to be a rough passage, and the marvel is rather that
more vessels are not lost here than that so many are. Seamen call it
"the graveyard of commerce." As we enter the magnificent harbor of Hong
Kong it is found to be surrounded by a range of lofty hills, which
shelter it completely from the sweeping winds that so often prevail in
this region. It is the most easterly of the possessions of Great
Britain, and is kept in a well-fortified condition, the uniforms of the
garrison being a striking feature of the busy streets of the city at all
hours of the day. The houses in the European section are large and
handsome structures, mostly of stone, rising tier upon tier from the
main street to a height of some hundreds of feet on the face of the hill
immediately back of the town. On and about the lofty Victoria Peak are
many charming bungalows, or cottages, with attractive surroundings,
which enjoy a noble prospect of the harbor and country. The streets
appropriated to the use of the Europeans are spacious and clean, but the
Chinese portion of Hong Kong is quite characteristic of the native
race,--very crowded and very dirty, seeming to invite all sorts of
epidemic diseases, which in fact nearly always prevail more or less
severely among the lower classes.
These streets exhibit strange local pictures. The shoemaker plies his
trade in the open thoroughfare; cooking is going on at all hours in the
gutters beside the roads; itinerant pedlers dispense food made of
mysterious materials; the barber shaves his customer upon the sidewalk;
the universal fan is carried by the men, and not by the women. The
Chinese mariner's compass does not point to the North Pole, but to the
South; that is, the index is placed upon the opposite end of the needle.
When Chinamen meet each other upon the streets, instead of shaking each
other's hands they shake their own. The men wear skirts, and the women
wear pantaloons. The dressmakers are not women, but men. In reading a
book a Chinaman begins at the end and reads backwards. We uncover the
head as a mark of respect; they take off their shoes for the same
purpose, but keep their heads covered. We shave the face; they shave the
head and eyebrows. At dinner we begin the meal with soup and fish; they
reverse the order and begin with the dessert. The old men fly kites
while the boys look on; shuttlecock is their favorite game; it is
played, however, not with the hands, but with the feet. White
constitutes the mourning color, and black is the wedding hue. The women
perform the men's work, and the men wash the clothing. We pay our
physicians for attending us in illness; they pay their doctors to keep
them well, and stop their remuneration when they are ill. In short, this
people seem to be our antipodes in customs as well as being so
geographically.
A visit to the water-front of the city affords much amusement,
especially at the hour when the market boats with vegetables arrive from
the country, and from along shore with fish. Here the people swarm like
ants more than like human beings; all eager for business, all crowding
and talking at the same time, and creating a confusion that would seem
to defeat its own object; namely, to buy and to sell. The vegetables are
various and good, the variety of fruit limited and poor in flavor, but
the fish are abundant and various in size and color. Nine-tenths of the
business on the river-front is done by women, and they are very rarely
seen without an infant strapped to their backs, while they are carrying
heavy burdens in their hands, or are engaged in rowing or sculling their
boats. They trade, make change, and clean the fish quite oblivious of
the infant at their backs. A transient visitor to China is not competent
to speak of the higher class of women, as no access can be had to
domestic life. Only those of the common class appear indiscriminately in
public, Oriental exclusiveness wrapping itself about the sex here nearly
as rigidly as in Egypt. If ladies go abroad at all, it is in curtained
palanquins, borne upon men's shoulders, partially visible through a
transparent veil of gauze. Anywhere east of Italy woman is either a toy
or a slave.
Hong Kong is an island nearly forty miles in circumference, consisting
of a cluster of hills rising almost to the dignity of mountains. The
gray granite of which the island is mostly composed, furnishes an
excellent material for building purposes, and is largely employed for
that object, affording a good opportunity for architectural display. A
trip of a hundred miles up the Pearl River takes us to Canton, strangest
of strange cities. It has a population of a million and a half, and yet
there is not a street of over ten feet in width within the walls, horses
and wheeled vehicles being unknown. The city extends a distance of five
miles along the river, and a hundred thousand people live in boats. At
the corners of the streets, niches in the walls of the houses contain
idols, before which incense is constantly burning day and night. The
most famous temple in the city is that of the Five Hundred Gods,
containing that number of gilded statues of Buddhist sages, apostles,
and deified warriors. In some of these sacred structures composed of
shrines and miniature temples, among other seeming absurdities we see a
number of sacred hogs wallowing in their filth. Disgusting as it appears
to an intelligent Christian, it has its palliating features. The Parsee
worships fire, the Japanese bows before snakes and foxes, the Hindoo
deifies cows and monkeys; why, then, should not the Chinese have their
swine as objects of veneration? We may destroy the idols, but let us not
be too hard upon the idolaters; they do as well as they know. The idol
is the measure of the worshipper. The punishment of crime is swift and
sure, the number of persons beheaded annually being almost incredible.
Friday is the day for clearing the crowded prison at Canton,
|
before.'
"'No, for he has just returned from his travels,' she answered. 'He is a
very distinguished and highly exemplary young man,--the founder of the
St. Polycarpe Mission.'
"'The deuce! And what is the St. Polycarpe Mission, my dear mother?'
"'It is a society that strives to make the poor resigned to their misery
by teaching them that the more they suffer here, the happier they will
be hereafter.'
"'_Se non è vero, è ben trovato_,' I laughingly remarked. 'But it seems
to me that this fellow has a very plump face to be advocating the good
effects of starvation.'
"'My son, I meant every word that I just said to you,' replied my
mother, gravely. 'Many highly esteemed persons have connected themselves
with M. de Macreuse's work,--a work to which he devotes himself with
truly evangelical zeal. But here he comes. I would like to introduce you
to him.'
"'Pray do nothing of the kind, mother,' I retorted, quickly. 'I am sure
to be impolite; I do not like the gentleman's looks; besides, what I
already know of him makes my antipathy to his acquaintance
insurmountable. We were at college together, and--'
"But I was unable to say any more; Macreuse was now close to my mother,
and I was standing beside her. 'My dear M. de Macreuse,' she said to her
protégé, in the most amiable manner, after casting a withering look at
me, 'I wish to introduce my son, one of your former classmates, who will
be charmed to renew his acquaintance with you.'
"Macreuse bowed profoundly, then said, in a rather condescending way, 'I
have been absent from Paris some time, monsieur, and was consequently
ignorant of your return to France, so I did not expect to have the
honour of meeting you at your mother's house this evening. We were at
college together, and--'
"'That is true,' I interrupted, 'and I recollect perfectly well how you
played the spy on us to ingratiate yourself with the teachers; how you
would stoop to any dirty trick to make a penny; and how you put out the
eyes of little birds with pins. Possibly this last was in the charitable
hope that their sufferings here would profit them hereafter.'"
"A clever thrust that!" exclaimed the commander, with a hearty laugh.
"And what did Macreuse say?" asked Olivier.
"The scoundrel's big moon face turned scarlet. He tried to smile and
stammer out a few words, but suddenly my mother, looking at me with a
reproachful air, rose, and to rescue our friend from his embarrassment,
I suppose, said, 'M. de Macreuse, may I ask you to take me to get a cup
of tea?'"
"But how did this man gain an entrance into such an exclusive circle as
that of the Faubourg St Germain?" inquired Olivier.
"Nobody knows exactly," replied Gerald. "This much is true, however. If
one door in our circle opens, all the others soon do the same. But this
first door is hard to open, and who opened it for Macreuse nobody knows,
though some persons seem to think that it was Abbé Ledoux, a favourite
spiritual director in our set. This seems quite probable, and I have
taken almost as strong a dislike to the abbé as to Macreuse. If this
dislike needed any justification, it would have it, so far as I am
concerned, in the estimate of Macreuse's character formed by a singular
man who is rarely deceived in his judgment of persons."
"And who is this infallible man, pray?" inquired Olivier, smiling.
"A hunchback no taller than that," replied Gerald, indicating with his
hand a height of about four and a half feet.
"A hunchback?" repeated Olivier, greatly surprised.
"Yes, a hunchback, as quick-witted and determined as his satanic majesty
himself,--stiff as an iron bar to those whom he dislikes and despises,
but full of affection and devotion to those whom he honours--though such
persons, I am forced to admit, are rare--and never making the slightest
attempt to conceal from any individual the liking or aversion he or she
inspires."
"It is fortunate for him that his infirmity gives him this privilege of
plain speaking," remarked the commander. "But for that, your hunchback
would be likely to have a hard time of it."
"His infirmity?" said Gerald, laughing. "Though a hunchback, the Marquis
de Maillefort is, I assure you--"
"He is a marquis?" interrupted Olivier.
"Yes, a marquis, and an aristocrat of the old school. He is a scion of
the ducal house of Haut-martel, the head of which has resided in Germany
since 1830. But though he is a hunchback, M. de Maillefort, as I was
about to remark before, is as alert and vigorous as any young man, in
spite of his forty-five years. And, by the way, you and I consider
ourselves pretty good swordsmen, do we not?"
"Well, yes."
"Very well; the marquis could touch us eight times out of twelve. He
rivals the incomparable Bertrand. His movements are as light as a
bird's, and as swift as lightning itself."
"This brave little hunchback interests me very much," said the veteran.
"If he has fought any duels his adversaries must have cut strange
figures."
"The marquis has fought several duels, in all of which he evinced the
greatest coolness and courage, at least so my father, who was a personal
friend of the marquis, once told me."
"And he goes into society in spite of his infirmity?" inquired Olivier.
"Sometimes he frequents it assiduously; then absents himself for months
at a time. His is a very peculiar nature. My father told me that for
many years the marquis seemed to be in a state of profound melancholy,
but I have never seen him other than gay and amusing."
"But with his courage, his skill in the use of weapons, and his quick
wit, he is certainly a man to be feared."
"Yes, and you can easily imagine how greatly his presence disquiets
certain persons whom society continues to receive on account of their
birth, in spite of their notorious villainies. Macreuse, for instance,
as soon as he sees the marquis enter by one door, makes his escape by
another."
The conversation was here interrupted by an incident which would have
been unworthy even of comment in some parts of the town, but rare enough
in the Batignolles.
The arbour in which the little party had dined skirted the garden wall,
and at the farther end of it was a latticed gate, which afforded the
occupants a view of the street beyond. A handsome carriage, drawn by two
superb horses stopped exactly in front of this gate.
This carriage was empty.
The footman on the box beside the driver, and, like him, dressed in rich
livery, descended from his seat, and drawing from his pocket a letter
that evidently bore an address, looked from side to side as if in search
of a number, then disappeared, after motioning the coachman to follow
him.
"This is the first vehicle of that kind I've seen in the Batignolles in
ten years," remarked the old sailor. "It is very flattering to the
neighbourhood."
"I never saw finer horses," said Olivier, with the air of a connoisseur.
"Do they belong to you, Gerald?"
"Do you take me for a millionaire?" responded the young duke, gaily. "I
keep a saddle-horse, and I put one of my mother's horses in my
cabriolet, when she is not using them. That is my stable. This does not
prevent me from loving horses, or from being something of a sporting
man. But, speaking of horses, do you remember that dunce, Mornand,
another of our college mates?"
"And still another of our mutual antipathies,--of course I do. What has
become of him?"
"He is quite a distinguished personage now."
"He! Nonsense!"
"But I tell you he is. He is a member of the Chamber of Peers. He
discourses at length, there. People even listen to him. In short, he is
a minister in embryo."
"De Mornand?"
"Yes, my worthy friend. He is as dull as ever, and twice as arrogant and
self-complacent. He doubts everything except his own merit. He possesses
an insatiable ambition, and he belongs to a coterie of jealous and
spiteful individuals,--spiteful because they are mediocre, or, rather,
mediocre because they are spiteful. Such men rise in the world with,
marvellous rapidity, though Mornand has a broad back and supple
loins,--he will succeed, one aiding the other."
Just then the footman who had disappeared with the carriage returned,
and, seeing through the latticed gate the little party in the arbour,
approached, and, raising his hand to his hat, said:
"Gentlemen, will you be so kind as to tell me if this garden belongs to
No. 7?"
"Yes," replied the commander.
"And to the apartment on the ground floor of that house?"
"Yes."
"I rang that bell three times, but no one answered it."
"I occupy that apartment," said the commander, greatly surprised. "What
do you want?"
"Here is a very important letter for a Madame Barbançon, who, I am told,
lives here."
"Yes, she does live here," replied the veteran, more and more surprised.
Then, seeing the housekeeper at the other end of the garden, he called
out to her:
"Mother Barbançon, the door-bell has rung three times, unanswered, while
you've been trespassing upon my preserves. Come quick! Here is a letter
for you."
CHAPTER IV.
THE DUCHESS.
Madame Barbançon promptly responded to this peremptory summons, and,
after a hasty apology to her employer, said to the waiting servant:
"You have a letter for me? From whom?"
"From the Comtesse de Beaumesnil, madame," replied the man, handing
Madame Barbançon the letter through the lattice.
"Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil?" exclaimed the astonished
housekeeper; "I do not know her. I not only don't know her, but I
haven't the slightest idea who she is--not the slightest," the worthy
woman repeated, as she opened the letter.
"The Comtesse de Beaumesnil?" inquired Gerald, evidently much
interested.
"Do you know her?" asked Olivier.
"I met her two or three years ago," replied Gerald. "She was wonderfully
beautiful, then, but the poor woman has not left her bed for a year. I
understand that hers is a hopeless case. Worse still, M. de Beaumesnil,
who had gone to Italy with their only child, a daughter, who was ordered
south by the physicians,--M. de Beaumesnil died quite recently in
Naples, in consequence of having been thrown from his horse, so if
Madame de Beaumesnil dies, as they apprehend, her daughter will be left
an orphan at the age of fifteen or sixteen years."
"Poor child! This is really very sad," said the commander,
sympathisingly.
"Nevertheless, Mlle. de Beaumesnil has a brilliant future before her,"
continued Gerald, "for she will be the richest heiress in France. The
Beaumesnil property yields an income of over three million francs!"
"Three million francs!" exclaimed Olivier, laughing. "Can it be that
there are people who really have an income of three million francs? Do
such people come and go, and move about and talk, just like other
people? I should certainly like to be brought face to face with one of
these wonderful creatures, Gerald."
"I'll do my best to gratify you, but I warn you that as a general thing
they are not pleasant to contemplate. I am not referring to Mlle. de
Beaumesnil, however; she may be as beautiful as her mother."
"I should like very much to know how one can spend such an income as
that," said the commander, in all sincerity, emptying the ashes from his
pipe.
"Great Heavens! is it possible?" exclaimed Madame Barbançon, who, in the
meantime, had read the letter handed to her. "I am to go in a
carriage--in a carriage like that?"
"What is the matter, Mother Barbançon?" inquired the veteran.
"I must ask you to let me go away for a little while."
"Certainly, but where are you going, may I ask?"
"To the house of Madame de Beaumesnil," replied the good woman, in a
very important tone. "She desires some information which I alone can
give, it seems. May I turn Bonapartist if I know what to make of all
this!"
But the next instant the former midwife uttered an exclamation, as if a
new and startling idea had just occurred to her, and, turning to her
employer, she said:
"Monsieur, will you step out into the garden a moment with me? I want to
say a word to you in private."
"Oh," replied the veteran, following the lady out of the arbour, "it is
an important matter, it seems. Go on; I am listening, Madame
Barbançon."
The housekeeper, having led her employer a short distance from the
arbour, turned to him and said, with a mysterious air:
"Monsieur, do you know Madame Herbaut, who lives on the second floor and
has two daughters? The lady to whom I introduced M. Olivier about a
fortnight ago, you recollect."
"I don't know her, but you have often spoken to me about her. Well, what
of it?"
"I recollect now that one of her particular friends, Madame Laîné, is
now in Italy, acting as governess to the daughter of a countess whose
name sounds something like Beaumesnil. In fact, it may be this very same
countess."
"It may be, I admit, Mother Barbançon. Well, go on."
"And she may have heard about me through Madame Laîné, whom I have met
at Madame Herbaut's."
"That, too, is very possible, Madame Barbançon. You will soon know for a
certainty, however, as you are going to Madame Beaumesnil's."
"_Mon Dieu!_ monsieur, another idea has just occurred to me."
"Let us hear it," said the veteran, with infinite patience.
"I have told you about that masked lady who--"
"You're not going to tell that story again, surely!" cried the
commander, with the evident intention of beating a retreat.
"No, monsieur, but what if all this should have some connection with
that young lady?"
"The quickest way to ascertain, Mother Barbançon, is to get off as soon
as possible. We shall both be the gainers by it."
"You are right, monsieur. I will go at once."
And following her employer, who had returned to his guests in the
arbour, the housekeeper said to the footman, who was still standing a
few feet from the gate:
"Young man, as soon as I can get my bonnet and shawl on I shall be at
your service."
And a few minutes afterwards Madame Barbançon, triumphantly passing the
gate in her carriage, felt that the deference due her employer made it
incumbent upon her to rise to her feet in the vehicle, and bow low to
the commander and his guests.
Just then the clock in a neighbouring church struck seven.
"Seven o'clock!" exclaimed Olivier, evidently much annoyed. "I am very
sorry, my dear Gerald, but I shall have to leave you."
"Already! And why?"
"I promised a worthy mason in the neighbourhood that I would go over his
accounts with him this evening, and you have no idea what a task it is
to straighten out books like his!"
"True, you did warn me that you would only be at liberty until seven
o'clock," replied Gerald. "I had forgotten the fact, I was enjoying my
visit so much."
"Olivier," remarked the veteran, whose spirits seemed to have undergone
a sudden decline since his nephew's allusion to the work to which he
intended to devote his evening, "Olivier, as Madame Barbançon is absent,
will you do me the favour to bring from the cellar the last bottle of
that Cyprian wine I brought from the Levant? M. Gerald must take a glass
of it with us before we separate. The mason's accounts won't suffer if
they do have to wait half an hour."
"An excellent idea, uncle, for I do not have to be as punctual now as if
it were the week before pay-day. I'll get the wine at once. Gerald shall
taste your nectar, uncle."
And Olivier hastened away.
"M. Gerald," began the commander, with no little embarrassment, "it was
not merely to give you a taste of my Cyprian wine that I sent Olivier
away. It was in order that I might be able to speak to you, his best
friend, very plainly in regard to him, and to tell you how kind and
thoughtful and generous he is."
"I know all that, commander. I know it well, but I like to hear it from
your lips,--the lips of one who knows and loves Olivier."
"No, M. Gerald, no, you do not know all. You have no idea of the
arduous, distasteful labour the poor boy imposes upon himself, not only
that he may be no expense to me during his furlough, but that he may be
able to make me little presents now and then, which I dare not refuse
for fear of paining him. This handsome pipe, it was he who gave it to
me. I am very fond of roses. He has just presented me with two superb
new varieties. I had long wanted a big easy chair, for when my wounds
reopen, which happens only too often, I am sometimes obliged to sit up
several nights in succession. But a large armchair cost too much. Still,
about a week ago, what should I see some men bringing in but that much
desired article of furniture! I might have known it, for Olivier had
spent I don't know how many nights in copying documents. Excuse these
confidential disclosures on the part of poor but honest people, M.
Gerald," said the old sailor, in a voice that trembled with emotion,
while a tear stole down his cheek, "but my heart is full. I must open it
to some one, and it is a twofold pleasure to be able to tell all this to
you."
Gerald seemed about to speak, but the commander interrupted him.
"Pardon me, M. Gerald, you will think me too garrulous, I fear, but
Olivier will be here in a minute, and I have a favour to ask of you. By
reason of your exalted position, you must have many grand acquaintances,
M. Gerald. My poor Olivier has no influence, and yet his services, his
education, and his conduct alike entitle him to promotion. But he has
never been willing, or he has never dared to approach any of his
superiors on this subject. I can understand it, for if I had been a
'hustler'--as you call it--I should hold a much higher rank to-day. It
seems to be a family failing. Olivier is like me. We both do our best,
but when it is a question of asking favours our tongues cleave to the
roof of our mouths, and we're ashamed to look anybody in the face. But
take care! Here comes Olivier," hastily exclaimed the old sailor,
picking up his pipe and beginning to puff at it with all his might; "try
to look unconcerned, M. Gerald, for heaven's sake try to look
unconcerned, or Olivier will suspect something."
"Olivier must be a lieutenant before his leave expires, commander, and I
believe he will be," said Gerald, deeply touched by these revelations on
the part of the veteran. "I have very little influence myself, but I
will speak to the Marquis de Maillefort. His word carries great weight
everywhere, and strongly urged by him, Olivier's promotion--which is
only just and right--is assured. I will attend to the matter. You need
give yourself no further anxiety on the subject."
"Ah, M. Gerald, I was not mistaken in you, I see," said the commander,
hurriedly. "You are kind as a brother to my poor boy--but here he
is--don't let him suspect anything."
And the good man began to smoke his pipe with the most unconcerned air
imaginable, though he was obliged furtively to dash a tear from out the
corner of his eye, while Gerald to divert his former comrade's
suspicions still more effectually, cried:
"So you've got here at last, slow-coach! I'm strongly inclined to think
you must have fallen in with some pretty barmaid like that handsome
Jewess at Oran. Do you remember her, you gay Lothario?"
"She was a beauty, that's a fact," replied the young soldier, smiling at
the recollection thus evoked, "but she couldn't hold a candle to the
young girl I just met in the courtyard," replied Olivier, setting the
dusty bottle of Cyprian wine carefully on the table.
"Ah, your prolonged stay is easily explained now!" retorted Gerald.
"Just hear the coxcomb," chimed in the veteran. "And who is this
beauty?"
"Yes, yes, do give us the particulars of your conquest."
"She would suit you wonderfully well, M. le duc," laughed Olivier,
"wonderfully well, for she is a duchess."
"A duchess?" queried Gerald.
"A duchess here!" exclaimed the commander. "The locality is indeed
honoured, to-day. This is something new."
"I was only trying to gratify your vanity a little,--the vanity of a
Batignollais, you know. My conquest, as that harebrained Gerald is
pleased to call it, is no conquest at all; besides, the lady in question
is not really a duchess, though people call her so."
"And why, pray?" inquired Gerald.
"Because they say she is as proud and beautiful as any duchess."
"But who is she? In my character of duke, my curiosity on this point
should be gratified," insisted Gerald.
"She is a music teacher," replied Olivier. "She is degrading herself
terribly, you see."
"Say rather the piano is becoming ennobled by the touch of her taper
fingers,--for she must have the hands of a duchess, of course. Come now,
tell us all about it. If you're in love, whom should you take into your
confidence if not your uncle and your former comrade?"
"I sincerely wish I had the right to take you into my confidence," said
Olivier, laughing; "but to tell the truth, this is the first time I ever
saw the young girl."
"But tell us all you know about her."
"There is a Madame Herbaut who has rooms on the second floor of the
house," replied Olivier, "and every Sunday this excellent woman invites
a number of young girls, friends of her daughters, to spend the evening
with her. Some are bookkeepers or shop girls, others are drawing
teachers, or music teachers, like the duchess. There are several very
charming girls among them, I assure you, though they work hard all day
to earn an honest living. And how intensely they enjoy their Sunday with
kind Madame Herbaut! They play games, and dance to the music of the
piano. It is very amusing to watch them, and twice when Madame Barbançon
took me up to Madame Herbaut's rooms--"
"I demand an introduction to Madame Herbaut,--an immediate introduction,
do you hear?" cried the young duke.
"You demand--you demand. So you think you have only to ask, I suppose,"
retorted Olivier, gaily. "Understand, once for all, that the Batignolles
are quite as exclusive as the Faubourg St. Germain."
"Ah, you are jealous! You make a great mistake, though, for real or
supposed duchesses have very little charm for me. One doesn't come to
the Batignolles to fall in love with a duchess, so you need have no
fears on that score; besides, if you refuse my request, I'm on the best
possible terms with Mother Barbançon, and I'll ask her to introduce me
to Madame Herbaut."
"Try it, and see if you succeed in securing admittance," responded
Olivier, with a laughable air of importance. "But to return to the
subject of the duchess," he continued, "Madame Herbaut, who is evidently
devoted to her, remarked to me the other day, when I was going into
ecstasies over this company of charming young girls: 'Ah, what would you
say if you could see the duchess? Unfortunately, she has failed us these
last two Sundays, and we miss her terribly, for all the other girls
simply worship her; but some time ago she was summoned to the bedside of
a very wealthy lady who is extremely ill, and whose sufferings are so
intense, as well as so peculiar in character, that her physician, at
his wit's end, conceived the idea that soft and gentle music might
assuage her agony at least to some extent.'"
"How singular!" exclaimed Gerald. "This invalid, whose sufferings they
are endeavouring to mitigate in every conceivable way, and to whom your
duchess must have been summoned, is Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil."
"The same lady who just sent for Madame Barbançon?" inquired the
veteran.
"Yes, monsieur, for I had heard before of this musical remedy resorted
to in the hope of assuaging that lady's terrible sufferings."
"A strange idea," said Olivier, "but one that has not proved entirely
futile, I should judge, as the duchess, who is a fine musician, goes to
the house of Madame de Beaumesnil every evening. That is the reason I
did not see her at either of Madame Herbaut's soirées. She had just been
calling on that lady, probably, when I met her just now. Struck by her
regal bearing and her extraordinary beauty, I asked the porter if he
knew who she was. 'It was the duchess I'm sure, M. Olivier,' he
answered."
"This is all very interesting and charming, but it is rather too
melancholy to suit my taste," said Gerald. "I prefer those pretty and
lively girls who grace Madame Herbaut's entertainments. If you don't
take me to one, you're an ingrate. Remember that pretty shop-girl in
Algiers, who had an equally pretty sister!"
"What!" exclaimed the veteran, "I thought you were talking a moment ago
of a pretty Jewess at Oran!"
"But, uncle, when one is at Oran one's sweetheart is at Oran. When one
is at Algiers, one's sweetheart is there."
"So you're trying to outdo Don Juan, you naughty boy!" cried the
veteran, evidently much flattered by his nephew's popularity with the
fair sex.
"But what else could you expect, commander?" asked Gerald. "It is not a
matter of inconstancy, you see, but simply of following one's regiment,
that is all. That is the reason Olivier and I were obliged to desert the
beauties of Oran for the pretty shop-girls of Algiers."
"Just as a change of station compelled us to desert the bronze-cheeked
maidens of Martinique for the fisher maids of St. Pierre Miquelon,"
remarked the old sailor, who was becoming rather lively under the
influence of the Cyprian wine which had been circulating freely during
the conversation.
"A very sudden change of zone, commander," remarked Gerald, nudging the
veteran with his elbow. "It must have been leaving fire for ice."
"No, no, you're very much mistaken there," protested the veteran,
vehemently. "I don't know what to make of it, but those fisher maidens,
fair as albinos, had the very deuce in them. There was one little
roly-poly with white lashes, particularly, whom they called the
Whaler--"
"About the temperature of Senegambia, eh, uncle?"
"I should say so," ejaculated the veteran. And as he replaced his glass
upon the table, he made a clucking sound with his tongue, but it was
hard to say whether this significant sound had reference to his
recollection of the fair Whaler or to the pleasant flavour of the
Cyprian wine. Then suddenly recollecting himself, the worthy man
exclaimed:
"Well, well, what am I thinking of? It ill becomes an old fellow like me
to be talking on such subjects to youths like you! Go on, talk of your
Jewesses and your duchesses as much as you please, boys. It suits your
years."
"Very well, then, I insist that Olivier shall take me to Madame
Herbaut's," said the persistent Gerald.
"See the result of satiety. You go in the most fashionable and
aristocratic society, and yet envy us our poor little Batignollais
entertainments."
"Fashionable society is not at all amusing," said Gerald. "I frequent it
merely to please my mother. To-morrow, for example, will be a
particularly trying day to me, for my mother gives an afternoon dance.
By the way, why can't you come, Olivier?"
"Come where?"
"Why, to this dance my mother gives."
"I?"
"Yes, you! Why not?"
"I, Olivier Raymond, a private in the hussars, attend a dance given in
the Faubourg St. Germain!"
"It would be very strange if I could not take my dearest friend to my
mother's house merely because he has the honour to be one of the bravest
soldiers in the French army. Olivier, you must come. I insist upon it."
"In jacket and kepi, I suppose," said Olivier, smilingly, referring to
his poverty, which did not permit him to indulge in citizen's clothing.
Knowing how this worthy fellow spent the proceeds of his arduous toil,
and knowing, too, his extreme sensitiveness in money matters, Gerald
could only say in reply:
"True, I did not think of that. It is a pity, for we might have had a
very pleasant time together. I could have shown you some of our
fashionable beauties, though I feel sure that, so far as young and
pretty faces are concerned, Madame Herbaut's entertainments have the
advantage."
"Do you see, uncle, how cleverly he returns to the charge?"
The clock in the neighbouring steeple struck eight.
"Eight o'clock!" cried Olivier. "The deuce! My master mason has been
waiting for me for an hour. I've got to go, Gerald. I promised to be
punctual,--an hour late is a good deal. Good night, uncle."
"You're going to work half the night, again," remarked the veteran,
casting a meaning look at Gerald. "I shall wait up for you, though."
"No, no, uncle, go to bed. Tell Madame Barbançon to leave the key with
the porter, and some matches in the kitchen. I won't wake you, I'll come
in quietly."
"Good-bye, M. Gerald," said the veteran, taking the young duke's hand,
and pressing it in a very significant manner, as if to remind him of his
promise in regard to Olivier's promotion.
"Good-bye, commander," said Gerald, returning the pressure, and
indicating by a gesture that he read the veteran's thought. "You will
permit me to come and see you again, will you not?"
"It would give me great pleasure, you may be sure of that, M. Gerald."
"Yes, commander, for I judge you by myself. Good-bye. Come, Olivier, I
will accompany you to the door of your master mason."
"I shall have the pleasure of your company a quarter of an hour longer,
then. Good night, uncle."
"Good night, my dear boy."
And Olivier, taking up his bundle of papers and pens, left the house arm
in arm with Gerald. At the master mason's door they separated, promising
to see each other again at an early day.
About an hour after Olivier left his uncle, Madame Barbançon was brought
back to the Batignolles in Madame de Beaumesnil's carriage.
The veteran, amazed at the silence of his housekeeper, and at the gloomy
expression of her face, addressed her several times in vain, and finally
begged her to help herself to the small portion of Cyprian wine that
remained. Madame Barbançon took the bottle and started towards the door,
then stopped short and crossed her arms with a meditative air, a
movement that caused the wine-bottle to fall with a crash upon the
floor.
"The deuce take you!" cried the veteran. "Look at the Cyprian wine
you've wasted."
"True, I've broken the bottle," replied the housekeeper, with the air of
a person just waking from a dream. "It is not surprising. Since I saw
and heard Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil,--for I have just seen her,
and in such a pitiable state, poor woman!--I have been racking my brain
to remember something I can not remember, and I know very well that I
shall be absolutely good for nothing for a long time."
"It is a good thing to know this in advance," replied the veteran, with
his usual placidity of manner on seeing Madame Barbançon again relapse
into a deeply preoccupied frame of mind.
CHAPTER V.
THE LION OF THE BALL.
On the day following Olivier Raymond's chance meeting with Gerald, the
mother of the latter gave a dancing party.
The Duchesse de Senneterre, both by birth and by marriage, was connected
with the oldest and most illustrious families of France, and though her
fortune was insignificant and her house small, she gave every year four
or five small but extremely elegant and exclusive dancing receptions, of
which she and her two young daughters did the honours with perfect
grace. The Duc de Senneterre, dead for two years, had held a high office
under the Restoration.
The three windows of the salon where the guests danced opened into a
very pretty garden, and the day being superb, many ladies and gentlemen
stepped out for a chat or a stroll through the paths bordered with
flowering shrubs during the intervals between the dances.
Four or five men, chancing to meet near a big clump of lilacs, had
paused to exchange the airy nothings that generally compose the
conversation at such a gathering.
Among this group were two men that merit attention. One, a man about
thirty-five years of age, but already obese, with an extremely pompous,
indolent, and supercilious manner and a lack-lustre eye, was the Comte
de Mornand, the same man who had been mentioned at Commander Bernard's
the evening before, when Olivier and Gerald were comparing their
reminiscences of college life.
M. de Mornand occupied a hereditary seat in the Chamber of Peers.
The other, an intimate friend of the count, was a man of about the same
age,--tall, slim, angular, a trifle round-shouldered, and also a little
bald,--whose flat head, prominent and rather bloodshot eyes imparted an
essentially reptilian character to his visage. This was the Baron de
Ravil. Though his means of support were problematical in the extreme
when compared with his luxurious style of living, the baron was still
received in the aristocratic society in which his birth entitled him to
a place, but never did any intriguer--we use the word in its lowest,
most audacious sense--display more brazen effrontry or daring impudence.
"Have you seen the lion of the ball?" inquired one of the men of the
party, addressing M. de Mornand.
"I have but just arrived, and have no idea to whom you refer," replied
the count.
"Why, the Marquis de Maillefort."
"That cursed hunchback!" exclaimed M. de Ravil; "it is all his fault
that this affair seems so unconscionably dull. His hideous presence is
enough to cast a damper over any festivity."
"How strange it is that the marquis appears in society for a few weeks,
now and then, and then suddenly disappears again," remarked another
member of the group.
"I believe he is a manufacturer of counterfeit
|
neither dreamt of
relieving her. Winifred began to feel a nervous necessity to laugh,
which she could not control. She drew a chair near the fire for her
sister-in-law, and put down the good-humoured baby, in whose contact
there seemed something consolatory, though he was very heavy, on the
rug. “I should like to give the other one a kiss,” she said--“is he
George too?--before I give you some tea.”
“Yes, I should like my tea,” said Mrs. George; “I’m ready for it after
that long journey. Have you seen after Eliza and the boxes, George?
We’ve had a good passage upon the whole; but I should never make a good
sailor if I were to make the voyage every year. Some people can never
get over it. Don’t you think, Miss Winnie, that you could tell that old
gentleman to bring the birds in here?”
“Is it old Hopkins?” said George. “How do you do, Hopkins? There is a
cage with some birds”--
“I hope I see you well, sir?” said the old butler. “I’m glad as I’ve
lived to see you come home. And them two little gentlemen, sir, they’re
the first little grandsons? and wouldn’t master have been pleased to see
them!” Hopkins had been growing feeble ever since his master’s death,
and showed a proclivity to tears, which he had never dared to indulge
before.
“Well, I think he might have been,” said George, with a dubious tone.
But his mind was not open to sentiment. “They might have a little bread
and butter, don’t you think?--it wouldn’t hurt them,--and a cup of
milk.”
“No, George,” said his wife; “it would spoil their tea.”
“Do you think it would spoil their tea? I am sure Winnie would not mind
them having their tea here with us, the first evening, and then Eliza
might put them to bed.”
“Eliza has got my things to look to,” said Mrs. George; “besides being
put out a little with a new place, and all that houseful of servants. I
shouldn’t keep up half of them, when once we have settled down and see
how we are going to fit in.”
“Some one must put the children to bed,” said George, with an anxious
countenance. This conversation was carried on without any apparent
consciousness of Winnie’s presence, who, what with pouring out tea and
making friends with the children, did her best to occupy the place of
spectator with becoming unconsciousness. Here, however, she was suddenly
called into the discussion. “Oh, Winnie,” said her brother, “no doubt
you’ve got a maid, or some one who knows a little about children, who
could put them to bed?”
“He is an old coddle about the children,” said his wife; “the children
will take no harm. Eliza must see to me first, if I’m to come down to
dinner as you’d wish me to. But George is the greatest old coddle.”
She ran into a little ripple of laughter as she spoke, which was fat and
pleasant. Her form was soft and round, and prettily coloured, though her
features, if she had ever possessed any, were much blunted and rounded
into indistinctness. A sister is, perhaps, a severe judge under such
circumstances; yet Winifred was relieved and softened by the new
arrival. She made haste to offer the services of her maid, or even her
own, if need were. The house was turned entirely upside down by this
arrival. The two babies sent a thrill of excitement through all the
female part of the household, from Miss Farrell downwards, and old
Hopkins was known to have wept in the pantry over the two little
grandsons, whom master would have been so proud to see. Winifred alone
felt her task grow heavier and heavier. The very innocence and
helplessness of the party whom she had thus taken in hand, and whom,
after all, she was likely to have so little power to help, went to her
heart. She was not fitted to play the part of Providence. And certain
looks exchanged between George and his wife, and a few chance words, had
made her heart sick. They had pointed out to each other how this and
that could be changed. “The rooms in the wing would be best for the
nurseries,” George had said and “There’s just the place for you to
practise your violin,” his wife had added. They looked about them with a
serene and satisfied consciousness (though George was always anxious)
that they were taking possession of their own house. Winifred felt as
she came back into the hall, where Mrs. George’s present was still
standing, the cage with the two miserable birds, laying their drooping
heads together, that this simplicity was more hard to deal with than
even Tom’s discontent and sullen anger. She felt that she had collected
elements of mischief together with which she was quite unable to deal,
and stood in the midst of them discouraged, miserable, feeling herself
disapproved and unsupported. Not even Edward stood by her. Edward, least
of all, whose want of sympathy she felt to her soul, though it had never
been put into words. And Miss Farrell’s attempts to make the best were
almost worse than disapproval. She was entirely alone with those
contending elements, and what was she to do?
Tom had chosen to be absent when his brother arrived; he did not appear
even at dinner, to which Mrs. George descended, to the surprise of the
ladies, decked in smiles and in an elaborate evening dress, which (had
they but known) she had spent all the spare time on the voyage in
preparing out of the one black silk which had been the pride of her
heart. She had shoulders and arms which were worth showing had they not
been a trifle too fat, so white and rosy, so round and dimpled. She made
a little apology to Winifred for the absence of crape. “It was such a
hurry,” she said, “to get away at once. George would not lose a day, and
I wouldn’t let him go without me, and such things as that are not to be
got on a ship,” she added, with a laugh. Mrs. George’s aspect, indeed,
did not suggest crape or gloom in any way.
“No, I wouldn’t let him come without me,” she continued, while they sat
at dinner. “I couldn’t take the charge of the children without him to
help me, and then I thought he might be put upon if he came to take
possession all alone. I didn’t know that Miss Winnie was as nice as she
is, and would stand his friend.”
“She is very nice,” said Miss Farrell, to whom this remark was
addressed, looking across the table at her pupil with eyes that
glistened, though there was laughter in them. The sight of this pair,
and especially of the wife with her innocence and good-humour, had been
very consoling to the old lady. And she was anxious to awaken in
Winifred a sense of the humour of the situation to relieve her more
serious thoughts.
“But then I had never seen her,” said Mrs. George; “and it’s so natural
to think your husband’s sister will be nasty when she thinks herself a
cut above the like of you. I thought she might brew up a peck of
troubles for George, and make things twice as hard.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much,” her husband said under his breath.
“Why shouldn’t I talk? I’m only saying what’s agreeable. I am saying I
never thought she would be so nice. I thought she might stand in
George’s way. I am sure it might make any one nasty that was likely to
marry and have children of her own, to see everything going past her to
a brother that had behaved like George has done and taken his own way.”
This innocent conversation went on till Winifred felt her part become
more and more intolerable. Her paleness, her hesitating replies, and
anxious air at last caught George’s attention, though he had little to
spare for his sister. “Have you been ill, Winnie?” he said abruptly, as
he followed them into the drawing-room when dinner was over.
“Yes, George,” she put her hand on his arm timidly; “and I am ill now
with anxiety and trouble. I have something to say to you.”
George was always ready to take alarm. He grew a little more depressed
as he looked at her. “Is it anything about the property?” he said.
“I never thought to deceive you,” she cried, losing command of herself.
“I did not know. I thought it would be all simple, George--oh, if you
will hear me to the end! and let us all consult together and see what
will be best.”
George did not make her any reply. He looked across at his wife, and
said, “I told you there would be something,” with lips that quivered a
little. Mrs. George got up instantly and came and stood beside him, all
her full-blown softness reddening over with quick passion. “What is it?
Have I spoke too fast? Is there some scheme against us after all?” she
cried.
“George,” said Winifred, “you know I am in no scheme against you. I want
to give you your rights--but it seems I cannot. I want you to know
everything, to help me to think. Tom will not hear me, he will not
believe me; but you, George!”
“Tom?” George cried. The news seemed so unexpected that his astonishment
and dismay were undisguised. “Is Tom here?”
“I sent for you both on the same day,” said Winifred, bowing her head as
if it were a confession of guilt.
“Oh,” he said; he did not show excitement in its usual form, he grew
quieter and more subdued, standing in a sort of grey insignificance
against the flushed fulness of his astonished wife. “If it is Tom,” he
said, “you might as well have let us stay where we were. He never held
up a finger for me when my father sent me away. You did your best,
Winnie; oh, I am not unjust to you. Whatever it is, it’s not your fault.
But Tom--if Tom has got it! though I thought he had been sent about his
business too.”
“But, George, George!” cried his wife, almost inarticulate with
eagerness to speak. “George, you’re the eldest son. I want to know if
you’re the eldest son, yes or no? And after that, who--who has any
right? I’m in my own house and I’ll stay. It’s my own house, and nobody
shall put me out,” she cried, with a hysterical laugh, followed by a
burst of tears.
“Stop that,” said George, with dull quiet, but authoritatively. “I don’t
mean to say it isn’t an awful disappointment, Winnie; but if it’s Tom,
why did you go and send for me?”
Winifred stood between the two, the wife sobbing wildly behind her, her
brother looking at her in a sort of dull despair, and stretched out her
hands to them with an appeal for which she could find no words. But at
that moment the door opened harshly and Tom came in, appearing at the
end of the room, with a pale and gloomy countenance, made only more
gloomy by wine and fatigue, for he had ridden far and wildly, dashing
about the country to exhaust his rage and disappointment. All that he
had done had been to increase both. “Oh, you have got here,” he said,
with an angry nod to his brother. “It is a nice home-coming ain’t it,
for you and me? Shake hands; we’re in the same boat now, whatever we
once were. And there stands the supplanter, the hypocrite that has got
everything!” cried the excited young man, the foam flying from his
mouth. And thereupon came a shriek from Mrs. George, which went through
poor Winifred like a knife. For some minutes she heard no more.
CHAPTER XV
Winifred had never fainted before in her life, and it made a great
commotion in the house. Hopkins, without a word to any one, sent off for
Dr. Langton, and half the maids in the house poured into the room
eagerly to help, bringing water, eau de Cologne, everything they could
think of. Mrs. George’s hysterics fled before the alarming sight, the
insensibility, and pallor, which for a moment she took for death, and
with a cry of horror and pity, and the tears still standing upon her
flushed cheeks, she flung herself on her knees on the floor by
Winifred’s side. The two brothers stood and looked on, feeling very
uncomfortable, gazing with a half-guilty aspect upon the fallen figure.
Would any one perhaps say that it was their fault? They stood near each
other, though without exchanging a word, while the sudden irruption of
women poured in. Winifred, however, was not long of coming to her
senses. She woke to find herself lying on the floor, to her great
astonishment, in the midst of a little crowd, and then struggled back
into full consciousness again with a head that ached and throbbed, and
something singing in her ears. She got to her feet with an effort and
begged their pardon faintly. “What has happened?” she said; “have I done
any thing strange? what have I done?”
“You have only fainted,” said Miss Farrell, “that is all. Miss Chester
is better now. She has no more need of you, you may all go. Yes, my
dear, you have fainted, that is all. Some girls are always doing it; but
it never happened to you before, and it ought to be a proof to you,
Winnie, that you are only mortal after all, and can’t do more than you
can.”
Winifred smiled as best she could in the face of her old friend. “I did
not know I could be so foolish,” she said; “but it is all over now. Dear
Miss Farrell, leave me with them. There is something I must say.”
“Oh, put it off till to-morrow,” said Mrs. George; “whether you’ve been
our enemy or not, you are only a bit of a girl; and it can’t hurt to
wait till to-morrow. I know what nerves are myself, I’ve always been a
dreadful sufferer. A dead faint like that, it is very frightening to
other people. Don’t send the old lady away.”
“I am going to stay with you, Winnie--unless you will be advised by me,
and by Mrs. George, who has a kind heart, I am sure she has--and go to
bed.”
Winifred placed herself in a deep easy-chair which gave her at least a
physical support. She gave her hand to Miss Farrell, who stood by her,
and turned to the brothers, who were still looking on uneasily,
half-conscious that it was their fault, half-defiant of her and all that
she could say. She lifted her eyes to them, in that moment of weakness
and uncertainty before the world settled back into its place. Even their
faces for a little while were but part of a phantasmagoria that moved
and trembled in the air around her. She felt herself as in a dream,
seeing not only what was before her, but many a visionary scene behind.
She had been the youngest, she had always yielded to the boys; and as
they stood before her thus, though with so few features of the young
playfellows and tyrants to whom all her life she had been more or less
subject, it became more and more impossible to her to assume the
different part which an ill fate had laid upon her. As she looked at
them, so many scenes came back. They had been fond of her and good to
her in their way, when she was a child. She suddenly remembered how
George used to carry her up and down-stairs when she was recovering from
the fever which was the great event in her childish life, and in how
many rides and rows she had been Tom’s companion, grateful above measure
for his notice. These facts, with a hundred trivial incidents which she
had forgotten, rushed back upon her mind. “Boys,” she said, and then
paused, her eyes growing clearer and clearer, but tears getting into her
voice.
“Come, Winnie,” said George, “Tom and I are a little too old for that.”
“You will never be too old for that to me,” she said. “Oh, if you would
but look a little kind, as you used to do! It was against my will and
my prayers that it was left to me. I said that I would not accept it,
that I would never, never, take what was yours. I never deceived him in
that. Oh, boys! do you think it is not terrible for me to be put into
your place, even for a moment? And that is not the worst. I thought when
I sent for you that I could give it you back, that it would all be easy;
but there is more to tell you.”
They looked at her, each in his different way. Tom sullenly from under
his eyebrows, George with his careworn look, anxious to get to an end of
it, to consult with his wife what they were to do; but neither said a
word.
“After,” she said with difficulty, struggling against the rising in her
throat, “after--it was found that I could not give it you back. If I did
so, I too was to lose everything. Oh, wait, wait, till I have done! What
am I to do? I put it in your hands. If I try to give you any part, it
is lost to us all three. What am I to do? I can take no advice from any
but you. What I wish is to restore everything to you; but if I attempt
to do so, all is lost. What am I to do? What am I to do?”
“Winnie, what you will do is to make yourself ill in the meantime.”
“What does it matter?” she cried wildly; “if I were to die, I suppose it
would go to them as my heirs.”
The blank faces round her had no pity in them for Winnie. They were for
the moment too deeply engrossed with the news which they had just heard.
Miss Farrell alone stooped over her, and stood by her, holding her hand.
Mrs. George, who had been listening, bewildered, unable to divine what
all this could mean, broke the silence with a cry.
“She don’t say a word of Georgie. Is there nothing for Georgie? I don’t
know what you mean, all about giving and not giving--it’s our right.
George, ain’t it our right?”
“There are no rights in our family,” said George; “but I don’t know what
it means any more than you.”
Here Tom stepped forward into the midst of the group, lifting his sullen
eyebrows. “I know what it means,” he said. “It is easy enough to tell
what it means. If she takes you in, she can’t take me in. I saw how
things were going long ago. First one was got out of the house and then
another, but she was always there, saying what she pleased, getting over
the old man. Do you think if he had been in his right senses, he would
have driven away his sons, and put a girl over our heads? I’ll tell you
what,” he cried with passion, “I am not going to stand it if you are.
She was there always at one side of him, and the doctor at the other.
The daughter and the doctor and nobody else. Every one knows how a
doctor can work upon your nerves; and a woman that is always nursing
you, making herself sweet. If there ever was undue influence, there it
is. And I don’t mean to stand it for one.”
George was not enraged like his brother: he looked from one to another
with his anxious eyes. “If you don’t stand it, what can you do?” he
said.
“I mean to bring it to a trial. I mean to take it into court. There
isn’t a jury in England but would give it in our favour,” said Tom. “I
know a little about the law. It is the blackest case I ever knew. The
doctor, Langton, he is engaged to Winnie. He has put her up to it; I
don’t blame her so much. He has stood behind her making a cat’s-paw of
her. Oh, I’ve found out all about it. He belongs to the old family that
used to own Bedloe, and he has had his eye on this ever since we came
here. The governor was very sharp,” said Tom, “he was not one to be
beaten in the common way. But the doctor, that was always handy, that
came night and day, that cured him--the _first_ time,” he added
significantly.
Tom, in his fury, had not observed, nor had any of his agitated hearers,
the opening of the door behind, the quiet entry into the room of a
new-comer, who, arrested by the words he heard, had stood there
listening to what Tom said. At this moment he advanced quickly up the
long room. “You think perhaps that I killed him--the second time?” he
said, confronting the previous speaker.
Winifred rose from her chair with a low cry, and came to his side,
putting her arm through his.
“Edward! Edward! he does not know what he is saying,” she cried.
The other pair had stood bewildered during all this, Mrs. George gasping
with her pretty red lips apart, her husband, always careworn, looking
anxiously from one face to another. When she saw Winnie’s sudden
movement, Mrs. George copied it in her way. She was cowed by the
appearance of the doctor, who was so evidently a gentleman, one of those
superior beings for whom she retained the awe and admiration of her
youth.
“Oh, George, come to bed! don’t mix yourself up with none of them--don’t
get yourself into trouble!” she cried, doing what she could to drag him
away.
“Let alone, Alice,” he said, disengaging himself. “I suppose you are Dr.
Langton. My brother couldn’t mean that; but if things are as he says,
it’s rather a bad case.”
A fever of excitement, restrained by the habit of self-command, and
making little appearance, had risen in Langton’s veins. “Winifred,” he
cried, with the calm of passion, “you have been breaking your heart to
find out a way of serving your brothers. You see how they receive it.
Retire now, you are not able to deal with them, and leave it to me.”
She was clinging to him with both hands, clasping his arm, very weak,
shaken both in body and mind, longing for quietness and rest; but she
shook her head, looking up with a pathetic smile in his face.
“No, Edward,” she said.
“No?” he looked at her, not believing his ears. She had never resisted
him before, even when his counsels were most repugnant to her. A sudden
passionate offence took possession of him. “In that case,” he said,
“perhaps it is I that ought to withdraw, and allow your brother to
accuse me of every crime at his ease.”
“Oh, Edward, don’t make it harder! It is hard upon us all, both them and
me. It is desperate, the position we are in. I cannot endure it, and
they cannot endure it. What are we to do?”
“Nor can I endure it,” he said. “Let them contest the will. It is the
best way; but in that case they cannot remain under your roof.”
“Who gave you the right to dictate what we are to do?” cried Tom, who
was beside himself with passion. “This is my father’s house, not yours.
It is my sister’s, if you like, but not yours. Winnie, let that fellow
go; what has he got to do between us? Let him go away; he has got
nothing to do here.”
“You are of that opinion too?” Langton said, turning to her with a pale
smile. “Be it so. I came to look after Miss Chester’s health, not to
disturb a family party.”
“Edward!” Winifred cried. The name he gave her went to her heart. He had
detached himself from her hold; he would not see the hand which she held
out to him. His ear was deaf to her voice. She had deserted him, he said
to himself. She had brought insult upon him, and an atrocious
accusation, and she had not resented it, showed no indignation, rejected
his help, prepared to smooth over and conciliate the miserable cad who
had permitted himself to do this thing. Beneath all this blaze of
passion, there was no doubt also the bitterness of disappointment with
which he saw the destruction of those hopes which he had been foolishly
entertaining, allowing himself to cherish, although he knew all the
difficulties in the way. He saw and felt that, right or wrong, she would
give all away, that Bedloe was farther from him than ever it had been.
He loved Winifred, it was not for Bedloe he had sought her; but
everything surged up together at this moment in a passion of
mortification, resentment, and shame. She had not maintained his cause,
she had refused his intervention, she had allowed these intruders to
regard him as taking more upon him than she would permit, claiming an
authority she would not grant. He neither looked at her, nor listened to
the call which she repeated with a cry that might have moved a savage. A
man humiliated, hurt in his pride, is worse than a savage.
“Take care of her,” he said, wringing Miss Farrell’s hand as he passed
her, and without another look or word went away.
Winifred, standing, following with her eyes, with consternation
unspeakable, his departing figure, felt the strength ebb out of her as
he disappeared. But yet there was relief in his departure, too. A woman
has often many pangs to bear between her husband and her family. She has
to endure and maintain often the authority which she does not
acknowledge, which in her right he assumes over them, which is a still
greater offence to her than to them; and an instinctive sense that her
lover should not have any power over her brothers was strong in her
notwithstanding her love. Her agitated heart returned after a moment’s
pause to the problem which was no nearer solution than before. She said
softly--
“All that I can do for your sake I will do, whatever I may suffer. There
is one thing I will not do, and that is, defend myself or him. If you do
not know that neither I nor he have done anything against you, it is not
for me to say it. It is hard, very hard for us all. If you will advise
with me like friends what to do, I shall be very, very thankful; but if
not, you must do what you will, and I will do what I can, and there is
no more to say.”
The interruption, though it had been hard to bear, had done her good.
She went back to her chair, and leant back, letting her head rest on
good Miss Farrell’s faithful shoulder. A kind of desperation had come to
her. She had sent her lover away, and nothing remained for her, but only
this forlorn duty.
“Edward will not come back,” she said in Miss Farrell’s ear.
“To-morrow, my darling, to-morrow,” the old lady said, with tears in her
eyes.
Winifred shook her head. No one could deceive her any more. She seemed
to have come to that farthest edge of life on which everything becomes
plain. After a while she withdrew, leaving the others to their
consultation; they had been excited by Edward’s coming, but they were
cowed by his going away. It seemed to bring to all a strange
realisation, such as people so often reach through the eyes of others,
of the real state of their affairs.
CHAPTER XVI
Enough had been done and said that night. They remained together for
some time in the drawing-room, having the outside aspect of a family
party, but separated, as indeed family parties often are. Winifred, very
pale, with the feeling of exhaustion both bodily and mental, sat for a
time in her chair, Miss Farrell close to her, holding her hand. They
said nothing to each other, but from time to time the old lady would
bend over her pupil with a kiss of consolation, or press between her own
the thin hand she held. She said nothing, and Winifred, indeed, was
incapable of intercourse more articulate. On the other side of the
fireplace George and his wife sat together, whispering and consulting.
She was very eager, he careworn and doubtful, as was his nature.
Sometimes he would shake his head, saying, “No, Alice,” or “It is not
possible.” Sometimes her eager whispering came to an articulate word.
Their anxious discussion, the close union of two beings whose interests
were one, the life and expectation and anxiety in their looks, made a
curious contrast to the exhaustion of Winnie lying back in her chair,
and the sullen loneliness of Tom, who sat in the centre in front of the
fire, receiving its full blaze upon him in a sort of ostentatious
resentment and sullenness, though his hand over his eyes concealed the
thought in his face. The only sound was the whispering of Mrs. George,
and the occasional low word with which her husband replied. Further, no
communication passed between the different members of this strange
party. They separated after a time with faint good-nights, Mrs. George
eager, indeed, to maintain the forms of civility, but the brothers each
in his way withdrawing with little show of friendship. After this,
Winifred too went upstairs. Her heart was very full.
“Did you ever,” she said to her companion “feel a temptation to run
away, to bear no more?”
“Yes, I have felt it; but no one can run away. Where could we go that
our duty would not follow us? It is shorter to do it anyhow at first
hand.”
“Is it so?” said Winifred, with a forlorn look from the window into the
night where the stars were shining, and the late moon rising. “‘Oh that
I had the wings of a dove!’--I don’t think I ever understood before what
that meant.”
“And what does it mean, Winnie? The dove flies home, not into the
wilds, which is what you are thinking of.”
“That is true,” said the girl, “and I have no home, except with you. I
have still you”--
“He will come back to-morrow,” Miss Farrell said.
“No, he will not come back. They insulted him, and I--did not want him.
That is true. I did not want him. I wanted none of his advice. I
preferred to be left to do what I had to do myself. It is true, Miss
Farrell. Can a man ever forgive that? It would have been natural that he
should have done everything for me, and instead of that--Are not these
all great mysteries?” said Winifred after a pause. “A woman should not
be able to do so. She should put herself into the hands of her husband.
Am I unwomanly?--you used to frighten me with the word; but I could not
do it. I did not want him. My heart rose against his interference. If I
knew that he felt so to me, I--I should be wounded to death. And yet--it
was so--it is quite true. I think he will never forgive me.”
“It is a mystery, Winnie. I don’t know how it is. When you are married
everything changes, or so people say. But love forgives everything,
dear.”
“Not that,” Winifred said.
She sat by her fire, when her friend left her, in a state of mind which
it is impossible to describe in words. It was despair. Despair is
generally tragical and exalted; and perhaps that passion is more easy to
bear with the excitement that belongs to it than the quiet consciousness
that one has come to a dead pause in one’s life, and that neither on one
side or the other is there any outlet. Winifred was perfectly calm and
still. She sat amid all the comfort of her chamber, gazing dimly into
the cheerful fire. She was rich. She was highly esteemed. She had many
friends. And yet she had come to a pass when everything failed her. Her
brothers stood hostile about her, feeling her with justice to be their
supplanter, to stand in their way. Her lover had left her, feeling with
justice that she wronged his love and rejected his aid. With
justice--that was the sting. To be misunderstood is terrible, yet it is
a thing that can be surmounted; but to be guilty, whether by any fault
of yours, whether by terrible complication of events, whether by the
constitution of your mind, which is the worst of all, this is despair.
And there was no way of deliverance. She could not make over her
undesired wealth to her brothers, which had at first seemed to be so
easy a way; and also, far worse, far deeper, far more terrible, she
could not make Edward see how she could put him away from her, yet love
him. She felt herself to sit alone, as if upon a pinnacle of solitude,
regarding all around and seeing no point from which there could come any
help. It is seldom that the soul is thus overwhelmed on all sides. When
one hope fails, another dawns upon the horizon; rarely, rarely is there
no aid near. But to Winifred it seemed that everything was gone from
her. Her lover and friends stood aloof. Her life was cut off. To
liberate every one and turn evil into good, the thing best to be done
seemed that she should die. But she knew that of all aspirations in the
world that is the most futile. Death does not come to the call of
misery. Those who would die, live on: those who would live are stricken
in the midst of their happiness. Perhaps to a more cheerful and buoyant
nature the crisis would have been less terrible; but to her it seemed
that everything was over, and life come to a standstill. She was
baffled and foiled in all that she wished, and that which she did not
desire was forced upon her. There seemed no strength left in her to
fight against all the adverse forces around. Her heart failed
altogether, and she felt in herself no power even to meet them, to begin
again the discussion, to hear again, perhaps, the baseless threat which
had driven Edward away. Ah, it was not that which had driven him away.
It was she herself who had been the cause; she who had not wanted him,
who even now, in the bitterness of the loss, which seemed to her as if
it must be for ever, still felt a faint relief in the thought that at
least no conflict between his will and hers would embitter the crisis,
and that she should be left undisturbed to do for her brothers all that
could be done, alone.
Next day she was so shaken and worn out with the experiences of that
terrible evening, that she kept her room and saw no one, save Miss
Farrell. Edward made no appearance; he did not even inquire for her, and
till the evening, when Mr. Babington arrived, Winifred saw no one. The
state of the house, in which George and his family held a sort of
encampment on one side, and Tom a hostile position on the other, was a
very strange one. There was a certain forlorn yet tragi-comic separation
between them. Even in the dining-room, where they sat at table together,
Mrs. George kept nervously at one end, as far apart as she could place
herself from her brother-in-law. The few words that were interchanged
between the brothers she did everything in her power to interrupt or
stop. She kept George by her side, occupied him with the children,
watched over him with a sort of unquiet care. Tom had assumed his
father’s place at the foot of the table before the others perceived
what that meant. They established themselves at the head, George and
his wife together, talking to each other in low voices, while there was
no one with whom Tom could make up a faction. The servants walked with
strange looks from the one end to the other, serving the
|
WHIFFEN, URIDGE, Pvt., Horton, Kansas.
WILFONG, HAROLD W., Pvt., 212 N. Garfield St., Chanute, Kansas.
WILSON, WILLIAM H., Pvt., 1547 Champus St., Denver, Colorado.
WITTEK, JOHN F., Pvt., 5th and Thornton Sts., Kansas City, Kansas.
WALROD, CARL, Pvt., 1022 New York St., Lawrence, Kansas.
YOUNG, LLOYD M., Corp., Iola, Kansas.
_Caisson Company, No. 1_
=Capt. NORVAL L. DeARMOND=, 215 N. 3rd St., Manhattan, Kansas.
=1st Lieut. JAMES E. WILLITS=, 542 Park Ave., Kansas City, Missouri.
=2d Lieut. DONALD E. McKEE=, Union State Bank, Everest, Kansas.
ABELL, HAROLD, Pvt., Riley, Kansas.
ACKERMAN, JAMES R., Duty Sgt., 1309 Lincoln St., Topeka, Kansas.
ACKLEY, WILLIAM E., Pvt., 614 Reynolds Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
ALBRO, FRED, Duty Sgt., 325 Lawrence St., Topeka, Kansas.
ANDERSON, CLAIR S., Pvt., Paola, Kansas.
ANDERSON, GEORGE W., Pvt., 5612 Sadie St., Kansas City, Missouri.
ANGUS, WALTER J., Pvt., 117 S. Wyandotte St., Rosedale, Kansas.
BABBITT, FRED F., Pvt., 9th Floor, Parsein Bldg., Kansas City, Mo.
BENNETT, MARION E., Pvt., Paola, Kansas.
BERGESON, LOUIS, Pvt., Leonardville, Kansas.
BETSHER, WILLIAM H., Pvt., Eureka, Kansas.
BILBEE, DANIEL C., Corp., 215 W. 11th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BILBEE, LAKC C., Duty Sgt., 215 W. 11th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BILLINGS, SIDNEY, Pvt., Downs, Kansas.
BLACKMON, WILLIS E., Pvt., 2225 Murphy Ave., Nashville, Tennessee.
BLACKWOOD, F. J., Pvt., Holton, Kansas.
BLAKE, JOHN H., Pvt., 4308 Jefferson St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BOLIN, MARCELIN H., Pvt., Junction City, Kansas.
BOND, WILLIAM H., Pvt., Leonardville, Kansas.
BOTTGER, JAMES M., Pvt., Clyde, Kansas.
BRANSON, HUGH G., Pvt., Eureka, Kansas.
BROWN, WILLIAM R., Pvt., Emporia, Kansas.
BUMBAUGH, HIRAM, Ogden, Kansas.
BUMBAUGH, SAM, Pvt., Ogden, Kansas.
BUTLER, ARCHIE D., Pvt., Madison, Kansas.
BUNDY, WILLIAM D. R., Duty Sgt., 409 Harrison St., Topeka, Kansas.
CAMPBELL, ROSCOE L., Pvt., Leavenworth, Kansas.
CARLTON, CHESTER M., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
CARTER, HARRIS G., Pvt., Robert Lee, Texas.
CHAMPLIN, HAROLD P., Pvt., 1011 E. 40th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CHAPMAN, WALTER, Pvt., Chanute, Kansas.
CLARK, ROBERT E., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
CLAWLEY, ARTHUR W., Pvt., Clay Center, Kansas.
COLE, JOHN C., Pvt., Vandale, Arkansas.
CONLEY, WALTER I., Pvt., 3209 S. Humboldt St., Minneapolis, Minn.
COOPER, HAROLD P., Pvt., Downs, Kansas.
CRAIG, LEE H., Pvt., Walberg, Kansas.
DAVIS, CHARLES H., Pvt., Turon, Kansas.
DAVIS, ELMER A., Pvt., Leonardville, Kansas.
DAVIS, WILLIAM A., Pvt., 1621 Stinson Ave., Rosedale, Kansas.
DEMPSEY, ARCHIE D., Pvt., Argentine Station, Kansas City, Kansas.
DENMAN, GLENN M., Corp., Olathe, Kansas.
DENNER, PAYTON L., Pvt., Meriden, Kansas.
DISNEY, WILLIAM J., Pvt., Virgil, Kansas.
DIXON, IRA W., Pvt., Alliance, North Carolina.
DOLECEK, VICTOR P., Pvt., Eureka, Kansas.
DORAN, IRA, Pvt., 252 N. Wayco St., Wichita, Kansas.
DOUGLASS, JOHN L., Pvt., Bonner Springs, Kansas.
DOYLE, VAUGHN H., Pvt., Leonardville, Kansas.
FINK, HOMER, Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
FORREST, FRED E., Pvt., Ellsworth, Kansas.
GABLE, GEORGE D., Duty Sgt., Warrensburg, Missouri.
GALLAGHER, THOMAS J., Pvt., 1921 E. 34th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
GARDNER, EDWIN S., Pvt., Lockwood, Oklahoma.
GARDNER, RICHARD A., Pvt., Baldwin, Kansas.
GILLAM, JOHN C., Pvt., Coffeyville, Kansas.
GRAY, GEORGE G., Corp., Kentucky and Holmes Sts., Kansas City, Mo.
GREEN, ROBERT R., Mess Sgt., Redfield, Kansas.
GRIFFITHS, ROY E., Corp., Riley, Kansas.
HAIGHT, ALBERT G., Pvt., Lawrence, Kansas.
HALCOMB, WALTER O., Pvt., Garden City, Missouri.
HALL, GEORGE F., Pvt., Hoyt, Kansas.
HAMLET, DON, Pvt., 3023 Woodland Ave., Kansas City, Missouri.
HAMMOND, HARRY L., Pvt., Topeka, Kansas.
HANSEN, LAWRENCE, Pvt., 2911 N. 7th St., Kansas City, Kansas.
HARGER, WILLIAM R., Pvt., Deerfield, Missouri.
HARGRAVE, CHAUNCEY H., Pvt., Oskaloosa, Kansas.
HARRIS, KARL R., Pvt., 2418 Chestnut St., Kansas City, Missouri.
HARRIS, LOYAL G., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
HARRISON, JOHN R., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
HART, BENJAMIN H., Pvt., Newton, Kansas.
HATFIELD, CHARLES C., Duty Sgt., Osborne, Missouri.
HEBERLING, JULIUS, Pvt., Wakarusa, Kansas.
HERRING, HERBERT V., Corp., Fulton, Missouri.
HILL, HARRY, Pvt., Edmond, Oklahoma.
HISE, CARL M., Corp., 515 Askew St., Kansas City, Missouri.
HOCKENSMITH, THOMAS D., Pvt., Harrisonville, Missouri.
HOLBROOK, HAROLD J., Pvt., Atchison, Kansas.
HOPPER, WALTER S., Pvt., 1413 Bales St., Kansas City, Missouri.
HOSTERMAN, HAROLD U., Pvt., 3530 Garfield Ave., Kansas City, Mo.
HOUSTON, JAMES J., Pvt., 1805 Gold St., Wichita, Kansas.
HUNTER, EARL H., Pvt., 1309 E. 9th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
HUNTER, JAMES W., Pvt., Herrington, Kansas.
HURLOCK, CLYDE E., Pvt., 418 West St., Iola, Kansas.
JAGGERS, WILLIE, Pvt., Burlington, Kansas.
JANOUSEK, EMIL P., Corp., Wilson, Kansas.
JILKA, EDWARD H., Duty Sgt., Wilson, Kansas.
JOHN, RALPH C., Pvt., Tescott, Kansas.
KARR, FRED W., Pvt., 602 Southwest Blvd., Rosedale, Kansas.
KAUFFEY, LAWRENCE M., Pvt., 1914 Spruce Ave., Kansas City, Mo.
KEENEY, HARDY B. E., Pvt., Galena, Missouri.
KIRKMAN, RIDGE, Pvt., 2419 N. 5th St., Kansas City, Kansas.
KIRKPATRICK, ROY M., Pvt., Sabetha, Kansas.
KILGORE, JAMES L., Pvt., 1702 Byers St., Joplin, Missouri.
KING, EVERETT A., Pvt., Harris, Kansas.
KRAMER, ALBERT A., Pvt., Zeandale, Kansas.
LAMB, JOHN A., Pvt., Plainville, Kansas.
LANE, CLARK W., Pvt., Centerville, Iowa.
LEARY, GEORGE A., Pvt., 2621 E. 6th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
LENHERD, HERBERT E., Pvt., Plainville, Kansas.
LENT, ROSCOE W., Corp., 509 Chandler St., Topeka, Kansas.
LeROY, KEITH K., Pvt., Bolden, Missouri.
LEVI, MORGAN P., Pvt., Station G., Memphis, Tennessee.
LIGHT, CARL V., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
LIGHTFOOT, FLOYD H., Pvt., Kirwin, Kansas.
LONG, ROY M., Pvt., 5729 Tracy St., Kansas City, Missouri.
LUNDBERG, ALBERT H., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
McATEE, ESLIE H., 1433 Broadway St., Kansas City, Missouri.
McCALL, JAMES E., Pvt., 425 College St., Rosedale, Kansas.
McCONNELL, HARVEY L., Pvt., Olathe, Kansas.
McMAHAN, PEARL P., Pvt., Guthrie, Oklahoma.
MANN, WILLIE, Pvt., Tonganoxie, Kansas.
MARTIN, ELMO J., Pvt., General Delivery, San Francisco, California.
MASON, THOMAS S., Pvt., Eureka, Kansas.
MESSICK, WARREN, Pvt., St. George, Kansas.
MILLER, ARTHUR H., Pvt., Manhattan, Kansas.
MILLER, GEORGE N., Pvt., Soldier, Kansas.
MORRISSEY, JAMES L., Pvt., Holton, Kansas.
MUELLER, PAUL E., Pvt., 917 Frederick Ave., St. Joseph, Missouri.
MUNN, De W., Pvt., Leonardville, Kansas.
MUNSON, ERNEST R., Pvt., 2731 Lathrop St., Kansas City, Kansas.
MURRAY, ELMER K., Pvt., McKinney, Texas.
NAY, WILLARD S., Pvt., Holden, Missouri.
NEILL, VICTOR, JR., Corp., 3230 E. 8th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
NEWMAN, FRANK N., Pvt., Ft. Dodge, Kansas.
NEWSOME, WILLIAM S., Duty Sgt., Butler, Missouri.
NICHOLS, VICTOR P., Pvt., Sedgewick, Kansas.
O’BRIEN, FRANCIS F., Pvt., Eureka, Kansas.
OSGOOD, GEORGE H., Corp., 1331 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara,
California.
OTT, JESSE R., Pvt., 4533 Agnes St., Kansas City, Missouri.
OWEN, ALVIN J., Pvt., Lawrence, Kansas.
PALMER, EZRAR L., Pvt., 535 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
PEACOCK, ELTON D., Pvt., Laurel Hill, Florida.
PEARCE, JAMES A., Pvt., Louisville, Kentucky.
PETTY, OLIVER, Pvt., Dwight, Kansas.
PHILLIPS, JOHN E., Pvt., Harrisonville, Missouri.
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM H., Stable Sgt., 1206 Jackson St., Topeka, Kansas.
PIERCE, WILLIAM D., Corp., 605 Phillips St., Muscatine, Iowa.
POCOCK, PHILIP S., Pvt., Wakefield, Kansas.
POINTER, VIRGIL D., Pvt., Holton, Kansas.
RAND, GEORGE M. JR., Pvt., Cottonwood Falls, Kansas.
RANDLE, GEORGE W., Pvt., Riley, Kansas.
RHAMEY, RAYMOND H., Corp., 3646 Central St., Kansas City, Missouri.
ROBBINS, HARRY L., Corp., 127 Kansas Ave., Topeka, Kansas.
ROBERTS, JOSEPH A., Pvt., Oran, Wyoming.
ROBERTSON, ARTHUR, Pvt., Holbrook, Arizona.
RICORD, DORIAN P., Sgt. 1st class, Esbon, Kansas.
ROWSEY, WALTER W., Pvt., 1824 S. Moseley St., Wichita, Kansas.
SANFOED, JOHN R., Pvt., 721 Highland St., Kansas City, Kansas.
SCHROEDER, WILLIAM C., Pvt., McFarland, Kansas.
SCHRODER, TEMME, Pvt., 3130 Spruce St., Kansas City, Missouri.
SCHNEIDER, FRANK, Pvt., 2700 N. 5th St., Kansas City, Kansas.
SCOTT, OLIVER W., Pvt., Marshall, Missouri.
SELLERS, IRWIN J., Pvt., Downs, Kansas.
SEWELL, OSCAR, JR., Pvt., Monte Flores, San Juan, Porto Rico.
SHANNON, ALVIN B., Pvt., Hiawatha, Kansas.
SHELL, GLENN E., Pvt., Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
SHOEMAKER, LeROY E., Pvt., Downs, Kansas.
SIMPSON, HAROLD L., Pvt., Clay Center, Kansas.
SINGLETON, GROVER F., Duty Sgt., Memphis, Tennessee.
SMITH, GEORGE O., Pvt., Ellis, Missouri.
SMITH, JESSE B., Pvt., 915 Washington St., Kansas City, Missouri.
STEINMETZ, HENRY O., Pvt., 1621 E. Crane St., Topeka, Kansas.
STERBENZ, MATTHEW J., Pvt., 644 Northrup Ave., Kansas City, Kans.
STEVENSON, CHALMERS C., Pvt., Axtell, Kansas.
STRONG, HARRY N., Pvt., Marion, Kansas.
STUCKER, LaVERNE E., Pvt., Atchison, Kansas.
SVOBODA, JOE J., JR., Pvt., Ellsworth, Kansas.
SWENSON, STANLEY C., Pvt., Leonardville, Kansas.
TALLEY, CECIL V., Pvt., 2125 East St., Kansas City, Missouri.
TAYLOR, FRANK A., Corp., 3349 Flora St., Kansas City, Missouri.
TEAGARDEN, EARL H., Corp., Manhattan, Kansas.
TIMMONS, LEWIS E., Corp., Riley, Kansas.
TOMLINSON, MARVIN E., Supply Sgt., 1027 Southwest Blvd., Rosedale,
Kansas.
TREFT, CHARLES W., Pvt., Wellington, Kansas.
TROUT, HENRY D., Pvt., Eudora, Kansas.
TUTTLE, CLARENCE J., Pvt., 23rd and Grace St., Wichita, Kansas.
VARDEMAN, PAUL E., Pvt., 920 Walnut St., Kansas City, Missouri.
VINZANT, ORAN F., Pvt., Oak Hill, Kansas.
WALTER, ELMER P., Pvt., Downs, Kansas.
WENKER, CHARLES J., Pvt., 1620 Central St., Kansas City, Missouri.
WHEELER, CHARLES H., Pvt., Eureka, Kansas.
WILKERSON, GEORGE A., Corp., 1103 E. 8th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
WILLS, DELBERT B., Pvt., Riley, Kansas.
WILSON, EDWARD C., Pvt., 908 Delaware St., Leavenworth, Kansas.
WILSON, FRANK D., Corp., 1153 Boswell Ave., Topeka, Kansas.
WOODS, OTIS E., Pvt., Mankato, Kansas.
WORKMAN, LESTER, Pvt., 426 Jefferson St., Topeka, Kansas.
WRIGHT, CLARENCE C., JR., 4121 Pvt., Walnut St., Kansas City, Mo.
_Caisson Company No. 2_
=Capt. WILLIAM R. BAKER=, Rosedale, Kansas.
=1st Lieut. OSCAR O. HAUBER=, Hiawatha, Kansas.
=2d Lieut. HUGH A. MacLEAN=, 349 St. Louis Ave., Youngstown, Ohio.
ADAMSON, HARRY B., Pvt. 1st class, 3856 Holly St., Kansas City, Mo.
ACKLEY, HENRY W., Pvt., 315 E. G St., Hutchison, Kansas.
AKERSON, ELMER H., Pvt., 1509 Virginia St., Kansas City, Missouri.
ANDERSON, JAMES H., Pvt., Kansas City, Missouri.
ATKINSON, CALVIN O., Pvt., 905 Sutter St., Independence, Kansas.
BAINBRIDGE, ROY T., Pvt. 1st class. 601 Central St., Dodge City, Kans.
BARTOLAC, GEORGE J., Pvt. 1st class, 416 Sandusky St., Kansas City,
Kansas.
BATMAN, DILLA, Pvt., 1106 Holland St., Great Bend, Kansas.
BENNITT, GEORGE L., Pvt., Ashley, Pennsylvania.
BLAKE, ALBERT S., Pvt., 2245 2nd St., San Diego, California.
BLAKELY, VICTOR V., Pvt., Winfield, Kansas.
BICKNELL, EDGAR S., Pvt., Carl Junction, Missouri.
BOLAND, GUSTIE I., Pvt., Garden City, Kansas.
BOND, MERRITT, Pvt., Emporia, Kansas.
BRADISH, LLOYD L., Pvt. 1st class, Peculiar, Missouri.
BRIGGS, PHIL S., Corp., 1954 Emmerson St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BROWN, CARROLL R., Duty Sgt., 1009 W. 8th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BROWNLEE, ERWIN, Pvt. 1st class, R.F.D. 1, Van Buren, Arkansas.
BROWNRIG, JOHN W., Pvt. 1st class, 932 S. 8th St., Kansas City, Kans.
BUNDY, WM. B., Pvt., 409 Harrison St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BURGER, WALDO Y., Pvt., 1600 E. 33rd St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CAIN, WM. G., Wagoner, 450 Perry St., Lawrence, Kansas.
CAMPBELL, GEORGE H., Pvt. 1st class, R.F.D. 3, Box 107, Morgantown,
West Virginia.
CAPP, GEORGE A., Pvt. 1st class, 1128 Cleveland St., Kansas City, Mo.
CARPENTER, THOMAS P., Pvt., Niles, Kansas.
CARTER, RALPH W., Pvt., Burlington, Kansas.
CARTER, WM. A., Pvt., Burlington, Kansas.
CHAPELLE, OSCAR H., Corp., 203 E. 10th St., Topeka, Kansas.
CLEMENTS, FRED R., Mess Sgt., Ft. Scott, Kansas.
CLERICO, CESARE, Pvt. 1st class, Tessons, Navarra, Italy.
COE, FRANK H., Pvt., Curjahoga Falls, Oklahoma.
COLVILLE, JOHN A., Pvt., Wichita, Kansas.
COLVILLE, WM. B., Pvt., Wichita, Kansas.
CONDY, GEORGE R., Pvt., Chetopa, Kansas.
COOK, J. B., JR., Pvt. 1st class, Chetopa, Kansas.
COPLEY, ROY C., Pvt. 1st class, 2725 Corning St., Parsons, Kansas.
CORNELIUS, LEWIS, Pvt., Oswego, Kansas.
CRUMPLEY, HORACE, Pvt., 5214 Scarritt St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CULLIN, ALBERT, Pvt., 2425 Bales St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CULLISON, DANIEL E., Corp., 203 Shuman St., Ft. Scott, Kansas.
CURRY, EVERITT, Pvt., 1024 Rhode Island St., Lawrence, Kansas.
CURRY, RALPH F., Pvt. 1st class, 1001 Connecticut St., Lawrence, Kans.
CURTIN, NEIL, Pvt. 1st class, 2728 Olive St., Kansas City, Missouri.
DALE, ALLAN, Pvt., Princeton, Missouri.
DEVALT, ROY S., Pvt. 1st class, Princeton, Missouri.
DEVOL, DONALD H., Corp., Steeleville, Missouri.
DIAL, WILLIS E., Saddler, 320 Delaware St., Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
DICKINSON, FRANK J., Pvt. 1st class, 3401 The Paseo, Kansas City, Mo.
DICKEY, EBEN J., Pvt., West Plankishaw, Paola, Kansas.
DIEHL, OSCAR, Mechanic, R.F.D. 1, Peck, Kansas.
DIX, BUFORD, Pvt., 545 Fifth St., Trenton, Missouri.
DOMINO, F. E., Horseshoer, Cawker City, Kansas.
DUNCAN, CARL I., Pvt. 1st class, Higbee, Missouri.
EASTBURN, FRANK, Pvt., Chanute, Kansas.
ENDISFELDER, HEINIE, Cook, 113 Chemnitzstrasse, Leipzig, Germany.
ERTELL, ALBERT N., Pvt. 1st class, Valley Falls, Kansas.
EVANS, CHARLES H., Pvt., Cherryvale, Kansas.
EVANS, ED L., Pvt., Ensign, Kansas.
EVANS, THOMAS, Pvt., Topeka, Kansas.
FACKERT, ARTHUR C., Duty Sgt., Kansas City, Missouri.
FAIRBANKS, SAMUEL P., Pvt., Bena, Minnesota.
FAIRCHILD, ELZA O., Pvt., Dalhart, Texas.
FAIRCHILD, JOHN W., Pvt., Dalhart, Texas.
FALLS, HAROLD W., Pvt. 1st class, Effingham, Kansas.
FOLEY, JOHN E., Pvt., 1104 Harrison St., Kansas City, Missouri.
FULLERTON, ROBERT W., Pvt. 1st class, Langdon, Kansas.
FULLUM, EARL E., Pvt., Wichita, Kansas.
GARCIA, JOSEPH E., Corp., Clayton, New Mexico.
GILFORD, LONG, Pvt., Arkansas City, Kansas.
GILMAN, ROY, Pvt. 1st class, Madison, Kansas.
GUM, HORACE L., Duty Sgt., Rosedale, Kansas.
HALL, HENRY T., Corp., Delphos, Kansas.
HARMON, HAROLD A., Pvt. 1st class, Topeka, Kansas.
HAVENOR, HAROLD T., Corp., Holman, Missouri.
HAYNES, WM. C., Pvt., R.F.D. 3, Topeka, Kansas.
HAYWARD, GEORGE N., Pvt. 1st class, Winnipeg, Canada.
HESTER, CLAUDE H., Pvt., Iola, Kansas.
HIGASON, FRED A., Pvt., Springfield, Illinois.
HOAG, WALTER E., Pvt. 1st class, 4730 Campbell St., Kansas City, Mo.
HOGAN, JEFF D., Pvt. 1st class, 4320 E. 17th St., Kansas City,
Missouri.
HOOK, HENRY, Pvt., Burlington, Kansas.
HUGHES, JOHN J., JR., Corp., 3018 Woodland St., Kansas City, Mo.
IRVIN, GEORGE E., Pvt., Moberly, Missouri.
IRWIN, RODNEY C., Duty Sgt., 3900 Manheim Road, Kansas City, Mo.
JANKE, HERBERT, Pvt., Merriam, Kansas.
JELLISED, CHRISTIAN A., Horseshoer, Wilder, Minnesota.
JOHNSON, JAMES E., Pvt., Wilfred, Arkansas.
JOHNSTON, CLIFFORD O., Corp., 419 Lime St., Topeka, Kansas.
KASPER, ARNOLD J., Pvt. 1st class, Fortuna, Missouri.
KENNALY, WALTER M., Pvt. 1st class, 3600 Central St., Kansas City,
Missouri.
KINGERY, FRED T., Pvt. 1st class, Providence, Rhode Island.
KNOWLES, ED., Pvt., Burns, Kansas.
KOON, FRED C., Pvt. 1st class, Cheney, Kansas.
KUBAS, FRANK, Pvt., Kansas City, Kansas.
LAUGHLIN, CARL, Mechanic, Gardner, Kansas.
LAUGHLIN, JAMES D., Bugler, 3829 Troost St., Kansas City, Missouri.
LESTER, LUX, Pvt., Parsons, Kansas.
LEWIS, ERWIN H., Pvt., Concordia, Kansas.
LIGGETT, H. H., Cook, Bartlett, Kansas.
LIPE, ELMER, Pvt., Burlington, Kansas.
LLOYD A. LYND, Pvt. 1st class, Parsons, Kansas.
LUTZ, ELMER L., Duty Sgt., Holton, Kansas.
LOWRY, LYMAN, Pvt., Emerson, Kansas.
McCULLY, GROVER C., Pvt., Burlington, Kansas.
McCOY, RALPH, Pvt., Olathe, Kansas.
McHAIL, WM. H., Pvt., 64 Cornell Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
McMILLAN, HARRY A., Cook, R.F.D. 1, Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
MADSEN, CARL C., Pvt., Allan, Kansas.
MANN, WALTER S., Corp., 11 Water St., Rosedale, Kansas.
MARKOWITZ, DANIEL, Pvt., 613 Woodland St., Kansas City, Missouri.
MARTIN, ZACK, Corp., 204 Washburn St., Topeka, Kansas.
MAY, WALTER C., Corp., Holly, Colorado.
MENDENHALL, EDGAR L., Pvt., El Paso, Texas.
MITCHELL, JAMES N., Pvt. 1st class, Butler, Missouri.
MONTAGUE, CHAS. W., Pvt., Ft. Scott, Kansas.
MOORE, DIXIE A., Corp., 5914 Forest St., Kansas City, Missouri.
MORRIS, HUGH K., Pvt., 86 Fifty-fourth St., Kansas City, Missouri.
MORRIS, MILTON R., Pvt., Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
MUZZY, WALTER H., Pvt. 1st class, Naponee, Nebraska.
NAILL, SYDNEY R., Pvt. 1st class, Olathe, Kansas.
NELSON, ELOF L., Sgt. 1st class, 3932 S. 28th St., Omaha, Nebraska.
NICKELL, JOE, Wagoner, 2017 Belmont St., Parsons, Kansas.
NIGGERMAN, WM. J., Corp., 7509 Alaska St., St. Louis, Missouri.
NILSSON, RAYMOND A., Chief Mechanic, 3932 S. 28th St., Omaha, Neb.
OSBORN, BERT V., Pvt., Latham, Kansas.
OSBORN, ERWIN C., Pvt. 1st class, 2916 Hyland St., Kansas City, Mo.
PALMER, OPAL, Pvt., 1436 S. 26th St., Kansas City, Kansas.
PERRY, JOHN A., Wagoner, Tignish, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
PETERS, ARTHUR, Horseshoer, Ft. Scott, Kansas.
POTH, RUDOLPH, Duty Sgt., Dept. 66, Jones Store Co., Kansas City, Mo.
POWELL, ARTHUR F., Pvt., Kingsdown, Kansas.
PRICE, GEORGE D., Pvt., Lawrence, Kansas.
PUFFENBARGER, EARL, Pvt., R.F.D. 4, Oswego, Kansas.
QUACKENBUSH, D. E., Stable Sgt., Oskaloosa, Kansas.
RANDALL, CHARLES W., Pvt., South Bend, Kansas.
RAY, JOHN M., Corp., 4002 Oak St., Kansas City, Missouri.
RENO, RUSSELL A., Corp., Chanute, Kansas.
RICE, GEORGE H., Pvt., R.F.D. 2, Kansas City, Missouri.
ROBERTS, CECIL, Pvt., Winfield, Kansas.
ROBINSON, ARDIN, Pvt., Tulsa, Oklahoma.
RUMFORD, ELBERT, Pvt., R.F.D. 2, Olpe, Kansas.
SANDBICKLER, EMIL, Duty Sgt., Parsons, Kansas.
SAUER, GRANT L., Pvt., Abilene, Kansas.
SCOTT, JOHN J., Pvt. 1st class, R.F.D. 1, Hutchinson, Kansas.
SHEA, WALTER M., Pvt., Leavenworth, Kansas.
SHIELDS, FREDERICK B., Pvt. 1st class, 3400 Michigan St., Kansas City,
Missouri.
SHOVLIN, JOHN H., Pvt., Ottawa, Kansas.
SIEMINSKIE, ARTHUR, Pvt. 1st class, Stewart, Oklahoma.
SMALL, CHARLES L., Pvt., Ford, Kansas.
SMITH, FRANK E., Pvt., Richmond, Indiana.
SMITH, WM. M., Pvt. 1st class, North Wyandotte St., Rosedale, Kansas.
SPICER, HURLEY L., Corp., Harrisville, Missouri.
SPRINGER, HAROLD G., Duty Sgt., Ottawa, Kansas.
STAFF, ARTHUR E., Pvt. 1st class, Monticello, Iowa.
STEWART, CLARENCE A., Pvt., Williamstown, Kansas.
STEWART, KENNETH C., Pvt., Hayes, Kansas.
STOCKMAN, FRANCIS A., Pvt., Mercer, Missouri.
STRINGHAM, LEON, Pvt., Sibert, Colorado.
SWARNER, WM. E., Pvt. 1st class, 102 Ashley St., Rosedale, Kansas.
SWEARINGEN, ORAL, Pvt., Paola, Kansas.
TEASLEY, EARL, Pvt., Simpson, Kansas.
TOMPSON, HARVEY T., Duty Sgt., 2737 Myrtle Ave., Kansas City, Mo.
TRABERT, LLOYD, Pvt. 1st class, Williamsburg, Kansas.
TRUTCHLEY, BEN H., Pvt. 1st class, 2005 Cypress St., Kansas City, Mo.
TRUITT, ALFRED L., Pvt., Langdon, Kansas.
TRUITT, ALBERT H., Pvt., Langdon, Kansas.
TURNER, HARRY A., Pvt., Hartford, Kansas.
VAN VRANKEN, LAURENCE, Pvt., Braithwaite, Oklahoma.
VAUGHN, JAMES N., Pvt., Lathrop, Missouri.
VITT, OTTO L., Pvt., Fall, Kansas.
WALKER, CHARLES F., Pvt. 1st class, Lawrence, Kansas.
WALKER, HUGH O., Pvt., Jennings, Oklahoma.
WALKER, HARRY L., Pvt., Ft. Scott, Kansas.
WATERS, ELLINGTON W., Pvt., R.F.D. 2, Rome, Georgia.
WEAVER, WM. H., Pvt., Bucklin, Kansas.
WEBB, ZEDDIE O., Pvt. 1st class, Blue Springs, Missouri.
WELLS, JOHN, Pvt., Elmdale, Kansas.
WERNER, ED G., Corp., 1258 Mulvane St., Topeka, Kansas.
WIDOWS, CALVIN A., Pvt., Abilene. Kansas.
WILLS, RAYMOND L., Bugler, Peculiar, Missouri.
WITCHER, ANDREW J., Pvt., Kuniamo, Kansas.
WITTENBERG, BEN H., Supply Sgt., 5743 DeGivervill St., St. Louis, Mo.
WOOSLEY, ALFRED, Pvt. 1st class, Chanute, Kansas.
YOUNG, DANIEL, Pvt., Burden, Kansas.
YOUNG, RALPH M., Pvt., Lawrence, Kansas.
WYMORE, FRED C., Pvt., 128 McCarthy St., Jefferson City, Missouri.
_Truck Company No. 1_
=Capt. WM. H. KNIGHT=, 2901 Forest Ave., Kansas City, Missouri.
=1st Lieut. PAD R. BEAR=, Yakima, Washington.
=2d Lieut. THOMAS R. BARTLETT=, Iola, Kansas.
ALLEN, ELMER C., Pvt., 1704 St. Charles St., Rosedale, Kansas.
BABCOCK, VICTOR, Pvt., R.F.D. 2, Platte City, Missouri.
BERKLEY, HUGH G., Pvt., 513 W. 43d St., Kansas City, Missouri.
BLACKBURN, CLIFFORD S., Pvt., 401 W. 6th St., Chanute, Kansas.
BLUNK, ARTHUR R., Pvt., 403 N. Highland St., Chanute, Kansas.
BORING, MIKIE, Pvt., St. Paul, Kansas.
BOUGHTON, LeROY H., Pvt., 922 G. E. Bldg., Denver, Colorado.
BRADEN, FRIEND M., Pvt., R.F.D. 4, Chanute, Kansas.
BRICKLER, OTHO G., Pvt., 22½ W. Main St., Chanute, Kansas.
BRINEGAR, FRANKLIN I., Pvt., 16 N. Wilson St., Chanute, Kansas.
BUENZLI, AUGUST H., Pvt., R.F.D. 4, Box 22, Madison, Kansas.
BYAM, JOHN C., Pvt., 520 Kensington St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CAMPBELL, ELLERY F., Pvt., 717 W. 36th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CAMPBELL, LEWIS B., Pvt., 2622 Olive St., Kansas City, Missouri.
CHILDS, RAY R., Cook, Buffalo, Kansas.
CHICKADONZ, WILLIAM N., Pvt., 116 N. Forest St., Chanute, Kansas.
CRANE, MIKE F., Pvt., R.F.D. 4, Chanute, Kansas.
CARLSON, ROBERT F., Pvt., R.F.D. 2, Chanute, Kansas.
DOUGLASS, CLAUDE C., Cook, R.F.D. 6, Chanute, Kansas.
FIELD, ROBERT C., Pvt., 1202 E. 11th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
FLICKINGER, LEONARD J., Pvt., 634 N. Malcolm St., Chanute, Kansas.
FOGG, GLENN L., Pvt., 1009 S. Santa Fe St., Chanute, Kansas.
FOGG, NEIL B., Pvt., 1009 S. Santa Fe St., Chanute, Kansas.
FRANCIS, ROY E., Pvt., Lincoln, Kansas.
FULTON, EDWARD G., Pvt., 221 E. 11th St., Chanute, Kansas.
GEEDING, DEANE L., Pvt., R.F.D. 5, Eureka, Kansas.
HAGAMAN, FRANK L., Pvt., 1607 Stinson St., Rosedale, Kansas.
HAGGARD, HENRY R., Pvt., 708 W. 17th St., Kansas City, Missouri.
HANSEN, GEORGE W., Pvt., R.F.D. 3, Chanute, Kansas.
HARLING, FRED P., JR., 2510 N. 5th St., St. Joseph, Missouri.
HARGRAVE, JOHN, Supply Sgt., 1029 S. Santa Fe St., Chanute, Kansas.
HUEMADER, OTTO, Pvt., 1702 Dewey St., St. Joseph, Missouri.
HILFINGER, GEORGE L., Pvt., 3945 Central St., Kansas City, Missouri.
HOFFMAN, HARRY M., Pvt., 3315 Bellefontaine St., Kansas City, Mo.
HOUCHINS, JAMES H., Pvt., Neal, Kansas.
HUFF, HAROLD C., Pvt., 303 S. Elmwood St., Kansas City, Missouri.
IVY, CLARENCE E., Pvt., R.F.D. 6, Chanute, Kansas.
JACKSON, CARL A., Pvt., R.F.D. 5, Chanute, Kansas.
JOHNSON, LOUIE R., Pvt., 702 N. 2d St., Iola, Kansas.
JOHNSON, LUTHER E., Pvt., R.F.D. 1, Stark, Kansas.
JOHNSON, WATT E., Pvt., R.F.D. 5, Humboldt, Kansas.
JORDON, LAWRENCE W., Pvt., 706 N. Highland St., Chanute, Kansas.
JUDAH, CLARENCE S., Pvt., 1514 Holmes St., Kansas City, Missouri.
KNAPP, WILLIAM H., Sgt., 1530 Benton St., Kansas City, Missouri.
LACKEY, HARRY L., Pvt., Lancaster, Kentucky.
LEATHERMAN, TOM E., Pvt., R.F.D.
|
ST SECRET.—We shall have read the deepest secret of nature
when we have read our own hearts.
“THE object of education is the carrying out of God’s will for the
individual; but the purpose of His will is hidden from us. The
direction, only, in which we are to work is pointed out by the peculiar
endowments of temper and of intellect in the child.”—_Mrs. Sewell._
FOLDING-UP WORK CASE.
[Illustration]
To those of our “girls” who can do “hemstitching,” we commend this
pattern, which was most kindly sent to us the other day from Glasgow.
Fig. 1 represents a piece of pink (or any other colour) linen, 34½
inches square. In the centre may be worked, in white linen thread, a
conventional design, or, better still, the initials or name of the
friend for whom it is intended; a border of hemstitching is then
added, any nice open pattern of half an inch wide. The corners A,
B, C, D, are then cut out four inches, turned over the other side
and mitred down as in Fig. 3. Fig. 2 represents a small square of
white linen with a narrower inner border of hemstitching, and a small
pocket, feather-stitched all round, in the centre. This white linen is
placed in the middle of the pink as seen in Fig. 2, and the edges of
the latter are carefully hemmed down over it. A yard of strong white
ribbon, an inch and a half wide, is then sewn on the outside near the
initials as shown in Fig. 1. Be careful to notice that one end is long
and the other short. When in use this case is spread out, like an
apron, on the lap, and the method of folding is shown in Fig. 4. All
the work materials are inside, and the little pocket contains thimble,
scissors, etc. Roll it up from the lower edge, pass the long end of
ribbon round it twice, tie in a bow, and behold! everything is compact
and neat.
“COUSIN LIL.”
[Illustration]
HOW WE MANAGED WITHOUT SERVANTS.
BY Mrs. FRANK W. W. TOPHAM, Author of “The Alibi,” “The Fateful
Number,” etc.
CHAPTER II.
That very afternoon we set to work, moved our belongings into mother’s
room, and dragged up the carpet in our own room. Ann washed the boards
for us, while we went off to the stores for the stain. We had to wait
till the next morning before we could begin our staining, but it did
not take us very long to finish. Ann advised us to let her rub it over
with boiled oil, and it certainly looked far better afterwards. That
good-natured girl spent her afternoon in unpicking our old carpet to
find the brightest pieces to turn into mats.
“Don’t you go down on your knees, miss, to dust these boards,” she
impressed upon us more than once. “Where I lived last they had a deal
of stained floors, and we always put our soft brooms into a bag of
linen and dusted them with that.”
The servants worked very hard, as we did also, so that by the time
cook was ready for her new place we had “spring-cleaned” the house all
through, staining the floors of the three bedrooms we were using, and
putting away all superfluous glass and china, as well as some ornaments
and nicknacks.
By cook’s advice we decided to arrange the work as nearly as possible
as she and Ann had worked. I, who had all my mornings free, was to be
the cook, while Cecilly, who had her music lessons to give, called
herself “house-parlour-maid.” Of course, we were always ready to
help each other in every detail, and I feel sure that servants would
find their work much lighter and pleasanter if only they would work
together. The variety even would make it pleasanter, at least, so
Cecilly and I found.
It was rather an effort to turn out of bed at half-past six the first
morning we were alone. I ran down in my dressing-gown and set light
to the stove before I took my bath, so that when we were dressed the
kettle was boiling, and we could have a cup of tea and some bread and
butter before we began our duties. I stayed in the kitchen to prepare
breakfast, while Cecilly went into the dining-room to sweep. I heard
her making a great deal of noise, and when I was ready to help her,
I could not help laughing at her preparations and efforts. She was
scarlet and breathless with exertion, as she swept the carpet as if it
were never to be swept again. She had moved every piece of furniture
from its place that she could move, and would not believe that the
heavy pieces were only moved out once a week on “turning out” days.
I took the broom from her and sent her for wood to light the fire, for
the mornings were still chilly. Then we found the wood was damp, but we
quickly dried it in the oven of the gas stove, and _never_ afterwards
did we forget to dry our wood directly we took it in.
We were just ready to ring the breakfast-bell when from upstairs came
such a shouting from the boys, mingled with Jack’s voice, angry and
stern, that we both ran out to see what was wrong, and to our dismay
found water pouring down the staircase into the hall. We at last learnt
that Phil and Bob, who had their bath in their bedroom, had, in order
to be helpful, tried to carry it to the bath-room to empty, the result
being they had overturned it on the landing. They were so sorry, and
had been acting from kindness, not mischief, that we stopped Jack’s
scoldings, and very soon we had sopped up the worst of the damage.
Jack, however, insisted on their getting up as soon as we were down, so
they could take their bath in the bath-room before he was ready for his.
Poor Jack! he did so hate our doing the work of the house, but Aunt
Jane had taken him in hand and made him reasonable, and it was she who
wrote to mother, telling her of our plan, and begging her to consent to
our giving it a fair trial.
I cleared away the breakfast, while Cecilly ran up to air the bedrooms
and beddings. Then together we washed up, and afterwards made the
beds and tidied the bedrooms. Our house is a bright sunny one in West
Hampstead, and the kitchen arrangements are all on the same floor as
the living-rooms, which saved us many steps. One of Aunt Jane’s orders
was, “Always have something hot for the boys’ dinner,” and she gave
me a list of dishes I could prepare in the morning, and leave them to
“cook for themselves.” The list was as follows.
_Stewed Steak._—Put into your stew-pan a piece of dripping, two or
three onions cut up, two or three carrots (according to size), lay your
steak on the top of these, till all is a nice brown. Take all from
the stew-pan and place in a brown jar (previously heated), add a few
peppercorns, a pinch of spice, ginger, and three cloves, add sufficient
hot water or stock to cover the meat, cover tightly, and leave in a
cool oven for two or three hours. Before serving, strain off the gravy,
thicken it with flour, heat to boiling in a saucepan. Put steak on dish
and pour the gravy over. In preparing this dish our mistakes were—once
we allowed it to cook too quickly, so that it was too hard; another
time we cooked it too slowly, so that it was not done enough. We learnt
that with all stews they must come to _nearly_ boiling point, then put
back just far enough to keep them from boiling.
_Haricot Mutton._—Cook as above.
_Steak Pudding, Steak Pie._—Beef steak answers perfectly for all these.
_Canadian Steak Puddings._—Cut up two pounds of steak into a pie-dish;
pepper and salt freely. Pour on water just to cover steak. Take two
ounces of suet, shred very fine; the crumb of a small loaf rubbed
through a sieve. Mix together, moisten with milk, add two eggs well
beaten, pour over the steak, and bake for two or three hours. This was
a great favourite.
_Curries._—Aitch-bone of beef stewed in the same manner as the steak,
but not removed from the pan it is first put into. This requires
stewing from four to five hours. When possible use weak stock instead
of water, as it makes nicer soup for the following day.
But I must go back to our first day’s experience. We had just finished
tidying the house when the door bell rang, and when I ran to open the
door, there stood dear Aunt Jane with a lovely bunch of flowers “to
help poor Jack enjoy his first dinner without a waitress.” She readily
accepted my invitation into the kitchen, and it was certainly by her
kind advice we were able to manage as well as we have. “Do you work
regularly and methodically,” was one of her maxims we endeavoured to
follow, which has smoothed our way considerably. We made a plan of
the daily work, turning out a room each day. On the first day Cecilly
turned out our room while I prepared the dinner. In the afternoon I was
due at my old lady’s, to whom I read for two hours, and to amuse her I
told her of our plan. I saw she was greatly shocked, and I never was
able to convince her we had succeeded satisfactorily. As I was hurrying
home I overtook the two boys, one carrying a brown paper parcel, the
other what looked like a broom-stick.
They refused to satisfy my curiosity concerning their packages until we
reached home and Cecilly had joined us. Then they disclosed to our view
a carpet-sweeper, and on our exclaiming our delight and demanding to
know how they had managed to get such a treasure, it came out that the
dear old things had parted with their most cherished possession, having
sold their stamp collection to a schoolfellow.
“Now Cecilly needn’t get so hot, need she?” asked Phil, but, on Cecilly
rushing to hug them, they both fled to their own room, refusing to
listen to our thanks.
“Mother is right,” I said to Cecilly. “Hard times have their bright
sides. We should never have known how sweet the boys really were if
there had been no necessity for their sacrifice.”
Our chief saving has been in the preparation of our food and in doing
away with the early dinner. Luckily we have both such very good
appetites that, eating heartily as we did at breakfast and dinner,
there was no need for us to prepare a midday meal. Our luncheon
consisted of anything we had to spare from the larder, sometimes of
bread and cheese only, although we always indulged in a cup of hot
cocoa afterwards. In the days when cook was in charge of the cooking
I had to give her a special order for breakfast, either sausages,
bacon, or fish. But now that I was cooking we learned (of course from
Aunt Jane as well as by experience) to make out of scraps plenty of
suitable dishes. We found the following most liked by the boys:—
_Breakfast Pies._—Mince through the machine any scraps the larder
affords (ham, cold bacon, cold steak, pieces left in meat-pies—in fact,
anything that is quite sweet and wholesome). Boil a cupful of Quaker
Oats. Mix all together, add flavouring of Tarragon vinegar, pepper, and
salt. Line patty-pans with pastry, fill with mixture, cover with pastry.
_Beef Brawn._—Mince any pieces of cold meat, season well with pepper
and salt. Boil some weak stock, with an onion, one or two cloves, and
spice if liked. While boiling pour over gelatine (previously soaked).
Mix all together and pour into a mould. To be eaten cold. Half an ounce
of gelatine to a pint of water. Sufficient minced meat to nearly fill a
pint measure.
_Mulligatawny Pâté._—Mince or cut any pieces of cold meat very fine.
Add equal quantity of boiled rice (boiled in stock when possible),
add a teaspoonful of curry-powder. Line pie-dish with pastry. Put in
mixture, cover with boiled rice, and bake.
_Macaroni and Tomatoes._—Boil macaroni in stock, add any scraps of
meat, two or three tomatoes cut in slices. Can be eaten hot, baked in
pie-dish, or poured into a mould to be eaten cold. All these dishes can
be prepared the day before, and only require heating up in the oven.
We always had stock by us, boiling down at once any bones that were in
the house, and keeping all liquor that meat had been boiled in. Not
being fat eaters we melted down for dripping all we did not consume,
and I have often cut off the fat from a joint before cooking it to use
as suet for puddings. If we had to buy suet, we bought Hugon’s; it is
cheaper and saves much labour in chopping than ordinary suet. But my
advice to every housekeeper is, never throw away any fat, for every
piece can be utilised.
Unfortunately none of us are fond of what the boys call “pap” puddings,
and we had some difficulty in getting rid of our stale bread till Aunt
Jane advised us to dip the pieces into milk and crisp them in the
oven for the cheese course. The ones that were not eaten at dinner we
broke up, ground through the coffee mill, and kept in a tin for when
we were cooking fish, rissole, or anything that requires breadcrumbs
or raspings. We also used our stale bread in fruit puddings. Fill a
pudding-basin, previously well greased, with pieces of bread. Boil any
fruit, such as currants, blackberries, etc., and while hot pour over
the bread till the basin is quite full. Place a saucer or small plate
on the top, stand a heavy weight on it, and leave till the following
day. To be turned out and eaten cold.
_Half-pay Pudding._—¼ lb. suet, ¼ lb. currants, ¼ lb. raisins, ¼ lb.
flour, ¼ lb. breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoonfuls dark treacle, ½ pint milk.
Boil for three or four hours. The longer this pudding boils the better
it is. Apple charlotte, rhubarb charlotte, and Manchester pudding also
used up our stale bread. It had always been a difficulty when cook was
with us to choose a pudding the boys would not call “pappy;” and now
that every egg represented a penny to us the difficulty was greater,
till it occurred to Cecilly that we might substitute cakes for ordinary
puddings, and the result was most satisfactory. We could use dripping,
of course; and after a friend told us of “Paisley Flour,” there seemed
no end to a variety of nice and inexpensive sorts.
The boys delighted in _Ginger-bread_.—1½ lb. flour, 6 oz. dripping,
1 teaspoonful carbonate of soda, 2 tablespoonfuls “Paisley Flour,” ½ lb.
dark treacle (or more), ¼ lb. dark sugar, 2 teaspoonfuls ginger and
ground spice, 2 tablespoonfuls vinegar, ½ pint milk. Dissolve the soda
in a little milk, mix dry ingredients together, add treacle slightly
warmed. Then pour in the soda, add the vinegar to the rest of the milk,
stir all thoroughly, and bake immediately.
_Vinegar Cake._—6 oz. dripping, ½ lb. currants or sultanas, ½ lb. moist
sugar, 1 teaspoonful carbonate of soda dissolved in milk, 1¼ lb. flour,
2 tablespoonfuls “Paisley Flour,” 2 tablespoonfuls vinegar to about ½
pint milk. To be mixed in the same way as the ginger-bread.
Scones with raisins, plain scones, cheese biscuits, were all
favourites; but as these recipes can all be made from the recipe for
scones given with each packet of “Paisley Flour,” I need not write
them. In one of the books that had so annoyed poor Cecilly in her
search for advice how to manage without servants the lady had found
her greatest difficulty in the door-answering; but that, I can assure
you, never troubled us. Our friends came as often to see us as when
Ann, in her flying white streamers, answered their knocking—in fact,
they came more frequently, for it was no unusual occurrence for us to
have three or four willing helpers in the morning to assist us through
our work, Cynthia Marriott being our most regular assistant. Never was
there a merrier, more laughing set of servants than we were, nor were
there more elaborately decorated pies and tarts ever made than those
made for Jack’s dinner by the fairest hands in the kingdom. Sometimes
I think we might have bored the boys by our domestic interests, had it
not been for Aunt Jane impressing on us constantly the importance of
making their home-life a social one. It was often a trouble to leave
the kitchen just before serving up the dinner to change into an evening
blouse; but we always did so for fear the boys would grow careless in
their dress, and constantly our helpers in the morning would run in
after dinner to help make the evenings as merry as when we had servants
to answer the door. But the work was work, although we could play
over it at times. There were many backaches and weary feet, many hot,
depressing days when even the gas stove suffocated us with the heat
as we stirred a saucepan or opened the oven door; but we bore it all
bravely, as who would not, when she felt she was, at least, trying to
give back health to a father, and such a father as ours?
(_To be concluded._)
HOUSEHOLD HINTS.
IT is now authoritatively declared by medical opinion that it is
dangerous to moisten many postage stamps with the tongue. It may lead
to cancer of the tongue and other serious complaints in the mouth or
stomach; and the stamp margin paper should never be used to put over an
open wound.
MEAT baked in the oven is the cause of much indigestion.
NOTHING makes a room look more untidy than blinds drawn up crooked, and
faded flowers on the table. Cultivate a spirit of neatness in all the
rooms, but especially those in which you receive your friends.
LOOSE sofa covers and spare blankets should be constantly inspected in
summer, and periodically shaken, to prevent moths fastening on them.
BEDS should never be placed against a wall except just at the top. If
the side of a bed is against a wall, it cannot be properly made, nor
can there be sufficient air moving around it for health.
IT is well that one member of a family should keep a diary to record
family and other events. These diaries prove valuable for reference in
after years.
[Illustration: “THE HEARTS OF THESE OLD MOUNTAINS.”]
MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN.
BY WILLIAM T. SAWARD.
Men who dwell beside the rivers!
Ye who build eternal towers—
Empire-makers, poets, heroes—
Ye who chain the vivid lightning,
Till the rocks, and span the ocean,
Make th’ unfriendly desert smile!
See, afar, the peaks of ages,
Lifting tempting hands to heaven!
Beckoning to the lowly-dwellers,
“You have conquered all the ages
With your wondrous kingly minds!”
Here, your broadly flowing rivers,
In the hearts of these old mountains,
Leap to birth, and give you life!
Here the winds take sudden refuge,
Here the stars spell out their secrets,
And the heavens speak to us!
Here is solemn meditation,
Dignity and peace majestic;
Time unmoves us, and the currents
Of the spheres that roll above us,
Beat eternal harmonies!
Ask the eagle of its freedom,
Ask the gentian of its blueness,
Ask the torrent of its swiftness,
Ask the lovers’ edelweiss!
They will answer, “River-dwellers,
While you toil among the vineyards,
Fret and toil, and age with fretting,
There’s a music in these mountains
Ye have never, never heard!”
Winds that beat across the ocean,
Wand’ring stars and clouds that kiss us,
Bring your broken, sobbing music
To our feet, and die, confessing—
“This is greatness, this is rest!”
[Illustration]
LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.
PART IX.
The Temple.
MY DEAR DOROTHY,—I was very sorry to hear that your holiday had
commenced in such a disastrous manner; but you were quite justified in
leaving the furnished house which you had taken for a month at the end
of the first week, when you found that the drainage was in a defective
condition.
It is all very well for the landlord to threaten Gerald with
proceedings to recover his rent for the three weeks which you did _not_
stay at his house. There is an implied condition in the letting of a
furnished house that it shall be reasonably fit for habitation; if it
is not fit, the tenant may leave without notice.
No one could possibly assert that a house whose drainage was out of
order was fit for habitation; so that, if your landlord is ill-advised
enough to bring an action against you, you need have no fear of the
result. But I fancy that he is only trying it on, and will abandon his
claim when he finds that you are determined to resist it.
It was fortunate for him that you did not stay on in his house and
contract typhoid fever, or something of the kind. If one of you had
done so, you might have taken action against the landlord for damages
and compensation.
What I have just written only applies to the hire of a furnished house.
The law on the letting of furnished lodgings is quite different.
There is no implied warranty that the lodgings shall continue fit for
habitation during the term.
I know of a case where a friend of mine took lodgings at the seaside
for his wife and family, and while they were staying there one of the
landlady’s children became ill with scarlet fever; but, as she did
not wish to lose her lodgers, the landlady concealed the fact of her
child’s having the fever from my friend. The consequence was that my
friend’s wife and child also became stricken with the fever, and he was
put to a lot of expense for medical attendance, nursing, etc. But he
was unsuccessful in an action which he brought to recover such expenses
as damages, because the jury found that the house was healthy at the
time of the letting. And the judges of the Appeal Court laid down the
axiom that there is no implied agreement in the letting of furnished
lodgings that they shall continue fit for habitation.
If a landlady were to let out lodgings knowing that one of the inmates
of her house was suffering from an infectious disease, I have no doubt
that she would render herself liable to a claim for damages if one were
subsequently brought against her; and it may give you, my dear Dorothy,
some satisfaction to learn that she would certainly be liable to a
criminal prosecution involving a heavy fine or imprisonment.
“Trespassers will be prosecuted” is a notice which one frequently sees
in the country; but it is an empty threat. Provided you are careful to
do no damage to the grass, you may trespass as much as you please. Very
often you will find such notices stuck up in fields over which there is
a right of way. In such cases the notice simply means that you should
keep to the footpath and not trample down the grass. It has been said
that it is no offence to take mushrooms, blackberries, primroses, or
wild plants of any kind or to trespass to find them.
Of course this only applies to mushrooms which are growing wild; but it
still applies even when such mushrooms may be a source of profit to the
owner of the field, provided they are growing wild and not in a state
of cultivation.
At the same time I ought to warn you that the farmers do not regard
things in a purely legal light, and they generally manage to make
themselves exceedingly unpleasant to the people whom they find
trespassing over their lands. I am bound to say that personally I
sympathise with the farmer to a certain extent.
The law does not regard professors of palmistry with a favourable
eye; on the contrary, it is inclined to class them as “rogues and
vagabonds,” although it is true that a prosecution of two professors of
the art in Yorkshire was not upheld on appeal and the conviction was
quashed. I do not think, however, that the followers of the art have
much cause to congratulate themselves on this decision as, at any rate,
the London magistrates have a very summary method of disposing of those
who are brought before them charged with practising “certain subtle
crafts, means and devices by way of palmistry, and imposing upon Her
Majesty’s subjects.”
Your affectionate cousin,
BOB BRIEFLESS.
“I NEED SOME MUSIC.”
(SONG, INTRODUCING THEME OF CHOPIN’S NOCTURNE IN G MAJOR.)
_Words by_ NORMAN R. GALE. _Music by_ THOMAS ELY, Mus. Bac., F.R.C.O.,
London.
[Music:
I need some music for my brain
As pansies need the dew;
Sing that heart-breaking song again,
And I will play for you,
And I will play for you.
Of old a sigh betray’d your breast,
The courier of your pain,
And just one tear-drop unrepress’d,
Came, shone, and fled again, and fled again.
You lov’d me then,
And when you ask if I can play it yet,
I sit and sound the tender task I never may forget.
And if you falter at the part where long ago you sigh’d,
Remember we are heart to heart serenely satisfied.]
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
BY ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object
in Life,” etc.
CHAPTER XX.
THE MANNERS OF A MISTRESS.
The little excitement in the street centred round the Marvels’ house.
Two policemen were standing at its door, and an inspector with his
note-book was just inside talking to somebody out of sight.
“I wonder if it is anything wrong about Jane Smith,” remarked Lucy.
“Perhaps the tipsy young carpenter has turned up there at last,” said
Tom. While they watched, Lucy and Miss Latimer told Mr. Somerset the
story of their midnight alarm.
“They’re all looking across here! They are coming over,” cried Hugh. He
was right. In a moment a heavy official knock sounded on the hall door.
“I shall answer it myself,” said Lucy. “Clementina is busy, and,
besides, the sight of all these legal functionaries would terrify her
out of her wits.”
The others all followed in her train, Hugh clinging to his mother’s
skirts.
“There has been something wrong over at Number 14, ma’am,” the
policeman explained. “Their servant has run away with some property. We
understand she was in your service before she entered Mrs. Marvel’s,
and we want you to kindly answer a few questions about her—if you can.”
“I will tell you all I can,” returned Lucy.
“Thank you, ma’am. Was the girl Jane Smith long in your service?”
Lucy considered. “Only for about five months,” she said, “a little more
I think.”
He made a note in his book.
“Where did you get her from, ma’am? Excuse me.”
“I got her through a registry office,” Lucy replied, naming it.
“Took her in a hurry, without any references perhaps, ma’am,” observed
the inspector.
“Certainly not,” answered Lucy. “I went to her last employer,” and Lucy
furnished her name and address. The man wrote them down.
“Character good then, I suppose?” was the next remark.
“The character was satisfactory, or I should not have taken her,” said
Lucy.
“Can you be sure you got the girl whose character you received?” he
asked. “You know there is such a thing as personation; and the name is
a common one.”
“There is no mistake on that score,” Lucy replied. “Jane Smith herself
opened the door to me when I went to inquire for her character.”
The man was writing again. “And may I ask why you parted from her?” he
went on.
“She gave me notice herself because she knew she had displeased me.
I had allowed her to receive a weekly visit from the young man to
whom she was engaged, and then, without the least interval, or any
intimation given to me, the man was changed!” Lucy was almost startled
by the unshrinking directness of her words.
There was a little movement between the two policemen on the doorstep,
and a sort of ejaculation from Tom in the rear. Lucy, looking aside
from her questioner, recognised in one of his subordinates the
policeman who had found Jane’s discarded lover in her area. He made a
smiling salute, and said something in a low tone to his superior.
“I understand one of these men has since been found in your area in the
night?” the inspector inquired.
“Yes,” said Lucy, “your man found him and removed him.”
“Have you any reason to think he was there for any nefarious purpose?”
asked the inspector.
“No; he was quite tipsy,” said Lucy. “He did not know what he was
doing. I thought it was only a mistake.”
“Are you sure he was quite tipsy?” urged the inspector.
“Your man and my friend said so, and I could see he could scarcely
walk,” Lucy answered. “It was at my request only that your man did not
take him in charge. I thought he was in trouble through being deserted
by this girl.”
“There’s often more than meets the eye at the bottom of these here love
affairs and troubles,” said the unromantic inspector; “it might have
done that youth and other folks too some good to have had it all out in
court. But there’s no saying. Even there such things can’t be always
looked into as deep as they should be.”
He wrote in his book. His next question was—
“Did you tell Mrs. Marvel why you had been dissatisfied with this girl?”
“She never asked me,” answered Lucy. “She sought no character from me.”
The inspector half smiled and gave his head a knowing little wag. He
closed his book. “Thank you, ma’am. That’s all we need ask now. If any
other point arises on which we think you may throw light, you’ll excuse
our coming to you. We’re sorry to have had to disturb you, especially
to-day.”
“You are only doing your duty,” said Lucy. “Good morning.” As she
turned back into her little hall—Clementina’s rueful countenance,
gleaming pale in the background—Lucy thought that this was for her a
very mild disturbance indeed, as compared with the wreckage of last
Christmas Day. It might indeed be otherwise with the Marvels? Yet Lucy
could not avoid the reflection that they had, in a manner, brought this
trouble on themselves.
The little dinner-party passed off very pleasantly. Clementina had
done her part admirably, and everybody was resolutely talkative and
bright. Even Lucy brought herself to say that perhaps it might be
better still if Charlie arrived for New Year’s Day, since that would be
an inauguration of a new order of things, while, socially considered,
Christmas is rather a festival of the past.
After dinner in the little drawing-room, Hugh was the centre of all
attention, as children always are at Christmas time. Games of the kind
in which he could take largest share were the order of the day. In one
of these Tom Black was dismissed from the apartment to wait outside
till those within should summon him to rack his brains to discover
“what their thought was like.” When they shut him out, they left him
planted on a little table, which stood on the only half-lit landing.
But when they opened the door to call him, he was not there!
“I believe he is so honest that he feared he might catch what we were
saying, and he has gone down to his own room,” said Lucy. “Tom!” she
cried. But as she did so she heard a sound of voices in the hall. Tom
was there and Clementina was talking to him.
He answered, “Coming, coming!” and came running up. He dashed into the
game with great spirit, but nevertheless seemed a little absent-minded,
and proved so dense that he had to be told what he ought to have
guessed, which was very unusual with Tom. After that, Lucy suggested
that they would not begin another game till they had had tea, which was
just coming in. The little service stood in readiness. Clementina had
only to carry up the kettle and the tea-cakes. In this interval, Tom
suddenly proposed to Mr. Somerset that they should take a few minutes’
turn in the street. “For a breath of fresh air,” he said.
The gentlemen did not stay out for quite half an hour. Hugh peeping
from the window announced that he saw them walking up and down,
talking. They nodded up to him, and they came in a few minutes
afterwards. Lucy served them with cups of tea, and then all again went
merrily till it was time for Lucy to take Hugh off to bed. She did not
require to apologise to these friends for leaving them together while
she discharged her happy maternal duty.
Mr. Somerset stood on the middle of the rug with his back to the fire.
Miss Latimer settled herself in the easy-chair to resume the knitting
which she had thrown down during the games.
“Miss Latimer,” said Mr. Somerset rather abruptly, “I don’t think you
are a nervous woman.”
The old lady laughed, deftly shifting her needles.
“I don’t think so,” she answered.
“Because if we are to believe what Clementina says, some evil attention
is being directed to this house, which can have no other aim but to
annoy and terrify, perhaps with hope of robbery at last,” he explained.
Miss Latimer was all interest.
“The servant says,” pursued Mr. Somerset, “that every morning, early,
for more than a week past there have been heavy blows on the area
door. They have always been struck while she was out of sight in the
back kitchen. She has hastened to respond to them, but by the time she
reached the door nobody was there. She says that for the first day
or two, she thought that whoever had knocked must have hurried away,
though she could not understand how they could get up the area steps so
quickly. Afterwards she says she lingered longer in the front kitchen,
so as to be there when the knocks came. But they never came while she
was there—only at the moment when she turned her back. Next she ran to
the window so quickly that she is sure there was no time for anybody to
get away. Yet nobody was there.”
“Ran to the window!” echoed Miss Latimer. “Why didn’t she go to the
door?”
“She says she was frightened,” answered Mr. Somerset.
“Does the window command every corner of the area?” asked the old lady.
“Possibly some mischievous boy gave the knock and then stood back
against the wall.”
“That’s what I said,” remarked Tom Black, “but Clementina made me go
down into the kitchen and put my head where she said she had put hers,
pressed against the window, and certainly nobody—not even a cat—could
have been in the area without my seeing them.”
“Why didn’t Clementina tell us about this before?” asked Miss Latimer.
“Why did she keep it back to tell us to-day?”
“She says she didn’t want to worry her mistress,” said Tom. “But after
hearing what has gone wrong at Mr. Marvel’s house, and seeing the
policemen come here making inquiries, she thought it might be best
for some of us to know it at once. So when she saw me standing on
the staircase, she took the opportunity of calling me downstairs and
telling me the whole thing.”
“Very considerate indeed,” observed Miss Latimer. “So many servants
take delight in rushing forward with bad news or worries. I was
|
ly noises, not only from students, but (and mostly)
from other persons, who ought to blush for such base conduct, I cannot
say, that I am unacquainted with the authors of the nuisance, and could
easily designate to you at least half a dozen. Such cries as "Go on!
Stop!--Out of the institution with that man!--Kill him!" besides
multitudes of vulgar chuckles, screams and other horrid vociferations
have been heard by me from well-known voices, until at times I felt as
if I could support the vexation no longer. Numberless insults in the
street and even menaces were constantly thrown out by a low gang, who
were evidently hired for the vile purpose, and I have seen things, which
I never witnessed before either in Europe or America. A certain firm of
this city seems to have commenced the nefarious hostilities. I have
suffered encroachments on my personal safety to which no American
citizen ought for one moment to submit. As I cannot afford, nor feel
inclined to lose my time and health any longer, I would respectfully
submit to your Honor's consideration _my claim to the protection of the
laws of the city_ in this respect, to which as an American citizen I am
entitled, and the necessity of a sterner maintenance of order by the
police of the city. Disagreeable and painful as it is for any one to
come into hostile collision with fellow-citizens, there are nevertheless
cases, in which such enmities may be innocently contracted, and holding
mine to be of such a nature, I may confidently expect the ready and
effectual interposition of your Honor and of the honorable members of
the Common Council, to whom the order and honor of the city must ever be
dear, in a matter that seems to me to involve one of the most cherished
principles of our republican freedom, viz., the personal safety and
peaceable domicile of every member of our community, of every citizen of
this vast republic.
To sum up my complaints briefly, they are as follows:--1st, Personal
hostility towards me in the institution itself; 2dly, Horrid footsteps,
noises and loud conferences under my window by day and by night; 3dly,
Menacing insults from low people in the street, without the slightest
provocation on my part.
Trusting that your Honor may find an early occasion to give me an
opportunity for finding my firm conviction true, that the majesty of the
law is capable of being upheld by its representatives in the community,
and that I may have a different tale to tell respecting the morality of
the city and my own sense of personal safety,
I am your Honor's
most respectful and obedient servant.
G. J. Adler.
LETTER III.--(Answer to No. I.)
Rev. Dr.----
Dear Sir,--Understanding that you are a friend of Professor Adler, of
this University, and know his brother, I take the liberty of calling
your attention to his present condition.--During the last winter he gave
various indications of a disordered mind, and these have become more
decided during the past summer. I am distressed to see his haggard look,
and have feared unhappy results. He is unfitted for the business of
teaching, and his friends would do well to get him another institution,
adapted to such, away from study. I think there should be no delay in
the matter.--We all esteem Dr. Adler highly, and would be delighted with
his restoration to the full use of his fine intellectual powers.
May I solicit your fraternal aid in this case, and please let me hear
from you at an early day.
I am with great regard,
Yours,
University of the City of }
New-York, _Sept_. 19th, '53.} (Signed) Isaac Ferris.
EPILOGOMENA TO LETTER III.
As the above letter was handed to my personal friends for the purpose of
conveying the desired intelligence, and sent to me, when the report of
my illness and mental derangement was found to be groundless and false,
there can be no impropriety or breach of courtesy or justice in its
publication. The serious consequences to which it gave rise, the
deprivation of my liberty for six entire months, and the suspension of
my functions as an academic instructor (though not of my activity as an
author, which under the most inauspicious circumstances was still
continued) alike demand, that it should be made known in connection with
my own communications before and during my imprisonment. A comment or
two will exhibit the contents of the Doctor's epistle in their proper
light.
1st, The Dr's. letter is itself a contradiction and an egregious symptom
of insanity on his part, which is, moreover, confirmed by his previous
conduct from his first entrance into the institution. In comparing the
University with the Lunatic Asylum, I find that the former during the
winter of 1852-'53 (I may add, ever since my return from Europe in 1850)
was a far more disorderly and irrational place than the latter, where
the occasional confusion or the perpetual (sane and insane) perversity
of men is the lamentable, but natural and necessary (consequently
_irresponsible_) result, of an internal physical or intellectual
disorder or defect, which is moreover susceptible of classification and
of a psychological exposition, while in the former it was "got up" for
the particular purpose of subjugation or of expulsion, and where
consequently it was the result of _responsible_ perversity and malice,
_susceptible of moral reprobation_.
2d, The allegation of my being "unfitted for the business of teaching,"
and of the propriety of finding me "another institution, adapted to
such, away from study," is an absurd and a libelous perversion of the
truth, which it is scarcely worth while to refute. From the year 1839,
the year of my matriculation at the institution, to the present hour I
have had no other profession, except that of having appeared in the
additional capacity of an author. Even during my undergraduate career I
taught successfully the various disciplines of our academic course, with
the approbation and to the satisfaction of the Faculty, members of which
examined and admitted to promotion several of my private scholars, who
had been expressly referred to me for tuition in the Classics, in
Mathematics, in Philosophy, &c.--Of my courses of instruction since my
official and regular connection with the institution (which dates from
the year 1846) in the language and in the literature which I was more
especially appointed to profess, it is not necessary to speak here, the
University itself having offered but little inducement and no emolument
or honor to the cultivation of the modern languages. In all the
professional services, however, which I have had occasion to render to
the institution of late years, my qualifications and my efficiency could
never have been honestly or honorably questioned. I have prepared my own
text-books, which have found their way into most of the literary and
educational institutions of this continent to some extent into Europe
even. One of them was begun at the very time, when "the indications of a
disordered mind had become more decided," and was completed with
scarcely a day's intermission of my work at the lunatic asylum, where I
subsequently improved my leisure (as far as my shattered health would
permit) by zealously engaging in some preliminary studies for a history
of modern literature.--It is equally needless to expatiate on my
extensive acquaintance, direct and indirect, with academic men and
methods both in the United States and in Europe, where within a few
years past I spent an entire year in the pursuit of literary and
philosophical studies at two of its most prominent Universities.--_To my
morality, both private and social, and to my religion, no one but a
hyper-puristic religionist or a calvinistic tyrant could possibly
object._--The real objection, and the cause of my being unfitted for the
business of instruction must therefore be looked for elsewhere. From
various indications and from several catastrophes in my personal
history, brought about by sectarian jealousy and fanatical intrigue,
from certain significant changes in the faculty of the institution, and
from innumerable efforts to subject me to a creed, or to the social
control of certain religious parties, I should infer that it manifestly
and palpably resided in a mistrust of what is vulgarly termed "the
soundness of my views" on certain questions, never discussed in
respectable literary institutions, and beyond their jurisdiction, or in
other words _in a suspicion of heresy_.--I claim, however, in opposition
to all these pretensions, which I deem an absurdity, my right (which is
_inalienable_ and _imprescriptible_) to my moral and intellectual
culture, commenced under the auspices and fostering care of my Alma
Mater herself (during a former administration) and continued and
perfected by years of serious and earnest effort in America and Europe,
since. _I recognize no sectarian guidance or control whatever in any of
the independent sciences, cultivated from time immemorial at academic
institutions, much less in the science of sciences, the very law and
indispensable condition of which is absolute freedom from all external
authority or restraint._ The law of intellectual freedom, of which the
Reader will find a short exposition in the concluding document of this
pamphlet (which I have extracted and translated from a distinguished
authority on the "Philosophy of Right") is recognized by the spirit and
the letter of the Constitution and by the political and social history
of the United States, by the Revised Statutes of the State of New-York,
by all the leading universities _of Protestant and Catholic Europe_, and
by a number of similar institutions in America, among which stands,
"professedly" at least, the University of the city of New-York. The
attempts of certain parties in connection with the institution and _ab
extra_ to "smother" (to use one of their own cant words) and to crush my
independence by gravely endeavoring to _coerce me into an alliance with
a questionable religionism, which is abhorrent to my ideas, my
habits and my sentiments, and by fomenting internal disorders for the
purpose of effecting an exclusion_, are an unconstitutional, an unjust,
an iniquitous invasion of my most sacred rights as a man, an American
citizen, a scholar and a professor. I repel, therefore, Dr. Ferris'
insinuation as a maliciously astute and as a false one, which of itself
declares the Dr. _incompetent to decide upon the merits of a real
scholar, and utterly unfit for the important trust of presiding over
the interests of any other but a sectarian institution of the narrowest
description, of the most painfully exclusive moral perversity_.
To this I may add, that in consideration of the many and various
disciplines, earnestly and steadily cultivated by me for several years
past, such as intellectual philosophy, the learned and modern
languages, linguistics and the history of literature generally, I could
in academic justice _demand the right_ to instruct in any one of the
departments for which I was fitted. That such a right exists, and that
it is applicable to my case, the reader may learn from Sir William
Hamilton's Essays on University Education, recently republished in
America, to which I refer _passim_. I can therefore confidently
challenge not only the chancellor, but, in case of a concurrence in his
sentiments, the entire faculty of the University to the following
proposition:--In case my capacity to teach or lecture academically is
questioned, I propose to take, and I demand one of the following
chairs; _where under suitable auspices and with proper and regular
provisions for the maintenance of order, I could at once begin_:--1st,
The Latin language and literature.--2d, the Greek ditto, ditto.--3d,
Moral and intellectual philosophy, either systematically or
historically.--4th, History or the general history of literature (of
which I have at present a text-book in preparation).--5th, Linguistics
or the classification of languages, including general grammar.--6th,
the history of modern (European) languages and literatures.--7th, the
elements of the Sanscrit, of which I still have a Mss. grammar,
compiled by myself for my private use, during the winter of 1851.--I
omit mentioning the remaining academic disciplines, for which I have no
particular taste, but which I still could teach, and for which I could
prepare the text-books, if it were necessary to do so.
3d, The alleged indications of insanity were _utterly unfounded_ at the
time they were made. I had recovered my usual health and spirits
immediately after the commencement of last year, about the beginning of
July '53, when those who had flagrantly disturbed the quiet of my
residence in and about the University building had vanished into the
country. Of the winter of 1852-'53 I only recollect, that subsequently
to the dismissal of my class, which I could not in honor consent to hear
any longer, I made a fruitless attempt to continue my private studies,
and to finish a commentary on a Greek drama which I had begun at the
commencement of the term, and that the ominous symptoms of _external
insanity_ about me soon increased to such an alarming extent, that I was
forced to lay aside my pen, unable to endure the outrage and annoyance
any longer; that gangs of scandalous ruffians in the shape of boys,
girls, men and women, many of whom I knew by their voices, kept up at
certain intervals, by day and by night, a nefarious system of
mystification and of nuisance from January to the end of June, in the
council-room of the institution, in the hall, before my door, in front
of my window, and on the parade ground; that in consequence of all this
my rest at night was completely broken, until I could only sleep by day;
that after a while I was confined to my bed most of the time, and that I
frequently did not rise for breakfast till 6 o'clock, P. M.; that it was
painful and disgusting for me to be awake, and that all I read for
several successive months was "Hegel's Logic" for two or three hours a
day, and that for some time I only eat once a day. In May, I think, I
fled to a neighboring State and University, partly with the intention of
changing my place of residence.--As a psychologist I was well aware,
that sleep was a sovereign preventive, as well as a remedy for all the
disorders of the mind, especially for those which might arise from
external causes such as those I have just described; I therefore
anticipated and _prevented_ the unhappy consequences which the Dr. seems
to have expected from the outrageous nuisance of his cherished
institution, where such scenes of scandal only _date from the time his
prospective and his actual entrance on the duties of his office_, and
really seem to have been made to order, I know not for whose benefit
(certainly not for mine). _During the summer I was_, in consequence of
the happy reaction and repose, _unusually gay and regular in my work_. I
then wrote an introduction to Schiller's Maid of Orleans, another one to
Goethe's Iphigenia, and a third to Tieck's Puss in Boots, all of which
have since been published in my new Manual of German Literature. I deny,
therefore, having ever given any symptoms of insanity whatsoever at any
time of the year, while I admit that a renewal of the scandal (which the
parties concerned have endeavored to revive since my release this
spring, but which I checked by a speedy notice to the police court and
to some of my friends), in the autumn might have led to such calamitous
results. Neither my Kant, nor my Rauch, nor my Hegel, nor any other
philosopher or psychologist could for one moment be induced to admit,
_that the presence of external causes and tendencies to intellectual
derangement were necessarily attended or followed by the malady itself_.
This would be an egregious logical fallacy, to which no intelligent
physician in or out of the Lunatic Asylum could for one moment
subscribe, without justly incurring the risk of being charged with an
inexcusable lack of professional knowledge and experience or what is
still worse, with a criminal connivance at an unjust and inquitous
conspiracy against the reputation and the life of an American citizen.
To the charge of the folly of suffering so long and so severely from so
gross a system of disorder which might have speedily been checked by the
extra-academic authorities of the city, I can only reply, that the
confusion and the consequent embarrassment was so great, that it was
impossible for me at the time to come to any decision as to the course
to be pursued. The most advisable policy would have been, to have left
entirely, and to have directed the correction or the punishment from a
distance. The following letters, written from the Lunatic Asylum
(_between which and the University there was a manifest internal
harmony, and which was evidently commissioned to complete the work of
humiliation and of subjugation_), may serve to elucidate the facts of
the case with some additional particulars.
To the above mentioned causes of the ruin of my health, I may add, that
during the same winter I had an opportunity of witnessing a resurrection
of "Salem Witchcraft," practiced on me by a certain lady, a mother in
Israel of this city, who was manifestly in connection with the
ultra-calvinistic faction of the University, which is the one to which
Dr. Ferris is indebted for his elevation. I moreover discovered in the
same connection, one of the two sources, from which the low insults in
the street, at certain well-known hours of my walks, in certain places
and directions, (to which I made allusion in my letter to the mayor of
the city,) had emanated, and I received some additional light on certain
events of my personal history, to which I allude in letter No. 5.--A
father in Israel, a gray-headed sinner in my opinion, likewise informed
me _that they had the Irish to defend them_.--I venture to assert that
few of my countrymen, except perhaps the lowest rabble, would ever lend
their aid to such nefarious purposes.
From all that I have had occasion to observe of social disorder and
discontent in the city for several years past, I am sure that there are
men who foment intestine commotions, who shamelessly and openly conspire
against the honor and the interests, if not against the property and
lives of their fellow-citizens, and whom the State ought to prosecute
and punish as offenders against a clearly defined law of the
statute-book.
My sanity at the time of arrest I can establish:--1st, By the testimony
of those who saw me daily, and more especially, by that of a young man,
who came to see me frequently, after the reception of Dr. Ferris'
letter, and who in fact brought it from the office. 2dly, By the
testimony of a distinguished physician, who about a week before, dressed
a slight wound on one of my eye-brows, received from a fall against my
sofa in the dark. 3dly, By the fact, that I was quietly and constantly
engaged in writing, and in daily communication with the printer, who
stereotyped my "Hand-book of German Literature." _Symptoms of unusual
excitement, in consequence of such an outrage, are no proof of
derangement._
LETTER IV.
Bloomingdale Asylum, _Dec. 26th_, 1853.
To----, Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir,
For several years past, I have repeatedly been on the point of making an
effort to resuscitate a slight, but to me no less cherished
acquaintance, by giving you some account of my doings and purposes,
which, I have sometimes flattered myself, might not be without interest
both to yourself and to such of your co-adjutors in Washington, as have
enlisted with you in the noble cause of extending and diffusing
knowledge among men. Of the proceedings of your institution I have
occasionally informed myself, both from the pamphlets and reports
periodically submitted to the public, and more especially from the
volumes of regular "Transactions," in the archæological and linguistical
parts of which, I have taken so much the greater interest, as of late
years my own attention has at times been almost exclusively directed to
the same field of investigation. It is true, I have as yet neither been
able nor willing to give any positive result of my studies. I have
hardly done anything more than "to break the ice." This, however, I may
safely say to have done, having not only had the best opportunities,
(since I saw you last in 1848) of surveying the field in the
time-honored centres of intellectual light on the other side of the
Atlantic, but having also since my return, as a member of several
Learned Associations, had special occasion and incitement to keep alive
my interest in these engaging pursuits. And if there be any truth in the
ancient adage: [Greek: archê hêmisy pantos], I may perhaps even
entertain the hope (_non invitá Minervâ_) of some future concentration
of my somewhat desultory excursions in these regions of light (where
ignorance indeed, but ignorance alone, sees only darkness) to some
radiant focal point. There are a number of subjects, closely connected
with the inquiries, that come under the cognizance of the
historico-philosophical section of your institute, which, I see, are
agitated anew by the _savants_ of the old world, and which to the
resolution of certain problems, relating to the primitive history of
this continent, are equally important here, perhaps entitled to our
special consideration. Recent investigations would seem to show, for
example, that our genial and acute Du Ponceau had by no means said the
last word on the subject he has so learnedly reported. Several new works
on the origin and classification of languages, that have made their
appearance in Berlin, &c., since the day of Humboldt's attempt, would
seem to invite to similar efforts on our side, and with special
reference to the immensity of our cis-Atlantic field, which ought to be
[Greek: kat' exochên] adopted as our own. Having most of these materials
at hand, I have sometimes been tempted myself to try, whether by an
_exposition of the present state_ of that science, as cultivated by the
Germans particularly, a new impulsion might not be imparted to it among
ourselves. Some such purpose has been among the tasks, which I had
proposed to myself for the present winter. The sudden suspension of my
studies, and the consequent uncertainty of my affairs, however, have so
seriously deranged my plans, that now I almost despair of being able to
accomplish any of my more immediate and necessary purposes.--You will
undoubtedly be surprised to learn, that I have been an inmate of the
Lunatic Asylum, at Bloomingdale, for now nearly three months; your
surprise will be still greater, when you come to learn, by what sort of
machinations I have been brought here.
For several years past, I have been made the object of a systematic and
invidious persecution, in consequence of which I have been obliged to
shift my residence from one place to another, to spend my means in
involuntary exile and unnecessary travelling, and altogether to lead a
life of a discouraging uncertainty.
Shortly after my visit to Washington, (1848), where I saw you last, I
was driven away from New-York, while yet absorbed in the midst of an
arduous undertaking, (my large German and English Dictionary, which in
consequence of my forced removal from the place of printing, I had to
finish at an inconvenient distance), under circumstances of the most
aggravated insults and abuses, (such as I had never dreamt men capable
of,) and about six months after its completion the same miserable clique
had already "finished" me in Boston and a regular "_hedjra_" to Europe
was the consequence.[1]--I spent a year in London, Paris and Berlin, in
a miserable struggle to repair my shattered health, (I had a cough,
contracted from sheer vexation, while in the clutches of the miserable
wretches, who seemed to be determined to vex me out of existence, which
clung to me a year and ever and anon returns again,) and what was still
more difficult, to forget the loathsome reminiscences of the immediate
past by bringing myself in contact with the sanatory influences of the
literature and art of the old world; partly with the intention of
remaining there. I returned, however, in the hope of finding my
difficulties subsided. But the same odious conspiracy, which had even
contrived to mar my comfort and happiness in one place on the other
side, (in Paris, where I spent the greater part of an academic year, at
the University and libraries, in various studies,) had, as I found to my
surprise, kept up a malevolent espionage over my peregrinations even,
and I have since been subjected to a series of vexations and intrigues,
which at times made me regret that I had not preferred any lot in a
foreign land and among entire strangers to such an ignoble
re-establishment at home. A personal attachment of former years was made
use of to harass and lacerate my feelings, and an underhanded, venomous
persecution, (which the parties, who were the authors, and who were in
alliance with certain ecclesiastical tricksters, did not even blush to
own), followed me at every step. The scum of New-York in the shape of
Negroes, Irishmen, Germans, &c., were hired, in well-organized gangs, to
drop mysterious allusions and to offer me other insults in the street,
(and thus I was daily forced to see and hear things in New-York, of
which I had never dreamt before,) while a body of proselyting
religionists were busy in their endeavors to make me a submissive tool
of some ecclesiastical party or else to rob me of the last prospect of
eating a respectable piece of bread and butter. This odious vice of
certain countrymen of yours was in fact the prolific source of all the
difficulties I complain of, and it is remotely the cause of my
confinement here.
[1] The details of this scandalous act of vandalism, which
though it nearly cost me my life, I did not even mention in the
preface to my large German and English Lexicon, finished in the
course of the same year, are too diffuse and complicated, to be
noticed here. As the leading personages of this drama, however, were
the representatives of powerful and influential ecclesiastical
organizations, and as shortly before, repeated and desperate
proselyting efforts had been made by some of these men, and by their
miserable underlings, I cannot possibly be wrong in designating the
vile commotion, by which I was swept from my post, _as the venomous
explosion of ignoble and of bigoted elements_, which have in fact
been the prolific source of all the confusion I complain of now. I
distinctly remember the treacherous and inquisitorial anxiousness of
a certain (now) president of a prominent University, (with whom I
was reading Logic,) to become acquainted with German metaphysics,
the mysterious meetings of a certain ecclesiastical committee, the
efforts of a certain temperance coterie at a certain hotel, and a
dozen other despicable conclaves and combinations, whose
machinations were too palpable to be mistaken or forgotten. I also
know, that a certain philosophy to which I was known to be
particularly partial, is looked upon with jealous suspicion by
certain superficial and insignificant pretenders to that science,
whose ignorance and malice forges weapons of destruction out of the
noblest and sublimest conceptions that have ever emanated from the
intellect of man. To all these ambitious and noisy enemies of
intellectual freedom, _whose littleness asperses, calumniates and
levels whatever is gigantic and sublime_, I would here say, once for
all, that if they could but rationally comprehend this Goethe, this
Jean Paul, this Fichte, Kant and Hegel, whom they regard with so
much horror, their _moral regeneration_ would almost be beyond a
doubt, and if they could think and write like them, their title to
enduring fame would never need an advocate or petty trickster to
defend it.
In the course of this last year, however, these manoeuvres assumed a
still more startling and iniquitous shape than before. Hitherto my
_domicile_ had been safe and quiet. For, although meddlesome attempts
had been made to force certain associations on me and to cut me off from
others, I had still been left sufficiently unmolested to accomplish
some study without any flagrant interruptions. This last resource of
self-defence and happiness was destroyed me at the beginning of last
winter. New appointments at the University, (some of them degradations
to me, at any rate, employed for _humiliating_ purposes,) and the petty
jealousies, nay even animosities, which among men of a certain order of
intellect are the natural consequence of such changes, soon introduced
disorder into the Institution, fostered a spirit of rebellion against
me, and before the end of the first term of the present year, my course
of instruction was entirely broken up. The difficulty (which in fact was
wholly due to a shameless inefficiency of discipline,) was enveloped in
a sort of mummery, the sum and substance of which, however, was plainly
this: "that if I remained in the Institution in the unmolested enjoyment
of a peaceful life of study, my independent progress would be an
encroachment on certain colleagues of mine;" and this was in fact,
thrown out as a hint for me to leave. The rent of my private room in the
building had _already been nearly doubled_ by Prof. J. ---- for the same
reason. As the University, however, had contributed but an insignificant
item to my support, I neither considered it necessary to remove from the
building, which is accessible to all classes of tenants, nor did I make
much account of a self-made suspension of my course, although I grieved
to think of the means that had been used to superinduce such a
necessity. Prof. L----, who has always exhibited a pettiness of
disposition, altogether unworthy of a man of science, had _openly before
my eyes_ played the confidant and supporter of a disorderly student, who
on my motion was under college discipline, and the meetings of the
faculty were made so disgusting to me, that I could no longer attend to
make my reports. New methods of annoyance were devised. The council-room
of the Institution, next door to mine, was converted into an omnibus for
noisy meetings of every description--religious gatherings in the
morning--ominous vociferations during recitation time--obstreperous
conclaves of students in the afternoon--and violent political town
gatherings in the evening. Besides all this, the menials of the
Institution were corrupted into unusual insolence towards me, (among
them my special attendant,) and the vexations of this description became
so annoying to me, that for some time I had actually to do my own
chamber-work. I had almost forgotten to mention certain mysterious
_desk_-slammings in the council-room, and equally significant and
intimidating _door_-slammings, particularly at a room opposite mine,
which communicates (I believe) with a private part of the building, now
occupied by a dentist, (that sublime science having also found its way
into our college,) at unseasonable hours of the night, sometimes
accompanied with various remarks, one of which now occurs to me: "Oh,
you are not one of us!" (sung in operatic style.) The quiet of my
residence was, moreover, destroyed by horrid vociferations at all hours
of the night, before my very door, and regularly under my window, and
these were made not only by students, (of which there were only a few,
_supported in their insubordination_) but by an extra-academic body of
men and women, certain zealous religionists and their impenitent
coadjutors, evidently the abettors of my in-door enemies, _and by two of
my colleagues_. A night or week of such proceedings would be enough to
set a man crazy. What must be their effect if they continue for months?
And yet expressions like the following were perpetually ringing in my
ears:--"Go on!" "You _are_ the man!" "You are _not_ the man!" "Go on!
no, stop!" (by the same voice in the same breath.) "Out of the
Institution with that man!" (by the laurelled valedictorian of last
year.), "Stand up!" (by Prof. C----, close to my door.) "He started with
nothing!" (by the same voice in the same place). "Pray!" (by ditto.)
"You have finished!" "Go away!" "Thank God, that that man is out of the
Institution!" (by a lady member of a certain religious fraternity, on
terms of intimacy with a certain prominent politician of the
neighborhood.) "Pursue him, worm that never d-i-e-s!" (theatrically
shrieked by the same voice.) "You are a dead man! Dead, dead, dead,
dead!" (by the voice of a certain popular preacher.) "He is deceived, he
is deceived!" (by the spokesman of a body of theological students in
front of the neighboring Seminary, as I was passing.) And at times even:
"Die!" "Break!" (on the supposition that I was in embarrassed
circumstances.) "_Whore!_" even was one of the delectable cries! To
these I should add the mysterious blowings of noses (both within _sight_
and _hearing_,) frightfully significant coughs, horse-laughs, shouts and
other methods of demonstration, such as striking the sidewalk in front
of my windows with a cane, usually accompanied with some remark: "I
understand that passage so!" for example. A clique in the Historical
Society, (where I had been several times insulted at the meetings,) and
several religious coteries and secret organizations were evidently
largely concerned in the business. To these noises and sounds
corresponded an equally ingenious series of sights, so arranged as to
leave no doubt whatever, but that the impressions of my sense of hearing
were no delusion, and that there was no mistake about the authors. My
spirits and health were completely shattered by the close of winter, and
I crawled out a miserable existence, being confined to my bed most of
the time, unable to do anything but to read an hour or two a day. The
summer season emptied the University and the city, and I was relieved
from the pressure. The repose was like a gift from heaven. A stout
resolution soon consigned the terrors of the past to a _provisional_
oblivion. I collected myself, recovered my usual composure and bodily
strength, made arrangements for two additional text-books to my series,
at which after the 1st of July I began to work steadily, in the hope of
getting out of my pecuniary difficulty which the recent events of my
life had entailed. One of these is now ready for publication and will
appear in a short time. After I had fairly recovered the proper balance
of mind, I wrote to the Mayor of the city, and to Dr. Ferris, the
Chancellor of our University. To the former I complained of persecution
_ab extra_, which might be stopped by police intervention, of the latter
I demanded explanations for personal vexations and insults. Besides
having connived at, nay participated in the disorders of the
Institution, and besides having employed the menials of the
establishment to enforce a ridiculous submission to an unconstitutional
authority, the Dr. had in the presence of the Alumni of the Institution,
convened at a banquet in the Astor House, openly insulted me by saying;
"_Shall I have to become the step-father to that man?_" and again:
"_Next year I shall see another man in that man's place!_" Both these
expressions were used by the Dr. as he stood before the assembled
guests, while making a short speech
|
probable that when Cave-in-Rock and the
country about were covered with trees the place was damper than
now, for the water then slowly seeped down from the tree-covered
surface. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently dry to serve as a good
shelter not only for outlaws, who frequently occupied it, but also
for men and women going down the river in flatboats.
Today it is comparatively dry, except during the spring and
shortly after a heavy rain. Practically all the water running
through the Cave now comes from a narrow crevice in the rear, which
drains a small sinkhole in the surface. Through this opening, as
already stated, much soil has been deposited in the back part of
the Cave during the past fifty years. Nature has made practically
no changes in the Cave itself since its discovery by white men, but
the landscape has been affected by the removal of the large trees
that once shaded its mouth. A decrepit sycamore, an ash or two, a
few small maple trees, some scrub cedars, and some Virginia creeper
constitute the only vegetation now growing around the opening.
The travelers who visited Cave-in-Rock in flatboat days gave the
place more time and thought than did those who appeared after
the introduction of steamboats. The New Orleans, or Orleans,
which was the first steam-propelled boat to make a trip from
Pittsburgh to New Orleans, passed it in 1811. Not until fully
five years thereafter was the practicability of navigating the
Ohio by steamboats satisfactorily demonstrated. Local tradition
has it that the James Monroe, coming down in 1816, was the first
steamboat to land at the Cave. Thomas Nuttall, who appeared on
the scene two years later, was, as already stated, one of the
last distinguished men who floated down the river in a flatboat
and commented on the place. Leisure was an inseparable feature of
flatboat travel. With the coming of steamboats the lingering of
travelers along the river became a thing of the past. After 1820
comparatively few boats of any kind stopped at the Cave. Boats
became more numerous, but whether propelled by steam or oars, they
traveled not only faster but through a country rapidly increasing
in population, and passengers and crew stopping in this section
found better shelter elsewhere. But Cave-in-Rock was ever pointed
out as a place that “in days gone by” had been the den of flatboat
robbers. Counterfeiters and other outlaws, however, operated in the
neighborhood until as late as 1832.
The earliest record of a professional artist making a sketch of the
Cave dates back to May, 1819, when Major Stephen H. Long came down
the Ohio on the steamer Western Engineer, on his way to his Rocky
Mountains exploring expedition. In his notes on “Cave-Inn-Rock
or House of Nature” he gives a description of the Cave, and says
that Samuel Seymour, the official artist of the expedition,
“sketched two views of the entrance.” Edwin James’s account of this
expedition contains many of Seymour’s pictures, but none of places
east of the Mississippi. Efforts made in Washington to locate his
original sketches were without success.
Edmund Flagg, a traveler, journalist, and poet, who lived the
greater part of his life in Louisville and St. Louis, spent a short
time at the Cave in 1836, while on a steamboat trip gathering
material for his book, _The Far West_. He gives some of the history
of the outlaws of “Cave-Inn-Rock” and then describes the Cave and
the Island. He says the place furnishes “a scene of natural beauty
worthy an Inman’s pencil” and that “if I mistake not an engraving
of the spot has been published: a ferocious-looking personage,
pistol in hand, crouched at the entrance, eagerly watching a
descending boat.”
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CAVE-IN-ROCK ABOUT 1825
A view from the rear of the lower cave, showing burned embers on
floor, notched log (on left) leading to upper cave, and flatboats
on the river
(From the original drawing by Charles Alexander Lesueur)]
Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, writes May 19, 1833: “We
embarked on the Paragon steamboat at Shawneetown... and after
passing Cave-in-Rock Island, a long wooded island, we glided
past Cave-in-Rock, a cavern which has been drawn by Lesueur.”
Lesueur’s drawing was made about 1825. It is an interior view
looking out over the river and conveys a good idea of the Cave’s
size and form. However, the opening to the small upper cavity and
the leaning pole for climbing into it are placed a little too far
to the left.«1»
Maximilian was accompanied by his artist, Charles Bodmer, who,
during the course of his travels in North America, made eighty-one
pictures, all of which were published in 1843 in the _Maximilian
Atlas_. Most of these drawings pertain to the life of the Indians
of the Upper Missouri, and stand today as the first and best record
of the costumes of these tribes. Among the subjects presented is
his Cave-in-Rock picture, one of the two early views of the Cave
now available. Bodmer probably drew it from memory. It shows a
landscape interesting in itself, but it is an absolutely misleading
presentation of the actual scene. From no point or angle does the
view appear as drawn by him, or even suggest such a scene. By the
ordinary working of nature no such changes could have been brought
about in many centuries. The mouth of the Cave is near the lower
end of a long bluff of almost uniform height and opposite the lower
end of Cave-in-Rock Island. A camera picture of the lower end of
this bluff, made in 1917, appears among the illustrations in this
book. Bodmer’s view places the opening in a short bluff that is
more or less cone-shaped and opposite or above the head of an
island. When high water reaches the mouth of the Cave, as is shown
by Bodmer, then Cave-in-Rock Island is submerged many feet and its
banks cannot possibly be seen. This picture occurs in a number
of books, but without any comments on its gross inaccuracy. Some
reproducers have taken the liberty of adding a setting sun in the
background.
In 1916, J. Bernhard Alberts, of Louisville, made an
impressionistic painting of the mouth of the Cave. His painting is
true to the scene as it was at the time of his visit. He also drew
a pencil sketch showing a general view of the interior with the
inner edge of the mouth in the immediate foreground, the artist’s
point of view being from just outside the mouth.
Piracy and Rough Life on the River
It is not clear when Cave-in-Rock first became the headquarters of
the criminals who flourished on the Ohio, and preyed upon primitive
commerce and travel between Pittsburgh and the Lower Mississippi.
Shortly after the Revolution was under way, renegades from eastern
communities, corrupt stragglers from the American army, and
villains who had had their brutal training in western wilds, began
to seek in the Ohio valley refuge from the more orderly and well
settled communities. Samuel Mason, who had been an officer in the
Continental army, converted the cavern into an inn as early as
1797. While he occupied the Cave, and a few years thereafter, it
was known as “Cave-Inn-Rock.” It was ideally located. Every passing
boat must reveal itself to those in the Cave who had a long, clear
view up and down the river. A lookout could detect boats long
before boatmen could perceive the Cave. The bold beauty of the
bluff made it pleasant for the boats to run in near the sharply
shelving shore, and many travelers were thus simply and easily
delivered into the hands of the banditti. As an inn, where drink
and rest could be had, it decoyed them; as a scene for shrouded
crime it was perfect.
The earliest travelers on the western rivers floated or propelled
themselves with paddles and oars in small, clumsy craft. The Indian
canoe or pirogue was heavy, but was managed with skill by those
accustomed to its use. With the growing stream of settlers and the
increasing number of settlements along the Ohio and Mississippi,
there arose a necessity for larger craft that would bear heavier
burdens. This brought the flatboat era covering the period from
1795 to 1820--that quarter of a century known as the Golden Age
of Flatboating. During that era river piracy was at its height.
The lighter boats, pirogues, skiffs, and batteaux were to the
clumsy rafts and flatboats bearing heavy cargoes what submarines
and torpedo boats have been to the heavier ships in later warfare.
Inland piracy had its advantage in using the small craft on dark
nights for sudden descents and escapes.
In the midst of this period the stately steamboat age began
its development. It was inaugurated in 1811 when the first
steam-propelled “water-walker” made its laborious and astonishing
way from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. By 1820 steamboats had become
a dependable factor in traffic, and were, to river travel, what
the railroad train was later to become to the slow stagecoach
and freight wagon. It was inevitable that under steamboat
influence flatboats of all types--arks, broadhorns, Orleans boats,
keel-boats, and flat-bottomed barges--would follow the primitive
pirogues, skiffs, and batteaux into retirement, except for
neighborhood use. River piracy waned with the conditions it preyed
upon, but not until about 1830 did it cease utterly.
In society, as in nature, everything develops with opportunity and
disappears according to necessity. In the primitive age of river
craft many travelers were captured or killed by Indians bent on
revenge or pillage. These marauders were sometimes led by white
renegades. Later, pioneers floating down the Ohio or Mississippi on
flatboats came in contact with comparatively few savages, but were
exposed to a far more daring and dangerous enemy in the form of
river pirates--white men, many of them descendants of supposedly
civilized European families. These disappeared as the population
increased. Then ensued the reign of the more diplomatic river
pirates--the professional gamblers who, for a half century, used
cards and other gaming devices as instruments with which to rob
those who ventured into their society.
Such were the types of craft and men operating upon and infesting
the rivers in the early days. The country through which these boats
moved was not the country we see today. Changes in the shapes and
channels of the rivers have been numerous, only the rock-defined
reaches preserving their original contours. Appearances in detail
have greatly changed. The wonderful unbroken forests are gone.
Where they once stood are now fields and farms or cut-over forests;
every few miles there is a town. The river channels once mysterious
and uncertain are now carefully charted.
Early voyageurs going down the river had, of course, no guides and
there were no known marks to indicate their approach to any of the
features of the river as it wound through the wild, uninhabited
country. The boatmen who came afterwards carrying maps rudely
scratched, found them unsatisfactory because of inaccuracies or
lack of detail. Not until a handbook was made available, after
some years of careful compilation of river features, could the
uninitiated navigate the large rivers with any degree of safety.«2»
The numerous charts in _The Navigator_ show the curves, islands,
sandbars, eddies, and channels, and mark the location of towns and
many other places of significance. The accompanying text contains
instructions of value to the boatman, and historical data of
interest. It is curious, however, that no section of either the
Mississippi or Ohio is designated as one where outlaws were likely
to be encountered--not even Cave-in-Rock nor the mouth of Cache
River, which were long considered the most dangerous resorts on the
Ohio. In every edition of _The Navigator_ about a page is devoted
to a description of the Cave and instructions to boatmen passing
it, but there is no reference to its grim history. Zadok Cramer
was evidently a practical man, with no eye to the speculative. It
was not until 1814 that he added a few lines bearing on the Cave’s
“economic” history:
“This cavern sometimes serves as a temporary abode for those
wanting shelter, in case of shipwreck, or other accident, which
happen on the river near it. Families have been known to reside
here tolerably comfortable from the northern blasts of winter. The
mouth of this cave was formerly sheltered, and nearly hid by some
trees growing in front of it, but the rude axe has leveled them
to the earth and the cavern is exposed to the open view of the
passenger. Emigrants from the states, twenty-seven years ago used
to land here and wagon their goods across the Illinois country, it
not being more than one hundred and twenty miles from this place to
Kaskaskia on the Mississippi.”
The Cave, of course, had more than criminal uses. How on one
occasion it served as a “temporary abode for those wanting shelter”
is recorded in _The American Pioneer_, published in 1842. In this
magazine Dr. Samuel P. Hildreth, under the title of “History of a
Voyage from Marietta to New Orleans in 1805,” gives an interesting
account of the schooner Nonpareil and her voyage south, based on
data furnished him by members of her crew. The boat was built at
Marietta and started down the river April 21, 1805. She was a
sea-going vessel intended to run on the lakes near New Orleans. The
captain doubtless steered his course by a copy of _The Navigator_.
We quote from Hildreth’s account of what the crew found in 1805 at
the well-known lair of outlaws:
“As the Nonpareil approached near the mouth of this dreaded cave,
a little after twilight, they were startled at seeing the bright
blaze of a fire at its entrance. Knowing of its former fame as the
den of a band of robbers, they could not entirely suppress the
suspicion it awoke in their minds of its being again occupied for
the same purpose. Nevertheless, as they had previously determined
not to pass this noted spot without making it a visit, they
anchored the schooner a little distance from the shore and landed
in the skiff. Being well armed with pistols they marched boldly
up to the cavern where, instead of being greeted with the rough
language and scowling visages of a band of robbers, they found the
cave occupied by smiling females and sportive children. A part of
the women were busily occupied with their spinning wheels, while
others prepared the evening meal. Their suspicions were not,
however, fully removed by all these appearances of domestic peace,
still thinking that the men must be secreted in some hidden corner
of the cave ready to fall on them unawares. On a little further
conversation they found the present occupants of the dreaded cave
consisted of four young emigrant families from Kentucky going to
settle in Illinois. The females were yet in the bloom of life.
Their husbands had bought or taken up lands a few miles back from
the river, and after moving their families and household goods to
this spot had returned to their former residences to bring out
their cattle, in the meantime leaving their wives and children in
the occupancy of the cave till their return.
“Having brought, with their spinning wheels and looms, an abundance
of flax, the women spent the weary days of their husbands’ absence
in the useful employment of spinning. A large fire in the mouth of
the cave gave cheerfulness to the gloomy spot and enabled them,
at night, to proceed with their labors, while its bright rays
were reflected upon the looms, beds, and household utensils which
lay piled up along the side of the cave. By day the sun afforded
them light, the mouth of the cave being capacious and elevated,
while the roof sheltered them from the rain. They were in daily
expectation of the arrival of their husbands, when they would move
out on to their farms in company.
“A little conversation soon dissipated all suspicions of harm from
the minds of their visitors... and, borrowing from them a torch,
they explored the hidden recesses of the cave. At this time no
vestige of its former occupants remained but a few scattered barrel
staves, and the traces of their fires against the blackened sides
of the rock. The walls, even at that early day, were thickly scored
with the names of former visitors, to which they hastily added
their own, and thousands have no doubt been added since. Bidding a
warm farewell to this singular and solitary community, they entered
their boat, greatly wondering at the courage and confidence of
these lonely females. Their surprise, however, in a manner subsided
when they reflected that they were the daughters of Kentucky and
from the land of Daniel Boone.”
The Nonpareil experienced no trouble with river pirates, but was
wrecked during a storm on the Mississippi and never reached her
proposed destination. So, in one form or another, every flatboat
and other early river craft suffered more or less trouble. History
records many robberies and other misfortunes, but its pages also
show that, notwithstanding the numerous trials and tribulations,
early river life, rough as it was, was more of a romance than
a tragedy. Going down the Ohio and Mississippi proved, in many
instances, “easy sailing” compared to the flatboatman’s overland
trip north over the Natchez Trace and other wilderness roads
infested with highwaymen.
The usual plan of the river robbers was to station one or two of
their men and women at some prominent place on shore to hail a
passing boat. These decoys pleaded to be taken aboard, claiming
they were alone in the wilderness and wished to go to some
settlement further down the river, or that they desired to purchase
certain necessities which they lacked. If the boat was thus enticed
ashore, the crew saw their cargo unloaded, and plundered, or beheld
their craft continue its course down the river in the hands of the
enemy, themselves held as hostages or murdered.
Boat wreckers were another common source of great danger. Under one
pretext or another they managed to get aboard the boat and scuttle
it near a place where their confederates were prepared to make
an attack. Or, like Colonel Fluger, they waited until they found
a boat tied along the bank and then bored holes in the bottom or
dug out the caulking. When the ill-fated boat began to sink, the
fellow-wreckers rushed to the rescue and appropriated the goods
for their own use, killing part or all the crew if necessary.
Then, as now, a number of dangerous channels existed in the Ohio
and Mississippi. They were designated as such in _The Navigator_.
Near the head of some of them lived reliable settlers who made
it a business to pilot boats through for pay. Pirates frequently
succeeded in passing themselves off as trustworthy local pilots.
Boats turned over to such men for safe steering were usually
grounded and immediately thereafter delivered into the hands of
outlaws in waiting.
One of the dangerous channels, against which voyageurs were warned
by _The Navigator_, ran from the head of Walker’s Bar (a bar
beginning about two miles below Cave-in-Rock) down to Tower Rock,
and from there extended to the foot of Hurricane Island, a total
distance of about eight miles. The author of the river guide,
after devoting considerable space to directions for navigating
this channel and avoiding the Hurricane Bars, adds a suggestion:
“Just below the Cave, on the right bank, there is a person who is
sometimes employed to pilot boats through this serpentine channel,
and it is better for a stranger to pay a dollar or two for this
purpose, than run the risk of grounding on either one or the other
of these bars in low water. When the water is high there is no
occasion for a director.”
The outlaws at Cave-in-Rock turned to their advantage the
suggestion published in _The Navigator_. About ten miles above the
Cave, near Battery Rock, or on what has long since been called
the Jonathan Brown Old Place, the robbers stationed a man who
offered to pilot, for a small sum, single boats or small fleets
through this “serpentine channel.” He explained that the person
referred to by _The Navigator_ as living “just below the Cave”
was out on a visit and would not return for a week or more. In the
event the first man failed, another, standing ready a few miles
further down at Ford’s Ferry, offered his services. The pilot who
succeeded in being employed grounded the boat in front of the
Cave if, by the time he reached the place, he judged the cargo
was worth the risk and the crew could be overpowered. If more
time was required, he guided the boat to the head of Hurricane
Island. There it was either wrecked or taken safely through the
channel, the procedure depending on whether or not he judged a
profitable robbery possible. Boatmen who declined to take a pilot
aboard at Battery Rock or Ford’s Ferry were likely, if the water
was comparatively low, to inquire for a director “just below the
Cave.” The man procured there, whether a member of the Cave band
or not, invariably guided the boat safely through. Thus by helping
to maintain one reputable and reliable place near the Cave for
procuring the services of a pilot, the robbers experienced little
trouble in trapping the boats they selected for that purpose.
Although most of the prospective victims were given little
consideration until after they had come within ten or twenty miles
of the Cave, in a number of instances the river pirates began
setting a trap for a boat long before it arrived at Shawneetown.
The fact that the victims were piloted to the Cave by certain
members of a band, or enticed into the place by some other means
for the sole purpose of robbery, is recorded by many early writers;
none of them, however, gives any details. All authors who touch on
the Cave’s history publish statements based on what other men and
women heard other people had experienced while in the hands of
the outlaws. Only one instance has been found in which the victim
himself (Dr. Charles H. Webb) recited to an author the details of
how he was decoyed to the Cave and how he escaped from the men then
occupying the place. The old flatboat robbers and flatboat wreckers
left no first-hand accounts of the methods they employed.
The year 1788 roughly marks the beginning of the big inflow
of settlers into the region west of the Alleghenies, also the
beginning of counterfeiting and other outlawry at Cave-in-Rock.
Many travelers and home-seekers followed the trails and went into
the interior afoot, on horseback, or in wagons; others took the
river to some river point and either settled there, or proceeded
overland to an inland section. Thus, by “long lines of wagons”
and “great fleets of boats” the middle West became settled. In
the meantime many a small party traveled alone over the trails or
drifted down the river in a single boat or in a small fleet, into
the new and sparsely populated country, and became easy prey for
highway robbers or river pirates who were likely to appear at any
time and in any disguise.«3»
The earliest connection of the Cave with the name of any outlaw
who became famous was in 1797, when Samuel Mason, of Revolutionary
fame and hideous fate, seems to have occupied it as a main trap for
his carefully worked out scheme of river piracy on a large scale.
He erected a great rude sign on the river bank near the mouth of
the Cave, proclaiming to every passerby that his “Liquor Vault and
House for Entertainment” was open to the public. Many captains and
their crews and many flatboat passengers were lured to it. After
Mason and his family left for the South, most of the succeeding
bands, during their necessarily short stay, operated a gambling and
drinking place on the same principle.
It was a common practice among outlaws frequently to change not
only their headquarters but their names. While at Cave-in-Rock
Mason was also known as “Wilson.” Thomas Ashe, who wrote about
it, probably did not know that the Wilson he described was Samuel
Mason. Among the various men who appeared after the departure of
Samuel Mason, alias “Wilson,” was one Jim Wilson. Whether Jim
Wilson was his real name is not known. However, between Samuel
Mason as “Wilson” and a later man known as “Jim Wilson” there
has been more or less confusion for almost a century, especially
in tradition. In 1897 William Courtney Watts wrote a historical
romance, _Chronicles of a Kentucky Settlement_, in which he
presents James Ford, of Ford’s Ferry notoriety, as “James Wilson.”
James Ford was in no way connected with Mason or with Wilson, but
his presentation under the fictitious name of “James Wilson” had
added to the already existing confusion.
After James Ford’s death, which occurred in 1833--and many years
before Watts applied the name of “James Wilson” to him--a writer
published a sketch of the career of one Jim Wilson at the Cave.
This sketch is here recapitulated, not as a story that can be
verified in all its details by history, but as a semi-historical
tale which may convey a better idea of the methods, life, and fate
of the Cave’s outlaws than formal history. Only one who will make a
study of the Cave’s past--from the available authenticated records
down to some of its absurd traditions--will recognize this story
as a picture in which facts fairly divide the scene with fiction,
and painted in colors that bring joy to the hearts of readers of
dime novels. When and by whom it was written or first published has
not been ascertained. It apparently was not written before 1836,
for the author, in his introduction, attempts a description of the
Cave as it appeared that year. The writer evidently had read Thomas
Ashe’s account published in 1808, and was also familiar with some
of the Cave’s printed history and oral traditions. The story was
probably first published in an old magazine or newspaper. In 1893
it appeared, anonymously and without credit, in the _Crittenden
Press_, of Marion, Kentucky. From that weekly it was copied by many
newspapers in the lower Ohio Valley, and is now preserved, under
various titles, in many a scrap book.
This old story is interesting because it was written when stories
of the Cave were still fresh. Inaccuracies and confusions of names
and dates may have crept in, but it remains the first concise and
inherently reasonable account of how the Cave was first occupied as
a den by river criminals. In the presentation of the usual method
of the Cave’s renegades, it matters very little whether the first
of those desperate captains of crime bore the name of Wilson,
Mason, or Harpe. In this case it seems clearly the story of Samuel
Mason about 1797. The names they assumed might vary with every
flatboat or raft that passed. An alias is ever the shield of the
criminal. The story describes not only a method actually employed
by the Cave’s outlaws for many years, but also a method by which
the career of more than one of these river pirates was, as we shall
see later, so tragically terminated. The story runs, as follows:
“About the year 1809, one Jim Wilson, a flatboatman, while passing
down the Ohio, was overtaken by a terrific storm. He steered his
boat under the shelter of a cliff. On landing he observed the
opening of the cave. He was attracted by the commodious rooms with
dry ceilings and sanded floors, and resolved that on his return to
Pittsburgh he would bring his family hither.
“In the following spring Wilson’s boat again landed at the foot
of the cliff. This time he was not alone, but with him came his
wife, five children, two slaves, and William Hall, the great
counterfeiter. His boat was loaded with provisions, stores,
liquors, and arms, which he had stolen from the government
warehouse at Fort Pitt on the night before his departure. The great
cave was soon transformed into a dwelling and tavern large enough
to accommodate several travelers.
“Wilson’s object for landing and establishing himself in so
remote and romantic headquarters will be seen hereafter. A sign
was planted at the water’s edge bearing these words: ‘Wilson’s
Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment.’ This novel sign had a
magnetic effect upon the boatmen who were almost daily passing en
route to southern markets, with flatboats loaded with produce.
The boat crews were generally jovial fellows, fond of rum, rest,
and merriment, and hardly a boat passed without stopping. Many
were the guests at Wilson’s Tavern; thieves and gamblers stopped
off here and in a few months the place became infamous for its
licentiousness and blasphemy.
“Wilson had been for many years a deep-dyed criminal and only came
here that he might vary his crimes, and have a wider field for
operation. Out of his guests he soon formed a band of the most
noted robbers, murderers, and counterfeiters that, for two years,
had no parallel in modern history. Their headquarters were at the
Cave, but they had many stations along the Ohio above and below,
which were maintained for the purpose of preventing suspicion being
cast upon the genial landlord at the Cave. The principal station
was at Hurricane Island, where forty-five men were stationed all
the time.
“Each boat that landed at the Cave was captured and such of the
crew as would not join Wilson’s Gang were allowed to drift on to
Hurricane Island where they were again captured and the remainder
of the crew foully murdered and their bodies cast into the Ohio.
With new pilots and crews the boats and cargoes were taken to New
Orleans, and converted into cash which was conveyed to the Cave
through the wilderness of Kentucky and Tennessee.
“Many boats loaded with valuable cargoes left port on the upper
Ohio and its tributaries, under the guidance of experienced and
trustworthy officers. The officers and crews never returned. No
returns for sales were ever received. It soon became a mystery that
so many honorable men never came back to pay over the proceeds,
and to tell the perils of their voyage. It was many months before
any serious suspicions were created. After that it was found that
the cargoes were disposed of by entirely different crews from
those entrusted with them. There was but limited postal or other
communication in those days--letters of special importance were
carried by messengers who often fell into the hands of Wilson’s
men. Thereby they kept posted and, by changing the communication
to suit their purposes, and forwarding them by different carriers,
often thwarted the attempt of justice, and kept their whereabouts
enveloped in mystery for many months. ‘But it is a long lane that
hath no turn.’ It was finally ascertained that no tidings could be
had of any boat after it had passed certain points on the Ohio near
Wilson’s Tavern.
“A meeting of the Pittsburgh shippers was called and it was
determined to ferret out the mystery. This would be a shrewd piece
of detective work which would be attended by many dangers. A large
reward was offered for information as to the exact location of
the robber band. John Waller, a determined and ambitious man of
Maysville, Kentucky, resolved to secure the reward or perish in
the attempt. He was furnished with a cargo contributed by various
shippers along the Ohio, and with five trusted companions he set
out early in the spring of 1810. They floated with the current
many days. At last one evening they came in sight of the Cave, and
were attracted by the novel sign and also the presence of several
females on the bank, who made gestures for them to land. They held
a hasty consultation and resolved to land; a few sweeps of the
steering oar brought them to the foot of the cliff.”
That which follows this clear description of ordinary circumstances
is evidently a mixture of fact and fiction that represents the
imaginative style of the day. It is quite plain that the author
himself had not personally visited the Cave, but had relied upon
the fictions of Thomas Ashe or the reflections from Ashe’s account
that had gained circulation and belief. He accepts the mythical
“upper cave” and has the Cave divided off into rooms and a
“council chamber,” no relics of which have ever been reported by
any matter-of-fact observer from that time to this. The leader,
“Jim Wilson,” he converts into a semi-savage with matted and
tangled hair and beard, who is yet a shrewd trader and an orator of
no mean power for his day. On the occasion of the initiation of new
recruits Jim Wilson delivers a romantic and argumentative speech
that is equal to the best fiction of the times.
The story narrates graphically how Waller and his men were overawed
and compelled, under fear, to agree to join the robber band;
how they were received into it with melodramatic ceremonies and
then were oath-bound, but not fully trusted; how they made their
escape--the savage and astute robbers being, of course, fooled for
the exigencies of the event; how the Waller force combined with
its waiting reinforcements, returned, captured Jim Wilson and then
went to Hurricane Island and destroyed that part of the band; and
how eventually “Jim Wilson’s head was severed, his body buried...
the head identified and delivered to the proper authorities at
Pittsburgh... and the captors received the merited reward.” This
last point is plainly an echo of Mason’s fate.
This story of the activities of the early renegades of
civilization, and of the river pirates who occupied the Cave bears
upon its face the stamp of truth that fits neatly into practically
all traditions from about 1795 to about 1820.
Before Mason became famous, however, greater scoundrels than he
were to attract public attention, and hold it for some years.
The story of the Harpes--“Big” and “Little” Harpe--is one that
may freeze the blood as read now in the light of old records and
personal accounts that seem to bring the reader into the very
presence of these two brutes. In the security of law and order in
these days the facts seem remote, but when the sparse settlement of
the West in 1799 is realized, and the further fact that wilderness
hospitality opened doors to all travelers and admitted these
monsters freely with good people, it is possible then to conceive
the horror their deeds and presence aroused.
The Harpes--A Terrible Frontier Story
The career of the two Harpes«4» in Tennessee, southern Illinois,
and Kentucky, particularly Kentucky, at the close of the eighteenth
century has rarely been equalled in the history of crime, either in
peace or war. Its beginning was so sudden, its motives wrapped in
such mystery, its race so swift, and its circumstances so terrible
and unbelievably brutal as to justify Collins, the distinguished
historian of Kentucky, in referring to the brothers as “the most
brutal monsters of the human race.”
At that time, 1798–99, Kentucky had a pioneer population of about
two hundred thousand, which was largely centered in the new
trading and agricultural towns in the eastern part and in the rich
bluegrass country. The remainder of the state, except along the
water courses, was well nigh a wilderness. In the southern and
western portions buffalo grazed, and bear were plentiful. East
Tennessee, where the scourge of crime began, was even more sparsely
settled. This pioneer population was vigorous, rude, and accustomed
even to Indian atrocities. Among the settlers were many who, as
fugitives from justice, had deliberately sought seclusion from the
eastern states because of criminal offenses. The Ohio River was
infested with inland pirates, and the early rivermen themselves
were a rough and violent type. Isolation led well-meaning pioneers
to be generous and confiding to those whom they had tested, but
to a great degree might was right, and strangers looked askance at
each other and were prepared for the worst.
Yet such a rude and hardy people as these were gripped with horror
at the atrocities of the Harpes, at their often unmeaning and
unprovoked murders. It is difficult in these days of well ordered
government to realize the mysterious terror and excitement that
began near Knoxville in 1798 and swept through the wilderness to
the borders of the Mississippi, and across the Ohio into Illinois
like some sudden, creeping fire that breaks out in underbrush, and
grows steadily in intensity and
|
a
sufficient fortune to keep a carriage and live in good style, he
declined what was always exceedingly irksome to his feelings. He was
unoffending and amiable in his manners, to his friends and acquaintance,
of whom he had latterly a large circle; and he was neither averse to a
cheerful glass nor pleasant company. He had naturally good sense, and
his mind was not uncultivated. Mr. Cotter had at one time in his
possession, a regular journal of his life, written from day to day, for
amusement, but which a whim of the moment induced him to commit to the
flames, though he afterwards much regretted the circumstance. He died in
his 46th year, September 8, 1806, at the Hotwells, Bristol. In his last
moments he was attended by Mr. Plowden, and departed without the
smallest apparent pain or agony. He was buried in the Romish chapel,
Trenchard-street, at the early hour of six, to prevent as much as
possible, a crowd; notwithstanding which, the street was so thronged,
that the assistance of the constables, was necessary to keep the door of
the chapel, and resist the importunity of the public to behold the
interment. It is supposed 2,000 persons at least were present. The
ceremony of High Mass was performed at ten o'clock. The coffin, of lead,
measured 9 feet 2 inches in the clear, and the wooden case 4 inches
more. It was 3 feet across the shoulders. No hearse could be procured
sufficiently long to contain it; on which account, that end of the
coffin which could not be shut in, was covered with black cloth.
Fourteen men bore him from the hearse to the grave, into which he was
let down with pulleys. To prevent any attempt to disturb his remains, of
which Cotter had, when living, the greatest horror, the grave was made
12 feet in a solid rock.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.
* * * * *
STEAM CARRIAGES ON COMMON ROADS.
[One of the most accredited works upon this vital topic is _An
Historical and Practical Treatise upon Elemental Locomotion;_ by Mr.
Alexander Gordon, Civil Engineer. It shows the commercial, political,
and moral advantages; the means by which an elemental power is obtained;
the rise, progress, and description of steam-carriages; the roads upon
which they may be made to travel; and the ways and means for their
general introduction. This arrangement of the subject is exceedingly
well executed by Mr. Gordon, who has added a series of efficient
illustrations--from a diagram simplifying the high-pressure modification
of the steam-engine as applied to steam-carriages, to the last completed
Steam Drag and Carriage attached; while the most material points of Mr.
Gordon's views are fortified by a condensation of the evidence before
the select committee of the House of Commons. All this and much more is
accomplished within two hundred octavo pages, which a less economical
and therefore less praiseworthy editor would have expanded into a costly
quarto. Mr. Gordon's work has thus been planned and executed in the
right spirit: he maintains national benefits which must arise from the
adoption of steam carriages, and he seeks to place his views in the
hands of all who are immediately interested in the subject by means as
efficient as economical. We quote a few extracts, (the most interesting
to the general reader,) from the first chapter, which aims at a cursory
estimate of a few of the leading commercial, political, and moral
advantages which will accrue to the community by the substitution of
inanimate or steam power for animate or horse power, for locomotive
purposes; leaving its spirit of fairness to the just appreciation of
the reader.]
_Economy of Conveyance_.
In a great commercial country like ours, extending its ramifications to
every branch of natural and artificial produce, it is almost superfluous
to remark that a vast capital is sunk annually in the mere transport of
marketable commodities: and which is not only a loss to the seller as
being an unproductive outlay, but entails a heavy increase of expense
to the buyer also upon every article of daily consumption. Any means,
therefore, that will accelerate the conveyance, and at the same time
reduce materially the expense of carriage, bears upon its surface a
great public gain.
Expeditious locomotion, to the commercial world more particularly, in
every mercantile transaction, is equivalent to capital: and such is the
vast importance of economy of time here, that no extra expense is
considered as too great to accomplish the utmost speed. We have this
practically illustrated in the preference which society gives to a
complicated machinery put into motion at an enormous expense, to
travelling by the winds of heaven which cost nothing.
To the merchant time gained is equal to money: for time occupied in
travelling is just so much profitable employment lost. Time occupied
in the transport of goods is equivalent to so much interest of capital
spent: for a thousand pounds invested in merchandise is unproductive so
many days as the transport is tedious. That part of the capital of an
individual which is employed in the carrying of his goods to and from
market, is so much abstracted from his means of producing more of the
article in which he exerts his ingenuity and labour, whether it be in
agriculture or manufacture.
Easy communication lessens the time occupied in the transport; and a
saving of time lessens the distance, or our notion of distance. This
effects a saving of money: and a saving of money permits of a greater
employment of capital. The man who can only afford to keep one traveller
soliciting orders for his goods, will thus be enabled to keep two;
because the expense of travelling will be reduced a half. Or it may be,
he will find it more advantageous to employ the saving in the production
of a more delicate and desirable article in the way of his trade. The
increased traffic from place to place will give likewise an impulse to
business, which, in the present stagnant times, is most desirable. The
manufacturer in Scotland will find the London market more easily arrived
at: and the merchant in the metropolis will be able to get his orders
more rapidly given and executed. A conveyance which, in good management,
would be a weekly one, is, in bad management, a monthly one: and the
carrier is obliged to quadruple his charge for the transport. To meet
this charge the merchant has to add to the cost of the article, and so
on throughout the various gradations of mercantile transition, until the
consumer pays the necessarily increased price. Hence, whatever reduces
the price of transportation, reduces the price of the commodity
transported. Whatever reduces the traveller's time, reduces his claim
for compensation, and (competition being always at work) he is content
with a smaller profit upon his merchandise. If a scarcity of any article
occurs at one point of the kingdom, the monopolist there cannot continue
his increased price for any duration of time. Commerce may, in this
respect, be resembled to water, for, if not obstructed, it will always
circulate till it finds its level. An opening or channel being
furnished, an equalised supply will make its way wherever required.
Thus we see that the strength, wealth, and happiness of a nation, depend
very much upon facility of communication. The ill-defended spot in the
empire is alive to the reality, that subsidies having bad roads or a
tedious navigation to pass may arrive too late to present an effectual
resistance to a plundering enemy. The hard-working emigrant of a remote
settlement, distant from a market, feels the difficulty and loss he
sustains in bringing produce to the spot where merchants and dealers
meet for the purposes of exchange. A spot uncommunicated with may be
visited by the honors of famine, and no channel exist for conveying
thither the food required. A grievous pestilence may sweep off an
isolated people before the aid of the physician can arrive to arrest
its progress.
Such facts are obvious to even the most indifferent observers of human
society. Yet, nevertheless, there have been, and are, short-sighted
individuals, in every gradation of it, with minds and views so warped
and distorted by an ignorant selfishness, that they have opposed
every improvement which tended to make the least change in their
long-established habits. Such persons were they, who, during the last
century, promoted petitions from counties in the neighbourhood of
London, praying Parliament not to extend the turnpike-roads into remoter
parts of the country, lest these remote districts, by means of a less
expensive labour, should be able to sell their agricultural products
in the London markets at a cheaper rate than themselves!--and such in
our own day are the attempts made to put down steam conveyance. How
short-sighted we are! Did we consult our own advantage we should see
that those facilities of communication, against which we oppose
ourselves, are the growing sinews of a greater fabric of wealth and
prosperity.
Such are the numerous and important advantages, in a commercial point of
view, which will result to society from the substitution of elementary
for physical power. But even these, great though they be, are of
trifling consideration when compared with the immense benefits which
will result from the substitution when brought into operation as an
economic principle.
_Substitution of Steam for Horse Power_.
[Mr. Gordon then refers to the conclusion of political economists "that
the grand source of all our evils is _redundancy_ of population; or in
other words, an increase of animated life _beyond_ the nourishment
adequate to support it."]
The substitution of inanimate for animate power, if not the panacea which
is to cure all the evils of our condition, is at least one that comes
recommended as a matter of fact--easy of operation, and effectual in its
result. If want of food, or, in other words, redundancy of population
be the bane of the country, it does not propose to meet that evil by a
visionary project, tending in its operation to unhinge society--tedious in
its process, and ending at length in bitter disappointment--but it meets
the evil directly, substantially, and effectually, by the substitution of
food.
And how are all these immense advantages to be effected?--By the
substitution of inanimate for animate power. At present, the animate
power employed in the commercial transportations of this great kingdom is
estimated to amount to two millions of horses: each horse consumes as much
food as is necessary for the support of eight men. Hence the conversion of
its consumption to purposes of human existence would, if carried to this
practical extent, amount to a quantity of food equal to support sixteen
millions of people.
Where the product is so enormous--so vastly beyond our immediate
necessities--it is not requisite to go into any minutiae of detail. To
calculate all the gains we will leave to the political economist, as also
to bring the matter out in its fair proportions; but to establish the
matter clearly within the bounds of a safe, an easy, and practical issue,
we have merely to state, that a conversion of food from a physical to a
moral purpose, adequate to the supply of one-fourth part of the above
aggregate estimate, that is to say, to four millions, is amply sufficient
to relieve us at the present moment from that pressure of pauperism which
sits like an incubus upon the energies of the nation, and which will
precipitate us, if not timely avoided, into speedy and irretrievable ruin.
Now the suppression of the stage-horses upon our principal thoroughfares,
and of the dray-horses in the great commercial towns, may be calculated
to economize a saving of food equivalent to the supply of the above number
of human beings.
It is, perhaps, not superfluous to remark, that the amount of food,
equal to the supply of the said four millions, is not the produce of an
extended agriculture and proportionate outlay, but is just _that part_
of the annual produce of the country, subtracted from the whole, which
is at present required for the mere purpose of _transportation_--i.e. to
feed the animals used for draught,--and is consequently a dead loss as
unproductive capital.
In addition to the evil arising from such a consumption of unproductive
food, is also to be considered the very great loss consequent upon the
heavy capital sunk in _horse_ purchase. Were this viewed, as properly it
ought, as money withheld from other purposes of trade, and which might
be more advantageously invested, our capitalists and men of science
would not oppose the substitution of inanimate for animate power in the
way they have done. Neither, did the landed interest maturely weigh the
varied benefits it will produce in agriculture, would they view it in
the light of an invasion upon their respective interests. They do not
give a _quid_ without receiving a _quo_ every way as valuable. The
reduction of farm consumption--the bugbear of the project--will be
met and compensated by a steady and proportionate demand from other
quarters. Whilst in the United Kingdom, the 8,100,000 acres of land now
required to feed the horses, together with the capital sunk in their
purchase, will, when both applied to other and general purposes, amply
compensate for the exchange.
In order more readily to show one effect, let the horses be considered
only 1,000; a smaller number may not make the argument so difficult. Let
us reduce _this_ number, and the farmer may then turn his oat-ground
into wheat-ground; and instead of so much land being employed to furnish
food for a thousand horses, the same land, when turned into tillage fit
to sow wheat upon, will produce sufficient bread-corn to feed two
thousand poor families.
Again, if instead of 20,000 horses, we keep 30,000 fat oxen, butchers'
meat will be always cheap to the operative classes, whilst the quantity
of tallow will of course make candles cheap: and so many hides lower the
price of leather, and of shoes and all other articles made of leather.
Or the same quantity of land may then keep thirty thousand cows, the
milk of which will make both butter and cheese cheaper to the poor,
as well as the labouring manufacturer; all which articles are very
considerable, and of material moment in the prices of our manufacturers,
as they, in a great measure, work their trade to rise and fall in price,
according to the cheapness of their materials and the necessaries of
life. The same may be said in favour of more sheep and woollen cloths.
(_To be concluded in our next_.)
* * * * *
THE EXPECTED COMET.
The comet of Biela is approaching the earth's orbit with increasing
velocity, and towards the end of the following month it will partially
intersect the course which the earth traverses in its journey round the
sun. Happily, the comet will be in advance of the earth, so that unless
our globe augments its pace, or the anticipated visitant retards its
journey, there will be no risk of any dangerous proximity, much less of
a hostile collision. During this return, at least, it will always be
more than two hundred times the moon's distance from us; and were it,
at any future time, to approach very much nearer than the orbit of our
satellite, its influence would be too inconsiderable to affect any of
the elements of the earth's path.
This comet is about 40,000 miles in diameter, and of that class termed
nebulous, having no tail, and probably no solid nucleus. The point where
the comet's centre crosses the plane of the ecliptic is within and very
near the curve which the earth describes,--so very near, that the
outskirts of the nebulous matter of the comet might possibly, at some
future visit, envelope our planet, and would thus enclose the earth, it
is not unlikely, at its ensuing return, if it were about a month later
than the time calculated, of its intersecting the plane of the earth's
motion.
The presence of the moon during the past week has interfered with
telescopic observations, or probably the comet might have been detected
as a small round nebulosity, moving midway between the northern horn of
Taurus and the bright star Capelle, towards Gemini. There are nebulae
near its course for which it must not be mistaken.
J.T. BARKER.
_Deptford_.
_Literary Gazette._
* * * * *
NEW BOOKS.
* * * * *
THE NEW GIL BLAS
[This is, in its way, a clever book with a very un-clever title. We
expected better tact in its author, Mr. Inglis, than the adoption of the
title of one of the most successful and least imitable fictions of
modern times. The very title-page provokes a comparison between the Gil
Blas of Le Sage, and a string of romantic adventures, by Mr. Inglis; we
need not add, much to the disadvantage of the latter. It reminds us of
an attempt to cover the sun with a wet blanket. At the same time, the
merit of Mr. Inglis's Gil Blas must not be lowly rated. It abounds with
lively incident, pleasant bits and scenes of travel, and world-knowledge
very agreeably communicated, while its episodal narratives are of the
most wonder-fraught character. It has all the glitter and gaiety of
Spanish life and manners. The author discourses eloquently of "the
charming Andaluz," and other _intriguantes_--absolute Dons of fathers
and monsters of husbands--mingling "bloody-minded assassins," and
hideous wretches, with the sweet emotions of dark eyes, jetty ringlets,
and heaving bosoms. Limbs are lopped off, eyes put out, heads slivered,
and blood spilled like water; and there are scenes in dark towers and
visions of clanking chains in terrific abundance. One of the latter
description we have abridged and adapted to our pages. The hero is
convicted of murder, upon such evidence as this:--"We found the poor
dead man dead at his feet, and the sword in his hand, covered with
blood,--the murdered man lies in the ante-room run through and through."
A pretty scene of justice ensues, the fact being that the murdered man
was a noted robber who had attacked the hero, and became worsted in the
affray. The sentence is solitary imprisonment for life:]
The unfortunate persons whose crimes have subjected them to the dreadful
punishment of solitary imprisonment for life, in any of the southern
parts of Spain, are most generally sent to Tarifa.[3] Along both sides
of the port, there is a mole nearly half a mile in length; at the
extremity of which on either side, and at the entrance of the harbour,
stands a huge and ancient Moorish tower, about a hundred and sixty feet
in height above the sea. In this tower, which contains six chambers,
one above another, prisoners for life are confined; and thither I was
accordingly conveyed. It is the policy of the Spanish laws, to render
the punishment of criminals subservient to public utility; and this is
in some degree effected even by solitary confinement. The prisoners
confined in these towers are employed in turns, night by night, in
trimming the lamps--which are a beacon to the vessels at sea. From each
chamber, there is a separate ascent to the summit of the tower; so that
the prisoners never see each other, and each in his turn is obliged to
remain from night until day-break upon the summit,--part of his
punishment for the destruction of human life, being thus made
subservient to its preservation.
[3] A town in the straits of Gibraltar, the most southern point of
the continent of Europe.
From these towers there are no visible means of escape: in the chambers,
the windows are merely circular holes in walls at least six feet in
thickness; and the outside walls being entirely smooth, there are no means
of descent from the summit unless by a fearful leap of a hundred and sixty
feet into the sea; for on the side towards the town, a wall of twenty
feet high shuts out the prospect of land; serving at the same time as a
hindrance to any communication, and as an aggravation of punishment, by
shutting out from the eye of the prisoner, the cheerful lights of human
habitations, or perhaps even, it might be, the dim view of human forms. It
only requires to be added to this description, that a ponderous iron chain
stretches from one tower to the other, across the mouth of the port,
depending from fastenings situated about two feet below the summit of each,
but forming a curve by its own weight; and in the centre, reaching to
within twenty or thirty feet of the surface of the water, from which point,
other chains are attached, reaching horizontally to the towers on either
side. It is needless to say, that during the day this great chain is
lowered into the water when vessels desire to enter; but at night, it is
again raised; and there being rumours of war at this period, no ships were
admitted during the night,--the chain being a security against an enemy
entering, and cutting out vessels under favour of the darkness.
[By aid of a telescope, he recognises on the opposite tower a fair
prisoner, "the lovely Isabel," who had been confined there upwards of a
year for conspiring to murder her first husband. The hero by aid of the
chain, swings to Isabel's tower, where they concert an escape.]
As Isabel pressed closer to me, I felt, that, although far from agreeable
to sojourn in such a place, even with Isabel, this would yet be greatly
preferable to solitude. But to such a project, many serious difficulties
presented themselves: I represented to Isabel, that if I did not reach the
opposite tower that night, it would be discovered, when the food put into
my cell remained untasted, that I was gone; and as the conclusion would
necessarily be, that I had leaped into the sea, no more food would be put
into my cell, and consequently, when I did return, I should die of hunger.
"But," said Isabel, "why return ever? Providence seems to delight in
throwing us together,--and if, as unhappily seems too true, the doom of
both of us be to live and die in these towers, why should we not----"
"Live and die together, you would say;" and, in truth, there was reason
in this proposal of Isabel. "Why, indeed, should we not?" said I; but in
yielding so readily to this suggestion, I looked farther than Isabel did.
Isabel had doubtless many charms,--and here, I should at least have nothing
to fear from rivals; but that which weighed with me fully as much as the
prospect of a honey-moon, was this,--that a man who is supposed to be dead,
has greater facilities of escape,--and so, without at that time saying any
thing upon this subject to Isabel, I acquiesced in the proposal of changing
my quarters, and being her guest for the present.
"There cannot be a doubt," said Isabel, "that the Pope has long ago been
applied to by my husband to dissolve our marriage."
"And that his holiness has granted the petition, too," said I. "And
although ours be a new case, as it probably never happened before that the
idea of marrying was entertained by persons in solitary imprisonment,--yet
as there is here neither church nor priest, Heaven will, without doubt,
accept our vows, and bless us:" and thus did I become all but the husband
of Isabel.
Several days elapsed before it was again the turn of Isabel to watch on
the summit; meantime the food that was intended for one, was made to
suffice for two; we conversed in whispers, lest my embryo plan of escape
should be frustrated by a premature discovery of my dwelling place;
and even if I had looked to no ulterior advantages, from my change of
quarters, the society of Isabel would have been a sufficient reward for
the peril of my journey. But I had now concocted in my mind, a plan
of escape, which I hastened to put in execution, after having first
communicated it to Isabel, whose co-operation was necessary to ensure
its success.
It may have been already gathered, that the characteristic of the
punishment of solitary confinement in the towers of Tarifa, consisted in
the rigidness with which it was enforced: once admitted there, and no
human eye ever more rested upon the living form of the prisoner. The food
necessary for the preservation of life, and therefore, for the continuance
of punishment, was placed, and removed, by unseen hands; nor was the sound
of a human voice ever heard within these stone chambers. But to this, one
exception was provided: although it was the policy of the law, to punish
the living culprit thus severely, the church did not resign her claims to
the care of his soul; once accordingly, in every month, a holy tread was
heard along the secret passages, and an iron screen being thrown hack, the
confessor, a Franciscan friar, took his seat at a thick grating; behind
which nothing could be seen, though the confession of the prisoner might
pass to the ear of the holy man, and his counsel in return reach the ear,
or it might be, the heart, of the solitary criminal. The door by which the
prisoner first entered was never unbarred, until the hour when his coffin
was carried in and out.
The day now approached, when the visit of the confessor might be
expected, and I laid my plans accordingly, and executed them in the
following manner:
"Isabel," said I, as the slow tread announced the approach of the
confessor, "you must feign to be dead; spread the pallet opposite to the
grating, and lay yourself upon it."
I found some difficulty in prevailing upon Isabel to mock the king of
terrors; but, at length, I succeeded in persuading her,--by representing
that it was easier to counterfeit death than to meet it; and that to do
the one afforded the only chance of avoiding the other; and scarcely was
Isabel extended upon the floor, when the screen was heard to open upon
its harsh hinges, and the confessor to say, "erring daughter, approach."
"Father," said I, in a low sepulchral tone, at the same time advancing
noiselessly towards the grating.
"Holy St. Francis," said the confessor, in a voice of terror, and making
at the same time a retrograde movement from the grating, "'tis a man!"
"Father," said I, in the same unearthly tone, "fear nothing, it is no
man that addresses thee; well thou knowest that no fleshly form can
gain entrance here; it is not a man, but a spirit, with whom thou art
communing." As I spoke thus, I could hear the Friar rapidly commending
himself to the protection of the Holy Mother of God, and of all the
Saints; and I continued, "She whom thou camest to confess, is now beyond
the reach of thy counsel: her soul has gone to its heavy account, and
her body lieth there;" said I, gliding aside, and knowing well, that
although nothing could be seen from the cell through the grating, yet
all within was visible from the other side. "I am the ghost of the
murdered José Andrades;" (the husband of Isabel) and at the same time
that I made this announcement, I threw back a part of the hood that
covered my face, and the dim light from the circular hole falling upon
the upper part of the countenance, showed a visage which fasting and
confinement had already made more like the face of a dead than of
a living man, and which I had taken care to besmear with blood.
A new exclamation of horror, and still more rapid prayers, followed this
revelation.
"Here," continued I, again drawing the hood over my face, and
approaching the grate--from which I could hear the Friar retreating;
"here will I remain, in dread communion with the body of my murderer,
until it be taken hence; delay not to let this be done, else I will
speak with thee nearer anon."
The Friar being already as near to the ghost of a murdered man as he
probably desired to be, and willing to prevent the execution of this
threat of a nearer colloquy, swung the screen forward, which closed with
a tremendous clank, and the rapid footsteps of the terrified confessor
speedily died away.
"Ah, Dios!" said Isabel, "I had scarcely courage to go through my part:
when you spoke of my soul having gone to its account, I was on the point
of rising, to convince myself that I was yet living."
"Surely," returned I, "you may find courage to personate a dead woman,
when I have no hesitation in personating the ghost of a murdered man;
the stratagem succeeds; you will have but once more to play your part;
and I am much mistaken if we be not both outside of this tower before
another day shall pass over our heads;" and animated by this hope,
Isabel promised to obey my directions.
Now, it will easily be believed, that the confessor, upon leaving
the tower, would immediately communicate to the civil and spiritual
authorities, the particulars of the extraordinary interview that had
taken place; and that although doubts might at first be entertained of
the sanity of the narrator, yet, that his positive asseverations would
at length so far weigh with the alcalde, and the bishop of Ronda, who
then chanced to be making his yearly visitation to Tarifa, as to induce
them to judge with their own eyes, of the truth of what had been told to
them. I was prepared for this; and when in less than three hours, the
iron screen was heard to fall back, Isabel was again stretched upon the
ground, while I stood motionless by her side. Who were the persons that
peered through the grate, I am unable to tell, but whoever they might
be, they were quickly satisfied with their scrutiny; for when I glided
towards the grate, at the same time allowing the hood to fall partially
back, the screen was suddenly closed, and quick retiring footsteps
announced the further success of the stratagem.
However extraordinary the thing might seem, and however hard of belief,
no doubt could any longer rest upon the minds of those whom first duty,
and then incredulity, had led to the tower, that something supernatural
inhabited the chamber where lay the dead Isabel. Her, they had seen
extended on the floor; and they had seen another being, which could not be
a mortal, because well they were convinced no mortal could gain entrance
there. That it was the ghost of him who had been murdered by the inmate
of the cell, no one could doubt: and the sooner therefore the body of the
wretched prisoner could be carried out, the sooner would this spirit cease
to haunt the tower of Tarifa. It was in this manner therefore, that the
affair was argued by the confessor, the bishop, and the alcalde, among
whom the following colloquy took place:
"I suppose, gentlemen," said the confessor, "you are now sufficiently
convinced that I have told you no tale."
"Sufficiently convinced," said the alcalde; yet breathless with fear.
"There is no doubt of it," said the bishop; panting from the rapidity of
his descent from the tower.
"Why," rejoined the confessor, "I was as near to it as I am to you!"
shuffling up close to the alcalde's nose.
"Ah, Dios!" said the alcalde, drawing involuntarily back.
"'Tis certainly," said the bishop, "a stain upon the sanctity of this
catholic town, that a thing of this kind should have taken place; the
quieter the affair is kept, the better: no doubt, senor alcalde, a coffin
can he prepared to-night, to carry away the body; those who carry it, must
know nothing of what we have seen; and you, as chief magistrate, will
superintend the removal."
"Truly," said the alcalde, "'tis a duty I would rather avoid: I am a poor
sinful man, ill fitted to grapple with the powers of darkness; whereas holy
men, like my lord bishop and the good friar, can have nothing to fear."
"I fear nothing," said the confessor.
"Oh, we fear nothing," said the bishop; "and it does seem to me, that
the reverend father cannot well be excused taking a part in this duty,
as he is in some sort under an engagement to the evil spirit (crossing
himself) to see it executed."
"But," rejoined the friar, "would it not he felt by us all to be a great
security, were we in this emergency to make use of the relics which are
deposited in the church of San Salvador,--and which no one, save the
bishop, is worthy to handle?"
"'Tis an excellent suggestion," said the alcalde.
Now the bishop, desirous no doubt of paying a compliment to the alcalde
and the friar by intrusting these sacred relics to their care, in place
of taking upon himself the honourable office of being their bearer,
said:--"The relics are indeed efficacious in cases of this nature; and
while handling them, the greatest sinner upon earth has nothing to fear
from an interview with any spirit. I possess the power of delegating to
whom I will, the high honour of bearing these relics,--and into your hands,
gentlemen, I will jointly commit them; and while you are engaged in the
performance of your duty, I will invoke for you the protection of our
tutelary saint."
Such, I say, was the colloquy that took place between the bishop, the
alcalde, and the friar,--and when this proposal was made by the bishop,
there can be no question that the fears of the alcalde were greatly
allayed; and that the qualms even of the friar were in some degree
quieted--so great was the confidence placed in the virtues of the relics.
Meanwhile, the hours passed away, and night came. I entertained little
doubt, that this very night the coffin would be sent for Isabel; trusting
to the efficacy of the threat held out to the confessor; and I prepared
accordingly. "You will have nothing to do, Isabel," said I, "but to follow
close at my heels." In thus providing for the escape of Isabel, I confess
it was chiefly a regard for my own safety that prompted me to this. A
sojourn of between one and two weeks in the tower, upon half the miserable
pittance of a prisoner, had greatly cooled the fever of my love; and I
foresaw that a companion would, in no small degree, interfere with my
projects of independence, and might even perhaps lessen the chances of
my ultimate escape,--but then, if Isabel were left behind, or could be
prevailed upon to allow herself to be put into her coffin, it was too much
to expect of her, that she would permit it to be consigned to the earth
without giving some audible demonstration of being alive; and if one part
of the trick were detected, threats or punishment would soon discover all
the other parts of it; and my recapture would no doubt be the consequence.
Besides--for why should I conceal the virtuous movements of my mind--I felt
a repugnance in leaving Isabel to perpetual imprisonment, or to the chance
of being buried alive; but feeling at the same time, that if successful in
delivering her from confinement, I should in that case have sufficiently
acquitted myself of obligations, and satisfied my scruples, I resolved that
upon the first favourable opportunity I would dispose of Isabel, and
recover my independence.
And now, the crisis was at hand. Slow, heavy steps, as of persons
carrying a burden, were heard approaching: other, and more hesitating
steps, mingled with these. At length they reached the massive iron door,
and the burden was put down. The thickness of the door was too great, to
permit the words spoken without to be heard within; but for some time
the monotonous sound of a voice continued--doubtless, a prayer of length
and efficacy by the Franciscan. The voice ceased; the chains and bolts
were one by one withdrawn; the door slowly swung back, and a glare of
flambeaux flashed into the cell. Isabel lay on the pallet, while I stood
motionless in the middle of the floor--my face turned towards the door,
and my hood partly thrown
|
from here on the top of
the pointer--down to the concrete circular top of the sundial. Hundreds
of feet down there, a vast, shining moonlit surface spread out now to
the blurred horizon! Huge pits, gullies, ravines were inky black.
On the jagged spires and little butte-tops the moonlight was molten
silver. It was a weird, naked scene of gray and yellow-white rocks,
fantastic as a Lunar landscape!
Then just for a moment, with mental viewpoint changed, Carter envisaged
the actuality. How big, compared to his original six-foot stature, was
he now? A sixteenth of an inch perhaps? If his father were here in the
garden, bending close over the sundial pointer with a light, he might
still be able to see him and the girl as they struggled up the sloping
narrow top edge of the sundial pointer!
Amazing how nothing is absolute, but wholly comparative to something
else! He had told Lea that they were not going very far! Only from the
house to the sundial in the garden. But, based on his present size, his
father and Alice off there in the house now, were at least sixty or
seventy miles away!
"This is the valley," Lea panted. "I can recognize now. It almost
closed upon me as I grew large. I can remember climbing up to here."
The edges of the giant upward slope had drawn away, so that with
tumbled boulders intervening, Carter could no longer see them. He and
Lea were in a depression, like a huge cauldron with its scooped-out
bottom almost level--a place a hundred feet in diameter. Steadily the
crawling expansion of all the scene continued. It seemed a uniform rate
of expansion now.
"That pellet lasts a long time, Lea." He tried to grin at her. "Don't
you suppose its effect is about over?"
"Oh, no! There is a great distance yet."
Distance; size! Meaningless terms. He and Lea--as his father would
view it--were not going very far in terms of distance! Just two
tiny creatures, almost too small to be seen, struggling on the
one-eighth-inch-thick top of the sundial pointer!
"You say we go into a valley?" he suddenly demanded. "I don't see any
valley."
"This one," the girl said.
A few feet from them there was a rift, like a little crescent slash.
A foot wide and twice as deep, it began here and curved off into the
distance. But presently it was a gully--a ragged, curving little
canyon fifty feet wide with broken walls that towered above them as
they went into it.
"I climbed out from here," Lea said. "I am sure it was just about here
where nearly I was crushed. But it looks so very different now." She
was puzzled as she gazed about them--gazed at what now was a broad,
curving valley with great mountainous sides towering up into the
luminous darkness overhead.
"Look here," he said, "I'm getting the hang of this. The secret is not
to wait until you're too small before going anywhere. Which way next?"
She was still puzzled. And then she brightened. "Why, it is right here.
I see it now."
It was a steeply descending little chasm. It had been a mere crack a
moment ago so that she had not recognized it. Now it was a ten-foot
rift, with a bottom smooth as black marble--a slide steeply descending
into darkness.
Carter peered dubiously. "How far down is it?"
"Not far. I was so big, I jumped up just as these walls almost closed
upon me."
He and the girl were very much smaller than that now. They lay down,
feet first, at the top of the slide. For a moment he hesitated. How far
down would it be for them in this size? But every moment of hesitation
was making that worse!
"All right, Lea. Here we go."
Half sliding, half climbing, they started. The smooth, marble-like
slide had roughened. Little stones began sliding with them. "Easy!" he
gasped. "Don't go too fast!"
He clutched her; they slid together a dozen feet; wildly scrambled to
a stop. Then Lea lost her foothold. He gripped at her, and lost his
own. Then they were bumping, rolling with a clatter of loosened stones
coming after them. And then the terrified Carter was aware of a fall.
And a rock struck his head with a bursting roar of light as his senses
slid off into the soundlessness of oblivion....
* * * * *
He came to himself with the knowledge that Lea was holding him,
kneeling beside him in a luminous darkness. "Oh, you are all right
now?" she murmured anxiously.
"Yes. I guess so." Dizzily he sat up. "What happened?"
"We fell."
"You--it didn't hurt you?"
"No. I guess not much."
The action of the drug had worn off. As his head cleared he saw that
the rocks were motionless; the ground on which he sat at last was
steady. Around them now was a great void of luminous darkness with
an undulating landscape of naked rocks dimly visible. In a moment
it seemed to Carter that his eyes were becoming accustomed to the
darkness. He could see, far away in the distance where the ground rose
up seemingly to meet the sky.
"Shall we take another pellet now, Lea?" he suggested at last.
"All right," she agreed.
Again they took the drug; and gazed appraisingly about them as the
luminous, naked landscape crawled and shifted with its outward, upward
motion. Tremendous journey downward into smallness! Carter had had
no conception of the immense new distances which would open before
them as they dwindled. For another hour, then two hours--three hours
perhaps--they ran, and walked and climbed downward. Lea, with judgment,
perception and memory far greater than any Earth-girl could have, had
remarked well the main features of her upward climb, so that now she
could recognize them. But more often than not, the way was obvious--by
mathematical law, it was usually the first large aperture to open near
them. Soon Carter was nimbly alert to get into it before it was too
large, so that often a step or two downward, or a drop of six feet or
so, would represent a long and dangerous descent if they had waited
until they were smaller.
Again the drug wore off. "Shall we rest again?" he suggested.
She assented, and he made her lie with her head cushioned by his lap.
Around them the phosphorescent darkness showed distant wilds of barren
wastes. It was a ragged plateau here, with giant cliffs in the distance
that rose thousands of feet against the blurred purple sky. He and Lea
had jumped down from those cliffs only a little while ago--and it had
been a drop of only waist high.
Poor little Lea.... No wonder she had been terrified when she made
this weird journey alone! Was she asleep now? He sat gazing drowsily
down at her head on his lap; her delicate little profile, with eyes
closed, her pale-gold hair framing her face, never had seemed so
beautiful as now with the glowing phosphorescent of the rocks upon it.
The luminous light made her delicate skin take on an added opalescent
look. How beautiful she was! She would be radiant down there among
her own people. They would be very glad to see her. That young fellow
Artone--he no doubt would be especially glad to see her. She had said
that Artone was handsome and courageous. She was very fond of him, no
doubt....
Perhaps Carter himself had dozed a little, here with his back against a
rock. His fingers were entwined in a lock of Lea's pale-gold hair which
he had been caressing. And suddenly it seemed that he heard something
moving near them. It snapped him into startled alertness.
"Lea, wake up!" he whispered. He shook her a little. "Lea--"
"Oh--yes, George?"
"Quiet! Not so loud! I thought I heard something!"
He held her against him as she sat up-right. Staring over her shoulder,
he could see nothing but the tumbled spread of crags around them. Then
the sound came again--a scratching, scuttling tread as though something
gigantic were scampering on the rocks.
"George--" Lea faintly screamed. Her hand pressed her breast in
terror as she shrank back against him. From around a nearby boulder
a tremendous insect had come scuttling--a monstrous, reddish oblong
thing, with a pinched body twenty feet in length and crooked jointed
legs. With huge waving feelers, it stood for an instant motionless. Its
great compound eyes, like clusters of tiny lanterns, glared balefully.
And then without warning it came lunging at them!
* * * * *
Carter and the girl scrambled to their feet. The monstrous insect came
with scuttling, scratching tread. Its antennæ, waving from the top of
its ugly round head, furiously lashed. The mandibles of its great jaws
worked as though with anticipation of devouring these tiny victims.
"Lea--this way--jump--"
They scurried sidewise. It flashed to Carter that they must take the
drug--the enlarging drug--grow large to fight this horrible adversary.
But there was no time now to get out the vial. Frantically they darted
behind a little group of rocks. The huge red insect, like a charging
bull, went past them. Then, fifty feet away, it stopped; reared up on
its two hind legs as though puzzled. The luminous radiation from the
rocks showed it more plainly now--long bulging body with six crooked
legs; body pinched in the middle grotesquely like a spindly waist so
small that it seemed as though the twenty-foot body might break in half.
"It doesn't see us, George--"
"Quiet!"
They crouched among the rocks. There seemed no place else they could
hide. Could they out-distance the horrible thing in a straightaway
run? Carter did not think so; certainly he did not dare try it. He was
fumbling with the drug-vial now. And then the monstrous insect saw
them! It whirled; dropped to its six legs. The two great compound eyes
again were glaring; and now on the top of its flattened, smooth-shelled
head, near the sockets of the waving feelers, three other little eyes
were visible--gleaming spots of light.
"Here, Lea--take these pellets--quickly--"
The giant insect was coming forward again, more slowly this time as
though cautiously to stalk its tiny prey. Carter dropped two of the
pellets into the trembling girl's extended palm; and took two himself.
They were the violet ones--the diminishing drug. In the panic of the
moment he could not select the others. His head reeled as he took the
double dose, but he clung to Lea. In the swaying phantasmagoria of the
luminous scene, he was aware that the monstrous scuttling thing again
was charging head on. The rocks here were swaying, enlarging with a new
acceleration, the spaces between them rapidly opening up.
In those horrible seconds, there was nothing Carter could think of to
do but fling himself and the girl flat on the ground, squeezing into an
opening which a moment ago would have been too small for them. Vaguely
he was aware of the sound of the monster's claws as they scratched on
the rocks. It came with a rush. It was a monster thirty or forty feet
long in a moment. Carter had a dim vision of the broad under surface of
the tremendous body as it scrambled almost directly over him--scuttling
headlong over the clump of rocks among which its dwindling prey were
crouching.
"Now, Lea--up! Run!"
They staggered over the swaying, outward-crawling ground. In a moment
Carter turned to look back. Far behind them in the glowing darkness,
the insect again had reared up, vainly searching for them--a titan
thing now, its reddish body looming a hundred feet or more above the
ground. For a second or two it showed etched against the blur of sky,
its eyes glaring like distant lighthouse lamps. Then an expanding
cluster of nearby rocks intervened and they could no longer see it.
"We've got to be careful, Lea. Do things quickly or we'll get lost
in size." With the attacking monster gone, Carter's wits came back
to make him aware of a new danger. They had not intended to take
this double dose of the diminishing drug. Gripping the girl, Carter
stood unsteadily, peering around at the swaying scene. The apparent
enlarging of the landscape was greatly accelerated, so swift that it
was dizzying. But he could still recognize the main familiar features.
Here was the rift into which they had determined they must go....
* * * * *
The doubled drug, though accelerated in action, seemed to last no
longer than a smaller dose. But it was two hours or more of wild
scrambling. Then at last Carter was aware by the visible slowing of the
expanding scenes, that again it was wearing off.
"Well, thank God for that, Lea," he murmured. "Don't let's try anything
like that again."
They were resting, preparing to take more of the drug, when on the
bottom of Lea's ragged short shirt Carter saw a tiny ant crawling,
evidently disturbed by the movement. He stared; then he reached,
squashed it between thumb and forefinger.
"Just an ant," he said. "But those red ones can bite. You must have
gotten it on you in the garden when we left." A sudden thought made his
jaw drop. A red ant--an eighth of an inch long maybe--six legs--a body
pinched in the middle....
"Why, good Lord, Lea," he gasped. "There could have been more red ants
on us. One of them dropped off while we were getting small--then while
we slept it found us and attacked us! That was the monster that nearly
got us!"
Just an ant! What an amazing difference size could make!
Surely they still had much to learn about this weird traveling!
Carter could see that the cliffs here were honeycombed with
tunnel-passages and cave-mouths. After resting a while they took more
of the drug and went on.
They merely touched the pellet to the tongue. The dim landscape began
slowly opening; and at intervals they repeated the tiny doses of the
drug. They were walking forward, Lea eagerly leading now. To Carter
it seemed that they had mounted a hill, topped a rise--emerged at
last into the open. He stood amazed. The void of sky here suddenly
showed infinite distance--a gigantic black firmament. In a great dome,
myriads of stars were glittering--gems strewn upon the black velvet of
the heavens, with faint effulgent patches of remote nebulæ, star-dust
strewn across the sky!
"There--the sky of my world," Lea murmured. "We need more of the drug
now, George. Still, we are so very big--it would be dangerous to go
forward in a size like this."
They tasted the drug several times. Lea would not let him move more
than a few steps each time down the small declivity. Then they came to
where the ground now seemed fairly level. It slowly shifted and crawled
under their feet as they dwindled. And suddenly, as they walked slowly
forward, Carter was aware that the ground wasn't rocky under them now.
It was softer, with little scrunching ridges and lumps which he could
feel through the battered soles of his shoes.
"There is the lake," Lea said presently. Her hand flung out with a
gesture. He stared to one side with a new awe. Twenty or thirty feet
away he had noticed a little patch of yellow sheen on the ground. But
it was hundreds of feet away now--a pool of shimmering water with a
path of glowing starlight upon its rippled surface. Behind it there
seemed to be wooded hills... tiny trees....
* * * * *
Quite suddenly--so suddenly indeed that the thing momentarily made
Carter's head reel--his viewpoint changed. As though his eyes were
thousands of feet in the air, he felt himself dizzily staring down
at a little town of streets and buildings that clustered along the
nearer lakeshore. He saw himself as he actually was, a monstrous Titan,
standing here with his head reared thousands of feet into the sky and
Lea's world shimmering peacefully in the starlight almost at his feet!
The ground under them was still expanding from the last small dose of
the drug. The shining lake and the little city were growing larger,
seeming to rise up; but they were also visually receding.
"We sure better start walking forward," Carter suggested. "It'll be an
awfully long walk if we don't make speed before we get much smaller."
She agreed, and they hastened their pace. The ground crunched audibly
now under their tread. Presently Carter could hear that it was a
very queer crunch--a swishing, crackling of tiny sounds. Puzzled,
he suddenly stopped and bent down. Under his feet a tiny forest was
spread--strange-shaped, gray-blue trees, none of them more than an inch
or two in height. Beneath his tread they were mangled--tiny furred
twigs mashed and strewn, and some of them thrust by his weight into the
soft ground.
Slowly the forest rose up, closed over their heads. Dark glades were
here now. The soft air was perfumed by the flowers. The phosphorescence
of the ground, more apparent in this arboreal dimness, streamed up to
meet the effulgence of starlight which filtered down from overhead.
It was a peaceful, glowing forest of strange twilight. And suddenly
Carter was aware of the stirring of bird-life in the trees; the sound
of insect life under foot. New realms of infinitesimal smallness!
"Taroh evidently hasn't started anything while you were gone," he said.
"Everything looks okay here. No need to worry over Taroh now, Lea. Not
with us here, with the drugs. Your world is in no danger now."
No danger? Within the city gates close ahead a sudden shrill cry
rose up and floated out over the glowing forest. A cry of startled
wonderment; of fear. Then others took it up--a chorus of terror within
the little city. Along the top of the city wall the figures of the
sentries, etched against the sky, were running.
"Why, what the devil--" Carter murmured.
Lea, in a panic, was gripping him. "Oh, George, look--off there by the
lake!"
Far off beyond the crescent tip of the starlit lake a giant figure
loomed! The starlight painted a huge man's head and shoulders--bullet
head of close-clipped hair.
"Taroh!" Lea gasped.
Monstrous enlarging giant! He stood for a moment, head and shoulders
above the forest trees, peering down at the lake and the little city.
And then he came striding forward!
* * * * *
"Lea, dear--" Carter was clutching her by the shoulders. "Lea, you run
on into the city. Find your father--you stay with him, Lea."
"Oh, George--what is it you do? The enlarging drug--"
Hastily he dumped the pellets into his palm. The white ones this time.
How many should he take? He swallowed two; replaced the others.
"George--" He felt her gripping him as his senses reeled.
"George--" She gasped it in terror as she saw him towering beside her.
"It's all right--I'll take care of Taroh. Run, Lea! Run--"
Her little face was down at his waist. For a second she stared up;
terrified--and wistful.
"You will--come back, George?"
"Yes. I'll come back--" He gave her a gentle shove; he stood staring as
he saw her dwindling figure dart between the dwindling trees. Then he
turned and ran back. Soon he was threading the narrowing spaces between
the trees which were hardly as high as his head....
Where was Taroh now? In the swooping, shrinking scene, for a minute or
two Carter had wildly run away from the city. He was stooping now,
trying to keep below the dwindling tree-tops. Momentarily he did not
see his adversary. But off in the distance there was the crackling of
breaking twigs. It sounded like brush-fire. Abruptly it occurred to
Carter that he did not dare delay any longer. Taroh, gigantic, in a
moment might be demolishing the city. He stopped his advance; waited
a moment and stood erect. The trees were well below his knees now. A
hundred feet or so away was a patch of shimmering water like a great
pool. He could see the spread of little city beside it, the tallest of
its buildings not so high as his waist.
Off to the left was Taroh. Carter's heart leaped with triumph. Taroh
seemed now not much more than a head taller than himself--massive
chest and shoulders garbed in a leather garment, with knee breeches of
leather beneath. A stalwart, heavy-set fellow. To Carter's viewpoint he
was some seven feet tall. But he seemed shrinking a trifle. Carter was
overtaking him in size!
Taroh saw him now! The starlight showed a look of amazement that for a
second spread on his evil, heavy-featured face. Then he whirled from
the edge of the pool; and as Carter darted backward to lure him away
from the city, like a bull Taroh came charging, lunging, crashing
through the tiny trees. He was far enough from the city now--Carter
gauged it, and then suddenly turned, faced his adversary and then
leaped for him.
The impact of their bodies knocked Carter backward. He fell, with
his huge antagonist on top of him. It was the weight of a powerful,
thick-set three-hundred-pound man nearly a foot taller than himself. He
felt big arms around him; saw Taroh's face, contorted with rage. Locked
together, they rolled, mangling the tiny forest. Then, despite Carter's
agility, he felt himself pinned, with his adversary sprawled on top
of him. A slowly shrinking adversary? To the panting, lunging, wildly
twisting Carter it seemed so. But it was a negligible shrinkage now.
He felt Taroh's powerful hands at his throat. Over him the bullet head
was etched against the starlit sky. Then the evil face pressed down,
leering, triumphant, with muttering floating words, and hot panting
breath.
Carter's senses were whirling. The strangling fingers at his throat had
shut off his breathing. His head began to roar. Wildly he fought to
get loose, but could not.... The end for George Carter... Lea--poor
little Lea--this would be the end for her and her people also... all
doomed....
* * * * *
In those terrifying, strangling seconds, dimly Carter was aware of
the shrinking ground pulling in under his threshing body. The crushed
forest was like thick mangled fern-clumps. Was this water here? One
of his flailing arms went down into a little puddle beside him. His
hand struck a rock in the water. Instinctively, with fading senses,
he gripped it; heaved it up, dripping; tried to crash it on Taroh's
head, which was close above him. He heard his adversary grunt. It
was a glancing blow; but Carter was aware of the strangling fingers
momentarily loosening at his throat. He gulped in the blessed air; and
with clearing head, despairingly he lunged, broke loose and heaved
Taroh off.
Abruptly the crouching Taroh's hand went to his mouth. He was taking
more of the enlarging drug! Carter tried to do the same. But he had no
time; with a roar, again his adversary sprang at him. They clinched;
staggered, but both kept on their feet. And within Carter's arms now
he could feel the bulk of Taroh expanding! A rapid expansion. Soon he
would be ten feet tall.... You couldn't win a rough and tumble like
this against a giant ten feet tall.... Was this a rocky wall here
beside them?... It seemed that Carter dimly could see looming rocks.
Despairingly he was trying to break loose from Taroh, get away long
enough to take more of the drug. But his triumphant antagonist was
holding him as they staggered on their feet. Taroh was content to
clinch. His massive body was horribly huge now--so huge that Carter's
face was pressed against the chest of the leather jerkin.
It was now or never. Despairingly Carter knew it. In another minute he
would be a puny child in the grip of this monstrous growing giant. He
could see now that there was a towering rock wall here beside them.
Carter's failing hand struck it. Would some of the rocks be loose?
The dwindling wall pressed forward against him like a thing alive. His
despairing fingers roved it. A loose chunk of rock--he found one. It
was too large to grip. Then, in a moment, it had shrunk so that his
fingers encircled one of its jagged ends. Desperately he tugged; tore
it loose. It was a chunk of metallic rock as big as his head. With all
the power he could muster, he crashed it sidewise against Taroh's huge
temple. It was a direct blow, this time. Carter seemed to hear the
gruesome cracking skull. He felt the huge arms around him loosen, drop
away. For a second Taroh seemed to stand balanced, with buckling knees.
A dead man on his feet. Then he fell, lay sprawled on his back with the
inch-high forest trees crushed beneath him.
And one of his outstretched dead arms struck across a rill of
shimmering water--a river that backed up against the Titan arm, then
turned aside and went roaring off through the mangled forest!...
* * * * *
At the city gates the running Lea had paused. She could hear that the
city was in a wild turmoil of terror; shouting, running guards; people
awakening in the middle of the time of sleep; appearing in windows or
on rooftops; shouting at each other, or running out into the streets,
gathering in milling, terrified groups. All staring at the monstrous
fighting giants that loomed above the distant forest trees beyond the
end of the lake.
And at the city gate, unnoticed by the gathering crowd, little Lea
stood alone, gazing. Only she of everyone, knew the meaning of that
weird combat. Which of the distant struggling giants was George? At
first she could not tell. And then she saw him....
Combat of Titans. Waist high above the forest trees and steadily
looming higher, they stood swaying out there by the end of the lake.
Then presently they fell, with a cataclysmic distant roar as they
crashed down. She saw a huge arm go down into the lake. George's arm!
Her heart seemed stuck in her throat as breathlessly she stared.
Was George winning? His hand, with a dripping boulder as big as her
father's castle perhaps, came heaving from the lake. The distant
dripping water was a monstrous opalescent cascade in the starlight.
Then a great wave from it came surging down the lake. It beat with
a roar against the city embankment; some of it rolled up into the
streets, so that the terrified people there rushed screamingly back.
The giant figures were on their feet again. She could not see them
clearly. They were so far away now--just blurred monstrous shapes
looming into the sky. Fighting men, each of them bigger than all the
city of Helos. Then presently they were fading shadows, big as all the
sky, blurring with it. The roaring sound of them was only a monstrous
fading whisper. And then they were gone.
Was the battle over? Who had won?... To each of us, himself is the
center of the Universe.... The white-faced, trembling little Lea stood
at the city gate staring at the empty luminous distance. And because
she was a woman, she wanted George to have won--for herself, as well as
for the fate of her people....
* * * * *
In the lamplit Carter living room, George sat with his father and
Alice. He was in his bathing suit; ragged, dirty and blood-smeared. He
had told them now of his weird experience; how he had killed Taroh;
and then, still getting large, had come on and emerged again into his
normal Earth-world....
"You've still got some of the drugs?" Professor Carter said finally.
"Good Lord, George--a trip like that, you could have been killed a
hundred times. You accomplished your purpose--I'm glad of that. Taroh
is dead. No use trying to connect that world with this one any further.
It's against nature. And those drugs--the most diabolic things that
exist in the world today. I'll demonstrate them to our scientists--then
we'll have them destroyed."
Did the blind little Alice perhaps feel differently? Her sensitive
fingers caressed the stubble of beard on George's blood-smeared face.
"In the morning you'll tell me all about Lea?" she murmured. "I--I
really loved her, George."
"Yes--yes, of course I will," he agreed. He avoided his father's demand
for the drugs. "In the morning, Dad," he said. "Don't worry--I'll be
careful of them. You and Alice better get to bed now. For me, I want a
bath and shave. And a lot of sleep. I'm about all in."
He kissed his father affectionately. His caress as he embraced his
blind little sister lingered for just a moment.
"Good night, Alice dear."
"Good night, George."
There was no one to see young George Carter as, later that night, he
furtively tiptoed downstairs. Quietly he left the house, went down to
the little rock garden where the moonlight gleamed on the old sundial
and its metal pointer. And he did not come back....
That was more than a year ago. They found his scrawled little note:
"Don't worry over me--I'll return shortly."
But so far, he has not. The sundial is in the Carter living room
now; the room is closed off and never used. If you go to the small
New England village, perhaps Professor Carter would let you see the
sundial. A microscope has been erected over it. A light always shines
on the old metal pointer.
Professor Carter is somewhat a grouchy, dogmatic old fellow. You might
not like him. But despite that, there is never a day passes that for
hours he does not sit at the microscope, peering downward so futilely
little of the way, straining his eyes, hoping and praying that his son
will return.
And often, too, the blind little Alice sits there, listening, waiting
for the tiny voice which will tell her that her brother has emerged.
She is sure he will come; it would not be like him to go and never
return at all. She wishes, too, that he would bring Lea back with
him....
If you should go to see the Carters, go at night. Gaze up at the
immensity of the distant stars, the faintest nebulæ over the house.
They are thousands, millions, trillions of light-years away--distances
beyond conception of the human mind. Then go in and stand by the
sundial in the Carters' little living room. You'll see, quite plainly,
the tiny abrasion on the narrow top edge of the triangular sundial
pointer. Lea's world, infinitely distant, beyond the reach of any
microscope, is there--her world with its own remote heavens, and its
own myriad tiny atoms--and each of them holding still other infinitudes
of smallness.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl from Infinite Smallness, by Ray Cummings
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM INFINITE SMALLNESS ***
***** This file should be named 61698-8.txt or 61698-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/6/9/61698/
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
|
?"
"As soon as I can arrange it. And you're coming with me when I get the
summons to his headquarters, depend on that, Jack. Your part in this
affair is just as important as mine."
Tom put the cage with its cooing inmates in their room. Then he started
out to try to get into communication with the commanding general. He had
met him once by mere chance, but he hardly believed General Petain would
remember him in the least.
The action was about over for the day. The Crown Prince had once again
thrown a heavy storming party forward in the endeavor to make a breach
in the French lines, through which he could pour the veteran reserves he
had in waiting. But, as had often happened before, he counted without
his host; and when the sun went down all he had to show for his stroke
was a greatly increased casualty list.
The French could not be moved.
Tom understood how to go about it, and in the end managed to get an
obliging French captain whom he knew very well, to carry a message to
the commander-in-chief to the effect that he had news of great
importance to communicate. Just as Tom expected would be the case, this
brought back a speedy answer.
"You are both to come with me, young Messieurs," said the captain, his
eyes sparkling with interest, for Tom had told him enough to excite his
curiosity, and he knew the Americans would not aimlessly take up the
precious time of the general. "Our valiant commander is tired after a
strenuous day; but never is he too weary to attend to duty; and he
already finds himself interested in everything you brave young airmen
attempt. So please accompany me to headquarters."
Shortly afterwards the boys found themselves face to face with General
Petain.
CHAPTER IV
PRAISE FROM THE GENERAL
General Petain received the pair with his accustomed kindness. He loved
youth, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure as he gave each of them a
hand.
"My time is limited, I regret to say, my gallant Americans, or I should
gladly ask you all manner of questions concerning your own country. We
are all anxious to know when the great republic across the sea will
decide to cast her decisive influence into the scales to bring us the
victory we await with much patience. Tell me now what this strange thing
is you have come across to-day."
Tom waited for no second bidding. He realized how tired the general must
be after a strenuous day in keeping his finger on the pulse of the whole
front, where the fierce German attacks had been hurled without success.
Accordingly he started at once his tale of how they had been given a day
off for rest, and, having a love for hunting in their veins, had
borrowed an old shotgun and started forth. Without wasting any time in
useless descriptions he quickly reached the point where the pigeon was
shot.
Jack, having nothing to say just then, contented himself with watching
the various shades of expression that flitted across the face of the
commander. At mention of the pigeon his eyes sparkled, and he leaned
forward with an air of expectancy, as though anticipating what would
come next.
Then, as Tom produced the message written on the thin but tough paper
and handed it to the general the French officer eagerly scanned it. Jack
also noticed that he did not appear disappointed because he could not
immediately read the baffling communication. Of course it would be
written in some secret code; that was to be expected.
"It is fortunate," remarked the French officer, "that I have on my staff
one who is considered an expert at solving any and every species of
cipher code. He will speedily figure it all out for me, and then we
shall see what news this spy was transmitting to his commander. Please
continue your story, which is very interesting, and in which your part
does you both credit."
Tom, thus encouraged, went on. He told of their further search for the
mysterious man who had set the homing pigeon free after attaching the
secret message to it.
When he presently told of coming on the ruined farmhouse, and
discovering the ozier cage containing two additional pigeons, just where
the spy had left them in his hurried flight, the general fairly beamed.
"It is splendid news you have brought me--you aviators from our sister
republic across the sea," he remarked exultantly, as though already in
his fertile mind he could see great possibilities looming up whereby
those pigeons might be made to serve a purpose.
The story was soon finished. Tom, of course, thought it necessary to
tell of having been fired on while on their way back to the aviation
post, though no harm had resulted. He did this not for the purpose of
impressing the general with the idea that they had run any great
personal risk, but because it might have some influence on the plans the
officer probably had in mind.
After all had been told the commander again shook hands with both of the
air service boys. This indicated, as Tom well knew, that he had given
them all the time he could spare and that a dozen important things were
awaiting his attention, so he saluted and turned to depart.
"This may prove to be a most important thing you have discovered," the
general halted the aviators to say warmly. "The cipher will be solved,
and then, if the facts warrant it, we may have another written that can
be sent forward by one of your birds. You will give them over into the
charge of an officer whom I shall dispatch back with you to your
quarters. That will be convenient, I suppose?"
Tom hastened to assure him that they had expected just such a thing, and
had hoped that the two captured pigeons might prove the means of leading
the Crown Prince's forces into some sort of trap.
The general's black eyes snapped on hearing Tom say this.
"Ah! I see that you too have thought it out!" he exclaimed
enthusiastically. "Some day perhaps you may have command of an army, and
exercise that talent with glorious success. France thanks you."
Both boys were deeply moved by their brief interview with the busy
commander-in-chief of the French forces. They did not feel any
humiliation at being addressed as "my children," knowing that it was a
term of endearment used freely by officers high in command when
addressing, those in the ranks. In fact, the French army is very much
like a big family, the men loving those they serve under.
"Well, that job's over," remarked Jack, heaving a sigh of relief when
they were on their way to their quarters, accompanied by a jaunty
captain who, Tom believed, must be a member of the general's staff.
"I'm glad to have had such a fine opportunity for meeting General
Petain," Tom returned, for the captain at the time was walking a little
in the rear, conversing with a courier who had come running after him,
as if on important business.
"He was fine, wasn't he, Tom?"
"Next to Joffre I understand General Petain is the most beloved
commander the army has ever had," replied the other. "I'll always feel
proud that he shook hands so heartily with both of us."
The air service boys were soon in the automobile that had carried them
to the general's headquarters back of the French lines. Here the captain
joined them, having finished his hasty consultation with the courier. On
the ride to the aviation camp he chatted pleasantly with the young
Americans. He, it appeared, had spent several years attached to the
French Embassy at Washington.
He asked particularly concerning the feeling of the common people in
America, and what influence the powerful cliques of naturalized but
pro-German citizens were apt to have on the Government.
Tom was able to assure him that slowly but surely the people of free
America were becoming aroused to the deadly menace of German
imperialism, and that presently--it might come at any day, according to
the latest advices--Congress would assemble to hear a ringing appeal
from the President, urging them to declare war upon the Kaiser, war to
the finish.
Apparently what the boys said had much in it to comfort the French
captain. He knew only too well how eagerly his wearied nation was
listening to hear just such a message of hope. He knew, also, just what
it would mean for the brave defenders of France.
In due time the three arrived at the villa, Several of the American
pilots saw the trio leave the car, wondered much what was in the wind
that Tom and Jack should return with a member of General Petain's
personal staff. Their curiosity was considerably heightened when later
they saw the captain come out of the villa carrying a small ozier cage
containing two blue-rock carrier pigeons, and effusively shake hands
with both Tom and Jack, calling out to them as the car moved off:
"In the name of France and General Petain I thank you for what you have
done this day, my brave Americans!"
As the chums were about to pass into the building there was a hail.
"Wait a minute, Jack!" called one of their fellow pilots, hurrying up
with some object in his hand at which the two boys stared with rising
curiosity. "I've got something here for you!"
"For me?" cried the youth addressed. "I'm ever so much obliged, but it
strikes me I've got beyond the point of playing with a toy balloon;
though honestly now, when I was a kid I used to be pretty fond of
sailing one of 'em at the end of a long string, until it would get away,
and leave me staring up while it climbed toward the clouds."
"Oh, this one is about past doing any climbing, I should say," replied
the pilot, laughing at Jack's description of his childish woes. "In
fact, it's been out during the night, and the heavy air forced it to
come down. Listen, and I'll tell you a strange story that will make you
believe in fairy tales."
"Go on then, please," urged Jack. "You've got me all worked up already.
So there's a history attached to this little balloon, is there?"
"There was _something_ attached to it, something that may mean much
or little to you fellows," came the reply. "This thing was found by a
French dispatch bearer on his way across country. Out of curiosity he
stepped aside to look at the bobbing red object he had noticed among
some bushes in an open field. When he found that it had a paper fastened
to it, which on the outside had an address, he concluded to bring the
whole business along with him. He came here half an hour back inquiring
for Jack Parmly, and on finding you were away at the time left the
balloon and the paper in my charge. Take it, and see what the message
is, Jack!"
CHAPTER V
THE STRANGE WARNING
"Open it, Jack, and see what the message is," urged Tom, as his chum
stood with the scrap of damp paper held between his fingers, having
allowed the sagging little toy balloon to fall at his feet.
Jack was thinking just at that moment of the other message his companion
and he had found attached to the homing pigeon. But of course they could
not possibly have any sort of connection!
He opened the small bit of paper. It had some writing in lead pencil.
Once it had doubtless been plain enough, but the dampness must have
caused it to become faint. Still, Jack could make it out without much
difficulty. This was what he read aloud, so that Tom and the other pilot
could hear:
"_Look carefully to your planes; examine every part. There is
treachery in the air!_"
"That's all, fellows," said Jack, much puzzled, as he turned the paper
over and over, looking for some signature.
"No name attached, Jack?" asked his chum.
"Nothing whatever to tell who wrote that warning. Here, take a look at
it, Tom. Your eyes may be sharper than mine and see something I've
missed."
But Tom and the other pilot both failed to throw any light on the matter
after examining the paper thoroughly. They exchanged stares. Then Jack
laughed, a little queerly.
"This is certainly a mystery," he went on to say, trying to take the
thing as a joke. "Some kind friend sends me a solemn warning, and then
neglects to sign his name. Do you think any of the fellows of the
escadrille could be up to a prank?"
Tom shook his head. The other pilot also exhibited positive signs of
doubt in connection with such a thing.
"The boys often have their little jokes, and we are a merry bunch much
of the time, just to change off from the nervous strain we're living
under," the man observed. "But I'm sure not one of them would dream of
doing a thing like this. It would be a mean trick."
"Then both of you are inclined to believe this warning was meant in all
seriousness, are you?" continued Jack, no longer grinning as before.
"Yes, I do," Tom instantly announced. "It seems a bit childish, sending
it in such a queer fashion; but then perhaps it was the only way open to
the person. There was one chance in ten that it would be found; but you
know sometimes we can't choose our way of doing things, but must
accommodate ourselves to circumstances. This toy balloon being handy
suggested a possible way of getting the warning to you, Jack."
"But why me any more than you, Tom, or any other fellow in the
escadrille?" continued Jack, sorely bewildered.
"That's something we can only guess at," he was told. "Evidently this
person had your name, and knew you were working here with the Lafayette
boys. Try to think of some one you may have done something for to make
him feel grateful to you. Could it have been that boyish-looking German
prisoner we talked with the other day, and for whom you bound up a badly
damaged arm, Jack?"
"Oh! that boy!" exclaimed the other, and then shook his head. "No, it's
impossible. You see the poor chap could hardly talk halfway decent
English, and I'm sure he never could write my name like this. Besides,
Tom," Jack went on triumphantly, "I never bothered to mention to him
that I had a name. To him I was simply an American flying for France."
"Anybody else you can think of?" persisted Tom, for it seemed to him
that it meant considerable to try to discover who had sent the message
by such a strange channel.
Jack pondered. Then all at once he looked up with a light in his eyes.
"You've thought of something!" exclaimed the other pilot eagerly.
"Well, it might be possible, although I hardly believe she'd be the one
to go to such trouble. Still, she had children, she told me, at her home
in Lorraine, back of Metz; and this is a child's toy, this little
hot-air balloon."
"Do you mean that woman you assisted a week or so ago? Mrs. Neumann?"
asked Tom, quickly.
"Yes, it was only a little thing I was able to do for her, but she
seemed grateful, and said she hoped some day to be in a position to
repay the favor. Then later on I learned she had secured permission to
cross over to the German lines, in order to get to her family. She is a
widow with six children, you know, a native of Lorraine, and caught by
accident in one of the sudden furious rushes of the French, so that she
had been carried back with them when they retreated. At the time she had
been serving as a Red Cross nurse among the Germans. It was on that
account the French allowed her to return to her family. They are very
courteous, these French."
Tom was listening. He nodded his head as though it seemed promising at
least.
"Let's figure it out," he mused. "Which way was the wind coming from
last night, do either of you happen to know?"
"Almost from the north," the other aviator instantly responded. "I
chanced to notice that fact, for other reasons. But then it was almost
still, so the little balloon could not have drifted many miles before
the heavy atmosphere dragged it down until finally it landed in the
field."
"Well, that settles one thing," asserted Tom. "It came from back of the
German lines, don't you see?"
"Yes, that seems probable," admitted Jack.
"Your unknown friend was there at the time," continued Tom, in his
lawyer-like way, following up the trail he had started; "and hence
apparently in a position to know that some sort of plot was being
engineered against one Jack Parmly. Don't ask me why _you_ should
be selected for any rank treachery, because I don't know."
"And this person, this unknown friend of mine," Jack added, "wishing to
warn me so that I might not meet a bad end to-day, sent out this message
in the hope that it might fall back of our lines and be picked up. Tom,
it makes me have a queer feeling. I almost think I must be asleep and
dreaming."
"No, it's real enough. We may never know who the writer of this note is;
but we can heed the warning just the same, and go over to examine our
planes minutely. Whoever it was, spelled your name correctly. I've
studied the writing, but it seems to be assumed, and clumsy. There was a
reason for that too, as well as the writer failing to sign a name."
"What sort of reason?" queried Jack.
"Fear that in some way the message, and the balloon, might fall into
German hands and lead to unpleasant results," Tom continued. "We know
about how those Huns would serve any one who tried to spoil their plans.
They believe in frightfulness every time, and it might mean death to the
writer. This she evidently knew full well."
"Just why do you say'she' when you speak of the writer?"
"Oh, I have an idea that Mrs. Neumann may be the mysterious friend who
is taking such desperate chances to send you a warning. Anyway,
something about it seems to say it isn't a man's handwriting. Besides,
neither of you may have noticed it, but there's a faint odor, as of
perfume, adheres to that bit of paper, though the dampness has taken it
almost all out."
Jack looked astonished at such shrewd reasoning.
"Well, you are certainly a wonder at seeing through things, Tom," he
hastened to say. "And so of course that settles it in my mind. Mrs.
Neumann sent this message to me; though how she could have learned that
there was anything treacherous going on beats my powers of reasoning."
"But don't you think it would pay to learn if there's any truth about it
all?" asked the other pilot, whose curiosity had been stirred up by such
a strange happening.
"Yes, let's all go over to the hangars and have the planes out for a
regular inspection," said Tom. "If mischief has been done the chances
are it would be in a part not usually examined by the mechanician before
a flight. Then again the damage, if there is any, might be so covered up
by the shrewd schemer that it would not be noticeable."
There were always cars going to and fro, for pilots came and went from
time to time; so the trio quickly found themselves being whirled along
over the road so often traveled in their daily work.
"How about that fellow they chased late yesterday afternoon, who was
loitering about the hangars and acting in a suspicious way?" asked the
friendly pilot, as they rode along. "More than a few of the fellows say
he must have been a spy, and up to some mischief, because he slipped off
so slickly."
"I had him in mind all the while," said Tom. "And if any mischief has
been done, of course we can lay it at his door; though just how he
managed to work we'll perhaps never know."
"I caught sight of him, too," Jack remarked; "and I only wish now I'd
had a good look at the chap who owned those pigeons to-day, so as to
tell if they were one and the same, which I believe to be a fact."
Just then Tom gave his chum a kick with the toe of his shoe. This
suddenly reminded Jack that he was treading on forbidden ground, since
they had resolved not to say anything to a third person concerning the
adventure of that afternoon.
The other member of the escadrille was looking interested. He understood
that Tom and Jack must have met with some singular adventure; but since
they did not see fit to take him into their confidence he was too polite
to ask questions, feeling there must be a good reason for their silence.
Presently they arrived at the hangars. It was now almost sunset. The
fliers were coming down one by one, their labor for the day having been
accomplished. It had been a pretty arduous day, too, and two members of
the escadrille had new honors coming to them, since they had dropped
enemy planes in full view of tens of thousands of cheering spectators,
after thrilling combats high in the air.
One had also passed through an experience that few aviators can look
back to. He had started to drop rapidly when, at almost ten thousand
feet altitude, his motor was struck by a missile from a rival pilot's
gun. When halfway down, either through a freak of fortune or some
wonderfully clever manipulation on the part of the pilot, the machine
righted, and he was enabled to volplane to safety, though considerably
bruised and cut up through hasty landing.
Jack quickly had his little Nieuport out of the hangar, and the three
airmen began a minute inspection. For a short time nothing developed
that had a suspicious appearance. Jack, in fact, was beginning to
believe the warning might after all be in the nature of a fake, or else
the spy had not found a favorable chance to do his foul work before
being frightened off.
But presently Tom gave utterance to an exclamation.
"Found anything, Tom?" asked Jack eagerly.
"Yes. Come around here, both of you!"
When the others joined Tom he pointed to where an important wire stay
had been dextrously filed so that it must snap under a severe wrench or
strain, such as commonly comes when a pilot is far afield, and wishes to
execute a necessary whirl.
Jack shivered as he took in the meaning of that partly severed stay. If
it gave way while he was far above the earth it must spell his certain
doom!
CHAPTER VI
LOOKING BACKWARD
"Just see the fiendish cleverness of the fellow who filed that stay!"
Tom cried, as they all stared. "He filled the indentation his sharp file
made with a bit of wax or chewing-gum of the same general color. Why, no
one would ever have noticed the least thing wrong when making the
ordinary examination."
"Then how did you manage to find it, Tom?" asked Jack, breathing hard,
as he pictured to himself the narrow escape he had had.
"I suspected something of the kind might be done; so I ran my thumb-nail
down each wire stay," came the answer. "And it turned out just as I
thought."
"There may be still more places filed in the same way," suggested the
other pilot, looking as black as a thunder-cloud; because such an act
was in his mind the rankest sort of treachery, worthy of only the most
degraded man.
"We will find them if there are," replied Tom, resolutely. "And when
this thing is known I imagine there'll be a general overhauling of all
the machines on the aviation field. One thing is certain, Jack. You were
playing in great luck when you suggested that we ask for a day off and
then picked out this particular one."
Jack shrugged his shoulders as he replied:
"That's right, Tom."
Nothing could be done just then, with night coming on. Tom talked with
several of the attendants at the hangars, and left it to them to go to
work with the coming of morning. He even showed them how cunningly the
work had been carried out; so they might be on their guard against such
a trick from that time forward.
Then the three returned to the villa. Others of the members of the
escadrille were in the car with the trio, so the talk was general,
experiences of the day's happenings being narrated, all told in a
careless fashion, as if those young aviators considered all such risks
as part of the ordinary routine of business.
Later on the news concerning Jack's singular warning, and what came of
it went the rounds. He was asked to show the brief note many times; but
in answer to the questions that came pouring in upon him, Jack could not
say more than he had already said with regard to his suspicions
concerning the probable writer of the message.
That night Tom and Jack preferred the quiet of their own apartment to
the general sitting-room, where the tired pilots gathered to smoke,
talk, play games, sing, and give their opinions on every topic
imaginable, including scraps of news received in late letters from home
towns across the sea.
"Do you know, Tom," Jack said unexpectedly; "I'd give something to know
where Bessie Gleason is just at this time. It's strange how often I
think about that young girl. It's just as if something that people call
intuition told me she might be in serious trouble through that
hard-looking guardian of hers, Carl Potzfeldt."
Tom smiled.
Bessie Gleason was a very pretty and winsome girl of about twelve years
of age, with whom Jack in particular had been quite "chummy" on the
voyage across the Atlantic, and through the submarine zone, as related
in "Air Service Boys Flying for France." The last he had seen of her was
when she waved her hand to him when leaving the steamer at its English
port. Her stern guardian had contracted a violent dislike for Jack, so
that the two had latterly been compelled to meet only in secret for
little confidential chats.
"Oh, you've taken to imagining all sorts of terrible things in
connection with pretty Bessie and her cruel guardian. He claimed to be a
Swiss, or a native of Alsace-Lorraine, which was it, Jack?"
"Uh-huh," murmured Jack Parmly, his thoughts just then far away from Tom
and his question, though fixed on Carl Potzfeldt and his young ward.
Bessie Gleason was a little American girl, a child of moods, fairylike
in appearance and of a maturity of manner that invariably attracted
those with whom she came in contact.
Her mother had been lost at sea, and by Mrs. Gleason's will the girl and
her property were left in Potzfeldt's care. Mr. Potzfeldt was taking her
to Europe, and on the steamship she and Jack Parmly had been friends,
and as Potzfeldt's actions were suspicious and, moreover, the girl did
not seem happy with him Jack had been troubled about her.
"I'm afraid you think too much about Bessie and her troubles, Jack; and
get yourself worked up about things that may never happen to her," Tom
went on after a pause.
"I knew you'd say that, Tom," the other told him reproachfully. "But I'm
not blaming you for it. However, there are several things Bessie told me
that I haven't mentioned to you before; and they help to make me feel
anxious about her happiness. She's a queer girl, you know, and intensely
patriotic."
"Yes I noticed that, even if you did monopolize most of her time,"
chuckled Tom.
"How she does hate the Germans, though! And that's what will get her
into trouble I'm afraid, if she and her guardian have managed to get
through the lines in any way, and back to his home town, wherever that
may be."
"Why should she feel so bitter toward the Kaiser and his people, Jack?"
"I'll tell you. Her mother was drowned. She was aboard the
_Lusitania_, and was never seen after the sinking. Mr. Potzfeldt
was there too, it seems, but couldn't save Mrs. Gleason, he claims,
though he tried in every way to do so. She was a distant relative of
his, you remember."
"Then if Bessie knows about her mother's death," Tom went on to say, "I
don't wonder she feels that way toward everything German. I'd hate the
entire race if my mother had been murdered, as those women and children
were, when that torpedo was launched against the great passenger steamer
without any warning."
"She told me she felt heart-broken because she was far too young to do
anything to assist in the drive against the central empires. You see,
Bessie has great hopes of some day growing tall enough to become a war
nurse. She is deeply interested in the Red Cross; and Tom, would you
believe it, the midget practices regular United States Army standing
exercises in the hope of hastening her growth."
"I honor the little girl for her ambition," Tom said. "But I'm inclined
to think this war will be long past before she has grown to a suitable
size to enlist among the nurses of the Paris hospitals. And if that Carl
Potzfeldt entertains the sentiments we suspected him of, and is secretly
in sympathy with the Huns, although passing for a neutral, her task will
be rendered doubly hard."
"That's what makes me feel bad every time I get to thinking of Bessie.
If only we could chance to run across them again I'd like to engineer
some scheme by which she could be taken away from her guardian. For
instance, if only it could be proved that Potzfeldt was in the pay of
the German Government, don't you see he could be stood up against a
wall, and fixed; and then some one would be found able and willing to
take care of the girl."
Tom laughed again.
"How nicely you make your arrangements, Jack! Very pleasant outlook for
poor Mr. Potzfeldt, I should say. Why, you hustle him off this earth
just as if he didn't matter thirty cents."
"It isn't because I'm heartless," expostulated the other hurriedly. "But
I'm sure that dark-faced man is a bad egg. We suspected him of being
hand-in-glove with Adolph Tuessig, the man who stole your father's
invention, and who we knew was a hired German spy over in America. And
from little hints Bessie dropped once in a while I am certain he doesn't
treat her well."
"Still, we can't do the least thing about it, Jack. If fortune should
ever bring us in contact with that pair again, why then we could perhaps
think up some sort of scheme to help Bessie. Now, I've got something
important to tell you."
"Something the captain must have said when he was chatting with you in
the mess-room immediately after supper, I guess. At the time I thought
he might be asking you about our adventures of to-day, but then I
noticed that he was doing pretty much all the talking. What is on the
carpet for us now?"
"We're going to be given our chance at last, Jack!"
"Do you mean to fly with the fighting escadrille, and meet German pilots
in a life and death battle up among the clouds?" asked Jack, in a voice
that had a tinge of awe about it; for he had often dreamed of such
honors coming to him; but the realization still seemed afar off.
"That is what we are promised," his chum assured him. "Of course our
education is not yet complete; but we have shown such progress that, as
there is need of additional pilots able to meet the Fokker planes while
a raid is in progress, we are to be given a showing."
"I'll not sleep much to-night for thinking of it," declared Jack.
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT DAY ARRIVES
By the time the pilots of the American escadrille began to assemble on
the field where the airplane hangars were clustered, (these being more
or less camouflaged by means of paint cleverly applied to represent the
earth), the news concerning the air service boys' narrow escape had
become generally known.
Great was the indignation expressed by all. Up to this time there had
appeared to be considerable honor exhibited among-the flying men on both
sides. In fact many curious little courtesies had been exchanged that
seemed to put the aviation service on a plane of its own.
One thing was certain. After that there would be no taking things for
granted. Each pilot meant to satisfy himself as best he could that his
plane was in perfect order before risking his life in the upper
currents.
Jack was besieged for a full account of the matter. He, being an
obliging person, gladly told everything he knew. Naturally the mystery
attached to the discovery of the message of warning tied to the poor
little partly collapsed child's balloon aroused considerable curiosity
and speculation among the aviators.
The way some of them pumped Jack made him laugh; but he assured them he
was just about as "deep in the mud as they were in the mire."
"I've told you all about the woman named Mrs. Neumann," he repeated for
the tenth time. "And she's the only one I can think of who would be apt
to care a cent whether Jack Parmly happened to be alive or dead. If
anybody can give a better guess I'd like to hear it."
They did considerable "guessing," but after all it became the consensus
of opinion that the grateful Mrs. Neumann was responsible. And so
finally they let it go at that; for the day had begun, and there was an
abundance of work to be accomplished before the sun set again.
"But this is certain," said one of the leading flyers of the escadrille,
seriously; "if the Boches mean to stop playing fair it's bound to
demoralize the service. Up to now there's been an unwritten set of rules
to the game, which both sides have lived up to. I shall hate to see them
discarded, and brutal methods put in their place."
Others were of the opinion that there might have been something personal
connected with the attempt to kill Jack, through that shabby trick. The
German spy might have had a private grievance against the youth, they
said, which he meant to pay off in his own dastardly way.
No matter which turned out to be the truth, it was not pleasant for Jack
to believe he had become an object of hatred to some mysterious prowler,
and that possibly other secret attempts on his life might be made from
time to time.
That day passed, and another followed. There did not seem to be much
stirring on either side of the line; but such a lull frequently proved
the precursor of some gigantic battle, for which the armies were
preparing.
Of course, when the wind and weather permitted, there was always plenty
of excitement among the airplane escadrilles. All manner of little
expeditions were organized and carried out.
Now it was an attempt to get above that string of "sausage" balloons
used for observation purposes only, so that a few well-dropped bombs
might play havoc among them.
As these were always defended by a force of fighting planes hovering
above, all primed to give battle on the slightest provocation, the
result of these forays was that a number of hotly-contested fights were
"pulled off" high in air.
One pilot brought down another enemy, and increased his score a peg,
always a matter of pride with a pilot of a fighting plane. And another
of the escadrille had the honor of getting above those observation
balloons before a couple of them could be hastily pulled down.
Two of his companions engaged the defending Teuton pilots, and fended
them off purposely, in order to permit the raid. The selected man
swooped down like a hawk, passed the Gotha guard, and managed to shoot
his bomb downward with unerring aim. One of the balloons was seen to
burst into flames, and the second must have met with a like fate, since
it was perilously near at the time, though the dense smoke obscured
everything.
All these things and more did Tom and Jack witness through their glasses
as those two days passed. Tom especially was waiting to have his wish
realized with as much calmness as he could summon.
"I think it will come to-night, Jack," he told his chum, on the second
afternoon, as they prepared to return to their lodgings.
"Then you believe there's some big move on tap, and that to-morrow a
battle will be commenced? And all for the possession of some old ruined
fort, perhaps, that is now only a mass of crumpled masonry and debris!"
"You mustn't forget, Jack, it is the famous name that counts with these
romantic Frenchmen. Douaumont and Vaux mean everything to them, even if
there is nothing but a great mound of stone, mortar and earth to tell
where each fort once stood."
"Yes, I suppose you're right, Tom; and then again I was forgetting that
the retaking of a prominent position which the Germans had captured
means a heartening of
|
orneo. It
contains much matter of the highest scientific interest.
R. A. Hadfield. See H. de B. Gibbins.
R. N. Hall and W. G. Neal. THE ANCIENT RUINS OF RHODESIA. With numerous
Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 21s. net._
This book contains descriptions of two hundred ruins of temples and
forts, and of their types and ages of architecture. It describes also
the Sabæan and Phœnician occupations of Rhodesia; King Solomon’s gold,
ancient burials, ancient gold-mining, etc. It is profusely
illustrated, and contains many maps and plans.
F. J. Hamilton, D.D., and E. W. Brooks. ZACHARIAH OF MITYLENE.
Translated into English. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net._
[Byzantine Texts.
D. Hannay. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY, From Early Times to the
Present Day. Illustrated. _Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. each._ Vol I.
1200-1688.
A. T. Hare, M.A. THE CONSTRUCTION OF LARGE INDUCTION COILS. With
numerous Diagrams. _Demy 8vo. 6s._
Clifford Harrison. READING AND READERS. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
‘An extremely sensible little book.’—_Manchester Guardian._
Sven Hedin, Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society. THROUGH
ASIA. With 300 Illustrations from Sketches and Photographs by the
Author, and Maps. _Two Volumes. Royal 8vo. 36s. net._
‘One of the greatest books of the kind issued during the century. It
is impossible to give an adequate idea of the richness of the contents
of this book, or of its abounding attractions as a story of travel
unsurpassed in geographical and human interest. Much of it is a
revelation. Altogether the work is one which in solidity, novelty, and
interest must take a first rank among publications of its
class.’—_Times._
T. F. Henderson. A LITTLE BOOK OF SCOTTISH VERSE. _Pott 8vo. Cloth, 1s.
6d. net; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Little Library.
See also D. M. Moir.
W. E. Henley. ENGLISH LYRICS. _Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 3s. 6d._
W. E. Henley and C. Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE. _Crown 8vo.
Buckram, gilt top. 6s._
H. H. Henson, M.A., Fellow of All Souls’, Oxford, Canon of Westminster.
APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY: As Illustrated by the Epistles of St. Paul to
the Corinthians. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
LIGHT AND LEAVEN: Historical and Social Sermons. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
DISCIPLINE AND LAW. _Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
George Herbert. THE TEMPLE. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by
E. C. S. Gibson, D.D., Vicar of Leeds. _Pott 8vo. Cloth, 2s.; leather,
2s. 6d. net._
[Library of Devotion.
This edition contains Walton’s Life of Herbert, and the text is that
of the first edition.
Herodotus: EASY SELECTIONS. With Vocabulary. By A. C. Liddell, M.A.
_Fcap. 8vo. 1s. 6d._
W. A. S. Hewins, B.A. ENGLISH TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY. _Crown 8vo._
[University Extension Series.
T. Hilbert. THE AIR GUN: or, How the Mastermans and Dobson Major nearly
lost their Holidays. Illustrated. _Square Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Little Blue Books.
Clare Hill, Registered Teacher to the City and Guilds of London
Institute. MILLINERY, THEORETICAL, AND PRACTICAL. With numerous
Diagrams. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
[Textbooks of Technology.
Henry Hill, B.A., Headmaster of the Boy’s High School, Worcester, Cape
Colony. A SOUTH AFRICAN ARITHMETIC. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
This book has been specially written for use in South African schools.
G. Birkbeck Hill, LL.D. See Gibbon.
Howard C. Hillegas. WITH THE BOER FORCES. With 24 Illustrations. _Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
S. L. Hinde. THE FALL OF THE CONGO ARABS. With Plans, etc. _Demy 8vo.
12s. 6d._
L. T. Hobhouse, Fellow of C.C.C., Oxford. THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. _Demy
8vo. 21s._
J. A. Hobson, M.A. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY: An Inquiry into the Industrial
Condition of the Poor. _Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Social Questions Series and University Extension Series.
THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED. Crown _8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Social Questions Series.
T. Hodgkin, D.C.L. GEORGE FOX, THE QUAKER. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
Chester Holcombe. THE REAL CHINESE QUESTION. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
‘It is an important addition to the materials before the public for
forming an opinion on a most difficult and pressing problem.’—_Times._
Sir T. H. Holdich, K.C.I.E. THE INDIAN BORDERLAND: being a Personal
Record of Twenty Years. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 15s. net._
‘Interesting and inspiriting from cover to cover, it will assuredly
take its place as the classical work on the history of the Indian
frontier.’—_Pilot._
Canon Scott Holland. LYRA APOSTOLICA. With an Introduction. Notes by H.
C. Beeching, M.A. _Pott 8vo. Cloth, 2s.; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Library of Devotion.
G. J. Holyoake. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. _Second Edition. Crown
8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Social Questions Series.
Horace: THE ODES AND EPODES. Translated by A. Godley, M.A., Fellow of
Magdalen College, Oxford. _Crown 8vo. 2s._
[Classical Translations.
E. L. S. Horsburgh, M.A. WATERLOO: A Narrative and Criticism. With
Plans. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s._
‘A brilliant essay—simple, sound, and thorough.’—_Daily Chronicle._
THE LIFE OF SAVONAROLA. With Portraits and Illustrations. _Fcap. 8vo.
Cloth, 3s. 6d.; leather, 4s. net._
[Little Biographies.
R. F. Horton, D.D. JOHN HOWE. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
Alexander Hosie. MANCHURIA. With Illustrations and a Map. _Demy 8vo.
10s. 6d. net._
G. Howell. TRADE UNIONISM—NEW AND OLD. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s.
6d._
[Social Questions Series.
H. G. Hutchinson. THE GOLFING PILGRIM. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
A. W. Hutton, M.A. CARDINAL MANNING. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
See also Tauler.
Edward Hutton. See Richard Crashaw.
R. H. Hutton. CARDINAL NEWMAN. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
W. H. Hutton, M.A. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. With Portraits. _Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s._
WILLIAM LAUD. With Portrait. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
Henrik Ibsen. BRAND. A Drama. Translated by William Wilson. _Third
Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
Lord Iddesleigh. See Susan Ferrier.
W. R. Inge, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Hertford College, Oxford.
CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM. The Bampton Lectures for 1899. _Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d.
net._
‘It is fully worthy of the best traditions connected with the Bampton
Lectureship.’—_Record._
A. D. Innes, M.A. A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH IN INDIA. With Maps and
Plans. _Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d._
‘Written in a vigorous and effective style... a thoughtful and
impartial account.’—_Spectator._
‘Mr. Innes has done a difficult piece of work well. He has taken the
history into his mind; given it shape, feature, and vitality there;
therefore it comes alive and fresh from his mind.’—_Scotsman._
S. Jackson, M.A. A PRIMER OF BUSINESS. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 1s.
6d._
[Commercial Series.
F. Jacob, M.A. JUNIOR FRENCH EXAMINATION PAPERS. _Fcap. 8vo. 1s._
[Junior Examination Series.
J. Stephen Jeans. TRUSTS, POOLS, AND CORNERS. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Social Questions Series.
R. L. Jefferson. A NEW RIDE TO KHIVA. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
E. Jenks, M.A., Professor of Law at University College, Liverpool.
ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
C. S. Jerram, M.A. See Pascal.
Augustus Jessopp, D.D. JOHN DONNE. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
F. B. Jevons, M.A., Litt.D., Principal of Hatfield Hall, Durham.
EVOLUTION. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Churchman’s Library.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. _Second Edition. Demy 8vo.
10s. 6d._
[Handbooks of Theology.
‘The merit of this book lies in the penetration, the singular
acuteness and force of the author’s judgment. He is at once critical
and luminous, at once just and suggestive. A comprehensive and
thorough book.’—_Birmingham Post._
Sir H. H. Johnston, K.C.B. BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. With nearly 200
Illustrations and Six Maps. _Second Edition. Crown 4to. 18s. net._
H. Jones. A GUIDE TO PROFESSIONS AND BUSINESS. _Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
[Commercial Series.
F. W. Joyce, M.A. THE LIFE OF SIR FREDERICK GORE OUSELEY. _7s. 6d._
Lady Julian of Norwich. REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE. Edited by Grace
Warrack. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
A partially modernised version, from the MS. in the British Museum of
a book which Dr. Dalgairns terms ‘One of the most remarkable books of
the Middle Ages.’ Mr. Inge in his Bampton Lectures on Christian
Mysticism calls it ‘The beautiful but little known _Revelations_.’
M. Kaufmann. SOCIALISM AND MODERN THOUGHT. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Social Questions Series.
J. F. Keating, D.D. THE AGAPE AND THE EUCHARIST. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
John Keble. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. With an Introduction and Notes by W.
Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble College. Illustrated by R. Anning Bell.
_Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.; padded morocco, 5s._
‘The present edition is annotated with all the care and insight to be
expected from Dr. Lock.’—_Guardian._
LYRA INNOCENTIUM. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Walter Lock,
D.D., Warden of Keble College, Oxford. _Pott 8vo. Cloth, 2s.; leather,
2s. 6d. net_.
[Library of Devotion.
‘This sweet and fragrant book has never been published more
attractively.’—_Academy._
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. With Introduction and Notes by Walter Lock, D.D.,
Warden of Keble College. _Second Edition. Pott 8vo. Cloth, 2s.; leather,
2s. 6d. net._
[Library of Devotion.
Thomas À Kempis. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. With an Introduction by Dean
Farrar. Illustrated by C. M. Gere. _Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
net; padded morocco, 5s._
‘Amongst all the innumerable English editions of the “Imitation,”
there can have been few which were prettier than this one, printed in
strong and handsome type, with all the glory of red
initials.’—_Glasgow Herald._
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. A Revised Translation by C. Bigg, D.D., Canon
of Christ Church. With an Introduction. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
A new edition, carefully revised and set in large type, of Dr. Bigg’s
well-known version.
‘Dignified, harmonious, and scholarly.’—_Church Review._
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. A Revised Translation, with an Introduction by
C. Bigg, D.D., late Student of Christ Church. _Second Edition. Pott 8vo.
Cloth, 2s.; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Library of Devotion.
A practically new translation of this book which the reader has,
almost for the first time, exactly in the shape in which it left the
hands of the author.
James Houghton Kennedy, D.D., Assistant Lecturer in Divinity in the
University of Dublin. ST. PAUL’S SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES TO THE
CORINTHIANS. With Introduction, Dissertations and Notes. _Crown 8vo.
6s._
C. W. Kimmins, M.A. THE CHEMISTRY OF LIFE AND HEALTH. Illustrated.
_Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
A. W. Kinglake. EOTHEN. With an Introduction and Notes. _Pott 8vo.
Cloth, 1s. 6d. net; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Little Library.
Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. _73rd Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.;
leather, 6s. net._
‘Mr. Kipling’s verse is strong, vivid, full of character....
Unmistakable genius rings in every line.’—_Times._
‘The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We
read them with laughter and tears: the metres throb in our pulses, the
cunningly ordered words tingle with life; and if this be not poetry,
what is?’—_Pall Mall Gazette._
THE SEVEN SEAS. _62nd Thousand. Crown 8vo. Buckram, gilt top, 6s.;
leather, 6s. net._
‘The Empire has found a singer; it is no depreciation of the songs to
say that statesmen may have, one way or other, to take account of
them.’—_Manchester Guardian._
F. G. Kitton. See Dickens.
W. J. Knox Little. See St. Francis de Sales.
Charles Lamb, THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. With over 100 Illustrations by A.
Garth Jones, and an Introduction by E. V. Lucas. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
‘This edition is in many respects of peculiar beauty.’—_Daily
Chronicle._
‘It is in every way an admirable edition and the illustrations are
delightful.’—_Literature._
ELIA, AND THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA. Edited by E. V. Lucas. _Pott 8vo.
Cloth, 1s. 6d. net; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Little Library.
THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS: An 1805 Book for Children. Illustrated by
William Mulready. A new edition, in facsimile, edited by E. V. Lucas.
_1s. 6d._
This little book is a literary curiosity, and has been discovered and
identified as the work of Charles Lamb by E. V. Lucas. It is an exact
facsimile of the original edition, which was illustrated by Mulready.
Professor Lambros. ECTHESIS CHRONICA. Edited by. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d.
net._
[Byzantine Texts.
Stanley Lane-Poole. THE LIFE OF SIR HARRY PARKES. _A New and Cheaper
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
A HISTORY OF EGYPT IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Fully Illustrated. _Crown 8vo.
6s._
F. Langbridge, M.A. BALLADS OF THE BRAVE: Poems of Chivalry, Enterprise,
Courage, and Constancy. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
‘The book is full of splendid things.’—_World._
William Law. A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE. Edited, with an
Introduction, by C. Bigg, D.D., late Student of Christ Church. _Pott
8vo. Cloth, 2s.; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Library of Devotion.
This is a reprint, word for word and line for line, of the _Editio
Princeps_.
G. S. Layard. THE LIFE OF MRS. LYNN LINTON. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 12s.
6d._
‘Mrs. Lynn Linton is here presented to us in all her moods. She lives
in the book; she is presented to us so that we really know
her.’—_Literature._
Captain Melville Lee. A HISTORY OF POLICE IN ENGLAND. _Crown 8vo. 7s.
6d._
‘A learned book, comprising many curious details to interest the
general reader as well as the student who will consult it for exact
information.’—_Daily News._
‘The book rests on accurate research and gives a vast array of facts
and statistics.’—_Glasgow Herald._
V. B. Lewes, M.A. AIR AND WATER. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
Walter Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble College. ST. PAUL, THE
MASTER-BUILDER. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
See also Keble and Oxford Commentaries.
JOHN KEBLE. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
E. V. Lucas. See Jane Austen and Mrs. Gaskell and Charles Lamb.
Lucian. SIX DIALOGUES (Nigrinus, Icaro-Menippus, The Cock, The Ship, The
Parasite, The Lover of Falsehood). Translated by S. T. Irwin, M.A.,
Assistant Master at Clifton; late Scholar of Exeter College, Oxford.
_Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Classical Translations.
L. W. Lyde, M.A. A COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. _Third
Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s._
[Commercial Series.
Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton. WOMEN AND THEIR WORK. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
‘Thoughtful, interesting, practical.’—_Guardian._
‘The book is full of sound precept given with sympathy and
wit.’—_Pilot._
J. E. B. M‘Allen, M.A. THE PRINCIPLES OF BOOKKEEPING BY DOUBLE ENTRY.
_Crown 8vo. 2s._
[Commercial Series.
F. MacCunn. JOHN KNOX. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
A. M. Mackay. THE CHURCHMAN’S INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. _Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Churchman’s Library.
‘The book throughout is frank and courageous.’—_Glasgow Herald._
Laurie Magnus, M.A. A PRIMER OF WORDSWORTH. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
J. P. Mahaffy, Litt.D. A HISTORY OF THE EGYPT OF THE PTOLEMIES. Fully
Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
F. W. Maitland, LL.D., Downing Professor of the Laws of England in the
University of Cambridge. CANON LAW IN ENGLAND. _Royal 8vo. 7s. 6d._
H. E. Malden, M.A. ENGLISH RECORDS. A Companion to the History of
England. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
THE ENGLISH CITIZEN: HIS RIGHTS AND DUTIES. _Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
E. C. Marchant, M.A., Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Assistant
Master at St. Paul’s School. A GREEK ANTHOLOGY. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
E. C. Marchant, M.A., and A. M. Cook, M.A. PASSAGES FOR UNSEEN
TRANSLATION. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
‘We know no book of this class better fitted for use in the higher
forms of schools.’—_Guardian._
J. E. Marr, F.R.S., Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. THE
SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF SCENERY. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 6s._
‘A volume, moderate in size and readable in style, which will be
acceptable alike to the student of geology and geography, and to the
tourist.’—_Athenæum._
A. J. Mason. THOMAS CRANMER. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
George Massee. THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE: Lower Forms. With
Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
C. F. G. Masterman, M.A. TENNYSON AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER. _Crown 8vo.
6s._
‘A thoughtful and penetrating appreciation, full of interest and
suggestion.’—_World._
Annie Matheson. See Mrs. Craik.
Emma S. Mellows. A SHORT STORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
6d._
‘A lucid and well-arranged account of the growth of English
literature.’—_Pall Mall Gazette._
L. C. Miall, F.R.S. See Gilbert White.
E. B. Michell. THE ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING. With 3 Photogravures by
G. E. Lodge, and other Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
J. G. Millais. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS,
President of the Royal Academy. With 319 Illustrations, of which 9 are
Photogravure. _2 vols. Royal 8vo. 20s. net._
‘This splendid work.’—_World._
‘Of such absorbing interest is it, of such completeness in scope and
beauty. Special tribute must be paid to the extraordinary completeness
of the illustrations.’—_Graphic._
J. G. Milne, M.A. A HISTORY OF ROMAN EGYPT. Fully Illustrated. _Crown
8vo. 6s._
P. Chalmers Mitchell, M.A. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. Illustrated. _Second
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
A text-book designed to cover the Schedule issued by the Royal College
of Physicians and Surgeons.
D. M. Moir. MANSIE WAUCH. Edited by T. F. Henderson. _Pott 8vo. Cloth,
1s. 6d. net; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Little Library.
H. E. Moore. BACK TO THE LAND: An Inquiry into the cure for Rural
Depopulation. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[Social Questions Series.
W. R. Morfill, Oriel College, Oxford. A HISTORY OF RUSSIA FROM PETER THE
GREAT TO ALEXANDER II. With Maps and Plans. _Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d._
This history, is founded on a study of original documents, and though
necessarily brief, is the most comprehensive narrative in existence.
Considerable attention has been paid to the social and literary
development of the country, and the recent expansion of Russia in
Asia.
R. J. Morich, late of Clifton College. GERMAN EXAMINATION PAPERS IN
MISCELLANEOUS GRAMMAR AND IDIOMS. _Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[School Examination Series.
A Key, issued to Tutors and Private Students only, to be had on
application to the Publishers. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. net._
Miss Anderson Morton. See Miss Brodrick.
H. C. G. Moule, D.D. CHARLES SIMEON. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
M. M. Pattison Muir, M.A. THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. The Elementary
Principles of Chemistry. Illustrated. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
V. A. Mundella, M.A. See J. T. Dunn.
W. G. Neal. See R. N. Hall.
H. W. Nevinson. LADYSMITH: The Diary of a Siege. With 16 Illustrations
and a Plan. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s._
James Northcote, R.A., THE CONVERSATIONS OF, AND JAMES WARD. Edited by
Ernest Fletcher. With many Portraits. _Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d._
‘Mr. Fletcher’s book will range and rank with Hazlitt’s.’—_Globe._
‘Every reader, with any taste for art, will find the book
engrossing.’—_Yorkshire Post._
A. H. Norway, Author of ‘Highways and Byways in Devon and Cornwall.’
NAPLES: PAST AND PRESENT. With 40 Illustrations by A. G. Ferard. _Crown
8vo. 6s._
Standish O’Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
Mrs. Oliphant. THOMAS CHALMERS. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
C. W. Oman, M.A., Fellow of All Souls’, Oxford. A HISTORY OF THE ART OF
WAR. Vol. II.: The Middle Ages, from the Fourth to the Fourteenth
Century. Illustrated. _Demy 8vo. 21s._
‘The whole art of war in its historic evolution has never been treated
on such an ample and comprehensive scale, and we question if any
recent contribution to the exact history of the world has possessed
more enduring value.’—_Daily Chronicle._
Prince Henri of Orleans. FROM TONKIN TO INDIA. Translated by Hamley
Bent, M.A. With 100 Illustrations and a Map. _Crown 4to, gilt top. 25s._
R. L. Ottley, M.A., late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon., and
Principal of Pusey House. THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION. _Second and
cheaper Edition. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d._
[Handbooks of Theology.
‘A clear and remarkably full account of the main currents of
speculation. Scholarly precision... genuine tolerance... intense
interest in his subject—are Mr. Ottley’s merits.’—_Guardian._
LANCELOT ANDREWES. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
J. H. Overton, M.A. JOHN WESLEY. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
[Leaders of Religion.
M. N. Oxford, of Guy’s Hospital. HANDBOOK OF NURSING. _Crown 8vo. 3s.
6d._
‘The most useful work of the kind that we have seen. A most valuable
and practical manual.’—_Manchester Guardian._
W. C. C. Pakes. THE SCIENCE OF HYGIENE. With numerous Illustrations.
_Demy 8vo. 15s._
‘A thoroughgoing working text-book of its subject, practical and
well-stocked.’—_Scotsman._
Prof. Léon Parmentier and M. Bidez. EVAGRIUS. Edited by. _Demy 8vo. 10s.
6d. net._
[Byzantine Texts.
H. W. Paul. See Laurence Sterne.
E. H. Pearce, M.A. THE ANNALS OF CHRIST’S HOSPITAL. With many
Illustrations. _Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d._
‘A well-written, copious, authentic history.’—_Times._
R. E. Peary, Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society. NORTHWARD
OVER THE GREAT ICE. With over 800 Illustrations. 2 _vols. Royal 8vo.
32s. net._
‘His book will take its place among the permanent literature of Arctic
exploration.’—_Times._
Sidney Peel, late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Secretary to
the Royal Commission on the Licensing Laws. PRACTICAL LICENSING REFORM.
_Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d._
M. Perugini. SELECTIONS FROM WILLIAM BLAKE. _Pott 8vo. Cloth, 1s. 6d.
net; leather, 2s. 6d. net._
[Little Library.
J. P. Peters, D.D. THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW SCHOLARSHIP. _Crown
8vo. 6s._
[Churchman’s Library.
‘Every page reveals wide reading, used with sound and scholarly
judgment.’—_Manchester Guardian._
W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at
University College. A HISTORY OF EGYPT, from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day. Fully Illustrated. _In six volumes. Crown 8vo. 6s. each._
‘A history written in the spirit of scientific precision so worthily
represented by Dr. Petrie and his school cannot but promote sound and
accurate study, and supply a vacant place in the English literature of
Egyptology.’—_Times._
Vol. i. Prehistoric Times to XVIth Dynasty. _Fourth Edition._
Vol. ii. The XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties. _Third Edition._
Vol. iv. The Egypt of the Ptolemies. J. P. Mahaffy, Litt.D.
Vol. v. Roman Egypt. J. G. Milne, M.A.
Vol. vi. Egypt in the Middle Ages. Stanley Lane-Poole, M.A.
RELIGION AND CONSCIENCE IN ANCIENT EGYPT. Fully Illustrated. _Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d._
SYRIA AND EGYPT, FROM THE TELL EL AMARNA TABLETS. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
EGYPTIAN TALES. Illustrated by Tristram Ellis. _In Two Volumes. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. each._
EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. With 120 Illustrations. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._
‘In these lectures he displays rare skill in elucidating the
development of decorative art in Egypt.’—_Times._
Philip Pienaar. WITH STEYN AND DE WET. _Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s.
6d._
A narrative of the adventures of a Boer telegraphist of the Orange
Free State during the war.
Plautus. THE CAPTIVI. Edited, with an Introduction, Textual Notes, and a
Commentary, by W. M. Lindsay, Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. _Demy
8vo. 10s. 6d. net._
For this edition all the important MSS. have been re-collated. An
appendix deals with the accentual element in early Latin verse. The
Commentary is very full.
‘A work of great erudition and fine scholarship.’—_Scotsman._
THE CAPTIVI. Adapted for Lower Forms, by J. H. Freese, M.A., late Fellow
of St. John’s, Cambridge. _1s. 6d._
J. T. Plowden-Wardlaw, B.A., King’s College, Cambridge. EXAMINATION
PAPERS IN ENGLISH HISTORY. _Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[School Examination Series.
M. C. Potter, M.A., F.L.S. A TEXTBOOK OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY.
Illustrated. _2nd Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. A HISTORY OF ENGLISH
POLITICAL ECONOMY. _Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._
[University Extension Series.
“Q.” THE GOLDEN POMP. A Procession of English Lyrics. Arranged by A. T.
Quiller Couch. _Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s._
R. B. Rackham, M.A. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. With Introduction and
Notes. _Demy 8vo. 12s.
|
. This twig, which the members of
the Society were enabled to examine, excited the most lively curiosity
and won the commendation of M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. It was raised
from a plant which had been only eighteen months under cultivation."
"In Porto Rico the plant reaches a greater height than in Peru.
"A box filled with beautiful leaves has also been received by Dr.
Bétancès and forwarded to Mr. Mariani. This also came from Monseigneur
Mereño.
"It is therefore evident that the plant can be cultivated in the
Antilles and that it may become a source of wealth to that country."
Plantations like this would probably thrive in Corsica or Algeria,
countries where the temperature at certain points is somewhat analogous
to that of the tropics.
It is a fact that this shrub does not attain its complete development
except in countries where the mean temperature is from fifteen to
eighteen degrees centigrade.
But heat does not suffice; great humidity is also necessary to
Coca. Therefore it is met with principally on the sides of hills
and at the bottom of wooded valleys which abound on both sides of
the Cordillieras. Unfortunately, these regions are rather distant
from the coast and they are, furthermore, devoid of easy means of
communication; it is above all to this particular cause, the difficulty
of transportation, that we must attribute the relatively high price of
Coca leaves.
The cultivation of Coca trees is begun by sowing the seed in beds
called _Almazigos_. As soon as the plant appears it is protected from
the heat of the sun by means of screens and matting; when it reaches a
height of from 40 to 50 centimetres, it is transferred to furrows 18
centimetres in length by 7 in depth, care being taken that each plant
is separated from its neighbor by a distance of a foot.
During the first year maize is sown in the interspaces, rapidly
overreaching the shrub, and taking the place of the screens and mats.
The growth of the shrub is rather rapid, reaching its full height in
about five years. But the time when it becomes productive precedes
that at which it attains its complete height by about 3½ years after
being planted. After that, when the season has been especially damp, it
yields as often as four times a year.
[Illustration: BRANCH OF COCA, as grown in a hot-house.]
Attempts have been made to acclimatize it in Europe, but so far
without success. As early as 1869 the cultivation of it was tried
in the Botanical Garden of Hyères, but no satisfactory result was
obtained. We presented, in 1872, two samples to the appreciative and
learned director of the Garden of Acclimatization of Paris, M. Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire, and notwithstanding all the care taken of the young
plants, they failed to reach their full growth. Several frail Coca
plants may be seen in the conservatories of the _Jardin des Plantes de
Paris_, in the Botanical Gardens of London, of Brussels, etc., likewise
at several great horticulturists' of Gand, notably Van Houten's. As may
be seen by the large colored engraving[2] and by the branch engraved
above, these specimens of _Erythroxylon Coca_ are very far from giving
an idea of the plant growing in the open air, in a soil and under a
temperature that are favorable to its development, as shown by the
leaves of Peruvian Coca, illustrated above, and which come from one of
the newest _haciendas_ of Santa-Anna, belonging to M. M.-P. Concha,
bordering on the territory of a savage tribe of Antis or Campas, on the
Urubanba river, which joins the Amazon in latitude 12° S., longitude
75° W.
GATHERING OF COCA.
The plant begins to yield when it is about a year and a half old.
The leaf is the only part of the plant used.
It should be gathered in dry weather; this is entrusted generally to
women, and simply consists in plucking each leaf with the fingers.
The leaves are received into aprons, carefully carried under sheds, to
shelter them from the rain and dampness, dried, and then packed.
We quote from the _Voyage dans la région du Titicaca_, by Paul
Marcoy, the following passage ("Tour of the World," May, 1877): "Of
all the valleys of the Carabaya group, Ituata is the one where Coca
is cultivated on the largest scale. They were then at the height of
the work, peons and peonnes were following each other through the
plantations of the shrub, so dear to the natives that a decree of 1825
placed it in the crown of the arms of Peru, alongside of the vicunia
and cornucopia, or horn-of-plenty. Men and women carried a cloth slung
across the shoulders in which were placed the leaves, as they gathered
them one by one. These leaves, spread out on large awnings, were
exposed to the sun for two or three days, then packed up in bags of
about one metre in size, and sent off to all parts of the territory.
"This gathering of the Coca is just such an occasion for rejoicing
for the natives of the valleys, as reaping-time and harvests are for
our peasants. On the day when the gathering of the leaves is finished
both sexes that have taken part in the work assemble and celebrate, in
dances and libations, the pleasure they experience in having finished
their labors."
In 1851, the annual production of Bolivia was estimated to be more
than 400,000 certos (600,000 kilogrammes) of Coca leaves, of which
three-quarters came from the province of Yungas.
[Illustration:
38 days after planting. 40 days. 51 days.
65 days. 68 days. 71 days.
Observation of Growing Seeds in Hot-houses of M. Mariani.]
[Illustration: ERYTHROXYLON COCA.
(Specimen of a branch grown in hot-houses of Mr. Mariani.)]
[Illustration: COCA PLANT Obtained by transplanting; eight months.
(Hot-houses of Mariani.)]
[Illustration: COCA PLANT Obtained from seed; eight months.
(Hot-houses of Mariani.)]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF COCA.
Coca has been known from time immemorial in South America. At the time
when Pizarro landed on the Peruvian coast, the leaf of Coca was held
in great esteem among the natives; it was considered to be a divine
plant, a living representation of the Deity, a fetish of wonderful and
supernatural qualities, and the fields where it grew were reverenced as
sanctuaries. Not everybody was allowed to make use of it; its use was
the privilege of the nobles and of the priests, and among the greatest
rewards that the sovereign could give his subjects, the privilege of
chewing Coca leaves was most highly esteemed.
However strange such a superstition may appear, it is indisputable,
and all authors that have published the account of the conquest of the
Indies corroborate it. It will suffice for us to quote the testimony
of Joseph Acosta, who says in every letter, of his natural and moral
history of the Indies, of the East as well as of the West, published in
1653:
"The Indians esteem it highly, and during the reign of the Incas, the
common people were not allowed to use Coca without the permission of
the Governor."
[Illustration: NATIVES OF COLOMBIA CHEWING COCA.]
The disappearance of the empire of the Incas, far from diminishing
the importance of Coca, on the contrary gave a very much greater
scope to its popularity. The natives profited by their freedom
from the restrictions imposed by the native rulers in regard to the
consumption of Coca, and soon the use of this leaf became so common
that it has been compared by every one interested in the question to
the use of tobacco by us; and, as it has justly been added, without
its objections. There is no more likelihood of seeing a smoker embark
without his tobacco than an Indian begin work or undertake a journey
unless his _chuspa_ (pouch) is full of Coca leaves. Three or four times
a day he sits down, takes some leaves, puts them one by one into his
mouth and rolls them into an _aculio_ (quid), adding a little _llipta_
(lime), which he takes from his ever-present _poporo_. The _poporo_
is a little gourd, bored at the mouth on the upper part, in which the
Indian keeps his _llipta_. This _llipta_ is a white powder composed of
ashes of vegetables and of calcined shells pulverized, with which the
consumers of Coca have been accustomed, from the most remote times, to
season their quid. It is, really, an alkaline substance intended to
isolate the different principles of the leaf and to make the action of
the Coca more prompt.
Among those inhabitants of South America, with whom the use of Coca did
not extend to the lower classes until after the reign of the Incas,
and who reserved for themselves, as we have seen, the right of chewing
the Coca leaves, the consumption of Coca by children is strictly
prohibited. They do not indulge in this luxury except in secret, and
it appears to them all the sweeter because it is forbidden. But nearly
always their breath, charged with the tell-tale odor of Coca, betrays
them on approaching their parents, and the latter make them pay for the
pleasure which they have stolen, and to which they are not entitled
until they are of age, with very severe punishment. Only when they have
grown up will they be allowed to chew Coca and to carry the _poporo_,
which they do not relinquish even in the grave.
On coming of age the young Indian is consigned to an old woman, who
keeps him a few hours in her hut to initiate him in the mysteries of
man's estate.
After this ceremony she gives him the _chuspa_ (Coca pouch), invests
him with the _poporo_ and consecrates him a _coquero_. One should see
with what pride the young Indian leaves the threshold of the sacred
cabin, which he entered as a child scarcely a few hours before and from
which he departs a man, that is to say, carrying the _chuspa_ and the
_poporo_, and able to chew with impunity, before the old people, this
precious leaf which had been forbidden him until then.
No happiness is comparable to his! See with what an important air he
draws forth the Coca leaves from his _chuspa_, as he rolls them in his
fingers to make a large quid of them, which he carries to his mouth,
moistens delightingly with saliva, and places under his jaws and
against his cheeks. He is seen holding carefully in his right hand the
little stick, the extremity of which he is going to moisten by putting
it into his mouth, and which he will dip into the _poporo_ in order
that the _llipta_ may adhere to its moistened part.
He carefully carries the part of his little stick covered with _llipta_
to his quid, and thus performs the operation of mixing the alkaline
powder with the masticated leaf. It is at this moment that the quid of
Coca affords the young adult the most delightful sensation. His jaws
munch it slowly, his tongue collects and rolls it up against the left
cheek, all the _papillæ_ of his mouth refresh themselves deliciously
with the soothing and aromatic juices of the precious leaf, and by the
slow and measured motions of deglutition, he carries with delight the
precious juice into the pharynx and thence to the stomach. While he is
accomplishing this important operation, his eyes swim with beatitude,
over his entire countenance is diffused an expression of content and
unutterable joy, and his right hand slowly turns the little stick
around the upper part of the _poporo_, where are deposited little by
little the particles of _llipta_ and masticated Coca, which on leaving
his mouth adhere to its extremity.
The only occupation of the first days of the adult is the much-loved
quid of Coca and the encrusting of his gourd, which we cannot do better
than compare to the coating of the pipe, with this difference that
our confirmed smokers blacken hundreds of their pipes during their
existence, while the Indian encrusts only one gourd in his whole life;
so that by the thickness of the crust formed around a _poporo_, it is
possible to judge the age of its owner. This crust, which hardly ever
exceeds the thickness of a ring on the _poporo_ of a young Indian, ends
by reaching the dimension of the pileus of a large mushroom on the
_poporo_ of an old man.
The crust is produced by the particles of Coca and _llipta_ mixed with
saliva which are deposited little by little about the mouth of the
_poporo_ by smearing with the stick.
These deposits are brought about in an almost imperceptible manner. It
is only after some months that the surface of the _poporo_, on which
the chewer continually turns the little stick, becomes covered with a
hardly perceptible layer of calcareous substance; at the end of two or
three years the superimposed layers form a ring which grows larger from
year to year, and which finally attains the thickness we have spoken of
above.
[Illustration: Small stick for extracting the Llipta from the poporo.]
[Illustration: 1. Poporo of a youth.]
[Illustration: 2. Poporo of a man in his prime.]
[Illustration: 3. Poporo of an old man.]
As we have said before, the Indian never parts with his _poporo_, let
him be awake or asleep, at home or on his travels, the _poporo_ is
always attached to his belt. An Indian would part with all he holds
most dear in the world, all, except his _poporo_.
We have the rare and good fortune to possess a _poporo_, of which we
give a picture (fig. 3). It is, we believe, the only specimen existing
in Europe. We owe it to the kindness of M. Gauguet, who has made
numerous voyages to Colombia, where he has been able to establish so
much sympathy among the natives that one of their old chiefs, who was
specially indebted, did not fear to depart from all custom and to
incur the contempt of his companions, by offering him, as a pledge of
friendship, the object to which he attached the greatest value—his
_poporo_![3]
Thus the great importance that an Indian attaches to Coca is easily
shown. It should be recognized, moreover, that the first conquerors of
the country did not fail to countenance the passion of the vanquished
for the national plant. In fact, they quickly recognized that the habit
of consuming Coca might become an excellent source of revenue; and
Garcillasco de la Véga, a half-breed of the first generation, tells us
that in his time a part of the impost was paid to the conqueror in the
form of Coca leaves. The benefits which were derived from the traffic
in this plant were such that at a certain time the revenues of the
bishop and of the canons of the cathedral of Cuzco came from the tithe
on these leaves.
There was, moreover, another object in favoring the use of Coca among
the Indians. The latter were treated, as is known, as if they were
beasts of burden, and their oppressors were not slow to recognize the
fact that they furnished much better labor when they consumed Coca.
We shall see, further on, that the recognition of this fact, the
correctness of which cannot be disputed, and which served to excite
the rapacity of the conquering savages of that time, has become to-day
the means of furnishing one of the most valuable aids to contemporary
therapeutics.
The particular favor in which the plant was held in the beginning
of the conquest, was destined to suffer some disturbance. In the
seventeenth century, for example, the religious quibbles regaining the
ascendancy in public affairs, some sedate theologians pretended that
Coca was an aliment, and that under this name the use of it should be
prohibited to young people and before the communion. The question was
vigorously contested, and there is no doubt that the consumption of
Coca would have sustained a very decided blow had not Prince don Alonzo
de la Pina Montenegro declared that the plant contained no alimentary
principle. This point we shall presently consider from a scientific
point of view.
Although the inhabitants of the Indies attach so much importance to the
use of Coca, this product can not be acclimatized in our hemisphere,
and our fathers who took up the use of tobacco with so much eagerness
remained indifferent to Coca. Perhaps this indifference should be
attributed to the exaggerations of the first importers, who coming to
Europe still imbued with the legends gathered in the New World ascribed
supernatural qualities to the new plant. The exaggeration of these
statements soon became apparent. From this it was only a step to a
denial even of its existence. And thus, for more than two centuries, we
were deprived of the advantages to be derived from the judicious use of
the plant.
It should not be believed, however, that the various writers during
these two centuries remained entirely silent regarding Coca. The study
of the properties of the plant was still a field of research for a
number of learned men, small, it is true, but they well knew that side
by side with fiction, which they rejected, there was a reality that it
were better to accept.
We further observe, that Claude Duret, a magistrate of Moulins, who
wrote a book, printed in 1605, on _The Marvellous and Wonderful Plants
in Nature_, mentions Coca as one of the most worthy to figure in his
colleccion.
Nicholas Monardes in the _General History of Plants_, published in
Lyons in 1653, calls attention likewise to the properties of Coca.
In the seventeenth century, l'abbé Longuerue, who was a theologian, an
historian, and a philologist, speaking of the Spanish colonies in South
America, says, in regard to the mines explored in Peru: "The negroes
can not work in the mines, they all die. Hardly any but the natives
are able to endure this labor, and then it is necessary to relieve
them frequently and that they should chew Coca, without which the
quicksilver vapors would kill them."
Linnæus says that Coca possesses: "the penetrating aroma of vegetable
stimulants, the astricting and fortifying virtues of an astringent,
the antispasmodic qualities of bitters, and the mucilaginous nutritive
properties of analeptics or of alimentary plants. This leaf," he
continues, "exhibits with energy its action on all parts of the animal
economy: _Olido in nervos, sapido in fibras utroque in fluido_."
Father don Antonio Julian wrote: "This plant is a preventive against
many diseases, a restorative of lost strength, and is capable of
prolonging human life. It is sincerely to be regretted that so many
poor families do not possess this preventive of hunger and thirst;
that so many employees and laborers should be deprived of this means
of maintaining their strength in the midst of continuous toil; that
so many old and young men engaged in the arduous task of study and
the accomplishment of their undertakings are unable to derive the
beneficial results of this plant to guard against the exhaustion of
the vital spirits, debility of the brain, and weakness of the stomach,
which are frequent results of continuous study."
Böerhaave (_Inst. phys._ § 68), states that: "the saliva charged with
all the bitter and mucilaginous principles of Coca carries to the
stomach, in addition to vital strength, a veritable nutritive which,
digested and converted into an abundant and nutritious chyle, enters
into the circulation and is converted into the material necessary to
sustain the human economy."
We shall not stop to quote the different writings of observers who have
interested themselves in Coca. It may be inferred from the preceding
statements that Coca possesses this particular character, viz., of
enabling those who make use of it to withstand the greatest fatigue.
Men employed in hard work in mines, couriers obliged to traverse
mountainous countries difficult of travel without being able to take
much rest, in a word, persons subject to overwork in every way, all
agree in recognizing the strengthening and nerve-fortifying action
of Coca. It supports them, economizes their forces, prevents their
succumbing to lassitude—in short, augments their vitality.
When the Indian has a good supply of Coca he undertakes, without the
slightest fear, the most difficult and longest voyages, even into
fever-stricken countries.
When he passes before an _apachecta_ (a quadrangular mound which
the natives raise on the sides of the roads at certain points for a
halting-place), the Indian divests himself of his wraps, takes his quid
of Coca from his mouth, always after having previously exhausted it,
and, in order to draw down upon it the blessing of Pachacamac, their
sovereign master of the world, he throws it against the consecrated
hillock. Thus, that which particularly characterizes these kinds of
_tumuli_ are the green splashes of Coca with which they are literally
covered.
The name of _coqueros_ is given to the chewers of Coca. It seems that
this plant procured for them dreams like those to which hachisch gives
rise.
In native therapeutics, this plant is used to dress ulcers and all
kinds of sores. The Indians also use it to combat asthma, jaundice,
colic, etc.
Coca is consumed chiefly in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil. Since
1863—the time from which our first efforts to popularize it date—its
use has rapidly become general, and it may be stated that to-day it is
known and used in all civilized countries.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
PHYSIOLOGY OF COCA.
It is to empiricism and that alone that we owe our first knowledge
of the physiological action of Coca. There is nothing surprising in
that, for empiricism is nothing more, in reality, than unconscious
observation.
The Indians, who from time immemorial consumed so great a quantity
of Coca leaves, did not do so merely from religious sentiment which
deified the leaves of Coca, they well knew that they would derive great
benefit from its use; they knew it only too well, since it is to that
cause that we must attribute the legendary accounts given by the first
authors who wrote on Coca.
This veneration for Coca arose, as we have seen, from its wonderful
qualities. There are indeed, in this direction, some truly
extraordinary accounts which should not be dismissed without notice, as
they are given in good faith.
Unanué, of Lima, relates that at the siege of La Paz, Bolivia, in 1781,
only those inhabitants who had taken Coca were able to endure hunger
and fatigue. Nearly all of the soldiers perished, deprived, as they
were of food and overcome by forced marches, except those who had taken
the precaution to provide themselves with Coca leaves.
It must not be believed that this prolonged fast, sustained by the
use of Coca, wastes the strength and is injurious to the appetite.
Indeed, according to the statement of all authors, the Indians who pass
an entire day without eating, notwithstanding the hardship of forced
marches, content themselves with chewing Coca leaves, and eat very
heartily in the evening.
"The Indians who accompanied me on my voyage," says Weddel, "chewed
Coca leaves all day, neither drinking, eating, nor showing any signs of
fatigue. But at evening they replenished their stomachs like men who
were completely famished, and I can assure you that I have sometimes
seen them devour at one meal more aliment than I could have consumed
in two days." We will see, further on, that it is in exciting the
cerebro-medullary and nervous muscular functions, in part, and partly
in producing a soothing effect on the mucous membrane of the stomach,
that Coca produces these wonderful results in the conservation of
energy without the tortures of hunger, notwithstanding the deprivation
of aliment.
After this abstract of the well-known and recognized properties of Coca
leaves, we will proceed to the medical study undertaken regarding this
subject.
In 1850 Niemann discovered the active principle of the leaves of Coca,
to which he gave the name of Cocaine, though, in fact, the discovery of
this alkaloid should be attributed to Gardeke, who had separated it in
1855 under the name of _Erythroxyline_.
The work of Demarle appeared in that same year, on "The Coca of
Peru"[4], in which he pointed out certain properties attributed by him
to the alkaloid that the leaves of the plant contained, and which he
studied. He remarked, among other things, the dilatation of the pupils,
which he had noticed in his own case after having taken a dose of
Coca; the absence of taste for a greater or less length of time after
crushing some leaves with his teeth and letting them remain in the
mouth.
Mantegazza has studied the effect of Coca and, according to this
author, it acts as a stimulant on the nervous system, the respiration,
and the circulation.
A dose of fifteen to twenty grammes of Coca produces an increase of
the heart-beat, increasing pulse, and finally a rise in temperature.
Mantegazza observed on himself that, under the influence of such a
dose, his pulse increased from 65 to 124. Moreno, who repeated the same
experiment, obtained similar results. The temperature and respiration
are increased in the same proportion as the circulation.
The same dose, or even a weaker one, produces a remarkably stimulating
effect on the nervous system. It is from this stimulating effect that
Coca makes one more active and vigorous and enables those to accomplish
more work who, without it, would soon be overcome with more or less
fatigue. The use of larger doses (60 grammes for example) has caused
intoxication, accompanied by sensation of happiness, which makes
everything appear under a favorable aspect. Mantegazza, who experienced
this intoxication, describes his sensations in an animated style, which
recalls that of the Oriental legends: "Borne on the wings of two Coca
leaves, I flew about in the spaces of 77,438 worlds, one more splendid
than another. I prefer a life of ten years with Coca to one of a
hundred thousand without it. It seemed to me that I was separated from
the whole world, and I beheld the strangest images, most beautiful in
color and in form that can be imagined."
In 1868, Moreno y Maïz made some researches into the physiological
action of Cocaine, and explained them in an interesting thesis which he
read before the Faculty of Paris[5].
At about the same time, Lippmann, of Strasbourg, devoted his labors
to the same subject, but his investigations did not yield the same
results. He says that he could not establish the anæsthetic properties
of the plant.[6]
After Moreno y Maïz, Dr. Gazeau[7], in 1870, studied the stimulating
effect of Coca on nutrition, and found that it increased the pulse
and respiration, assisted digestion, increased urinary excretion, and
strengthened the nervous system. This author arrived at the conclusion
that Coca prolongs life and promotes muscular energy. He advises its
use, locally, for stomatitis, gingivitis, aphthous ulceration, and
generally for painful and difficult digestion, gastric disturbance in
phthisis, and also for obesity.
It was Charles Fauvel who first described the anæsthetizing effect of
Coca on the pharyngeal mucous membrane[8]. Thanks to this circumstance,
he has been able to derive much benefit from the use of Coca in
granular pharyngitis which is generally unaffected by any other kind of
treatment.
Fauvel further showed that the stimulating effect which Coca exercises
on all the muscles of the economy, appears to manifest itself specially
on all the muscles of the larynx. Hence his apt qualification of the
drug, "a tensor _par excellence_ of the vocal cords."
In 1880, Von Arep published the results of his physiological researches
with Cocaine. He spoke of its double effect on the nervous extremities
and on the central nervous system.
We approach, on leaving this epoch, the really scientific era, that is
to say, that of physiological experiments.
All the experiments having been made with Cocaine, we shall speak of it
in the next chapter, which will be devoted exclusively to the study of
this alkaloid.
Before closing, we will mention that it has been claimed frequently
that Coca was aphrodisiac. The fact that the Peruvian Venus was
represented as holding in her hand a leaf of Coca, was suggested as
a proof in support of this opinion. Dr. Unanué speaks of "certain
coqueros, eighty years of age and over, and yet capable of such prowess
as young men in the prime of life would be proud of."
Let us here add that the so-called unhappy consequences of the abuse
of Coca are really much more rare than those produced even by tobacco,
alcohol or opium.
The constant use of reasonable doses of Coca appears to produce a
diametrically opposite effect, and the authors, who have had occasion
to see a great number of Coca consumers, report cases of astonishing
longevity among the Indian coqueros (Tschudy, Campbell, Mantegazza,
Unanué). They add that these instances are far from being exceptional.
COCAINE.
I.—A CHEMICAL STUDY.[9]
Cocaine is a crystallized alkaloid which Niemann, a pupil of Prof.
Wœhler, succeeded in extracting, in 1859, from some leaves of
_Erythroxylon Coca_ and to which he gave the following formula:
C³² H² O Az O²
Before it was known to him, Wackenroder, Johnston, Gardeke and Maclagan
analyzed this plant without succeeding in the isolation of its active
principle.
Some important works undertaken on this subject by Lassen, Humann and
R. Pérey are also quoted.
_Properties._—Cocaine is colorless, odorless, and bitter to the taste.
It crystallizes in the shape of oblique rhomboid prisms of from four to
six facets.
It is very soluble in water, less soluble in alcohol, and absolutely
insoluble in ether. It does not vaporize below 98°, but if the
temperature is greatly increased it is decomposed. It possesses a
strongly alkaline reaction.
United with acids it forms salts which are very difficult to
crystallize.
Those which have been obtained from it are: the salicylate, oxalate,
hydrobromide, sulphate, acetate, and finally the hydrochlorate, which
forms an exception to the general rule, and is obtained more easily in
the crystalline form than any other.
The solutions of the salts of Cocaine are precipitated by the caustic
alkalies, carbonate of sodium, carbonate of ammonium, the alkaline
bicarbonates, the bichloride of mercury, the protochloride of tin,
bichloride of platinum, and by ammonia, which, added in excess,
redissolves the precipitate formed by it. Iodine water, iodized
potassium iodide, and picric acid precipitate the solutions of salts
of Cocaine. When Cocaine is heated to 100° in a sealed tube with
concentrated hydrochloric acid, it separates into benzoic acid and a
new base, for which M. Wœhler has proposed the name of _Ecgonine_.
Lassen has discovered another nitrogenous base resulting from the
separation of Cocaine—_hygrine_.
_Preparation._—The process used by Niemann for obtaining Cocaine is as
follows:
This chemist digested Coca leaves, cut into very small pieces, in
alcohol (at 55°), for several days, adding sulphuric acid. The tincture
which resulted from this operation was separated by expression,
filtered, and treated with slaked lime. The liquid, which was primarily
of a greenish-brown, was both divested of a part of its chlorophyll and
also of a certain waxy substance. Niemann then neutralized this with
sulphuric acid and evaporated it over a water-bath. The residue was
then treated with water, which caused the separation of the rest of the
chlorophyll and of the sulphate of Cocaine that it contained, and which
was precipitated by means of the carbonate of sodium. He separated it
finally with ether and purified it by several re-crystallizations in
alcohol. This process was modified by Lassen, who precipitated the
aqueous solution with the subacetate of lead.
In this way he was able to obtain about six grammes of Cocaine from a
kilogramme of Coca leaves.
Moreno y Maïz proposed a third process. He mixed intimately, slaked
lime with finely-pulverized Coca leaves, letting the mixture stand for
nearly twenty-four hours, in order that the lime might react suitably
on the alkaloid, imitating in that, the Indian who mixes with his quid
the _llipta_, of which we have already spoken. He afterward lixiviates
it with alcohol at 40°.
II.—PHYSICAL STUDY.
We have reviewed the works of the different authors who occupied
themselves with Coca; their various labors, although very interesting,
did not reach the famous discovery of local anæsthesia, and it is to
Köller, of Vienna[10], that the honor belongs of having brought to
light the remarkable effect of Cocaine when applied to the conjunctival
membrane.
This soon awakened general curiosity. From all quarters came works on
the subject. Reuss, Kœnigstein, Jellinck, Schrotter, Knapp and others
hastened to give to the profession the result of their researches.
In France enthusiasm was not less strong, nor less prompt, all those
whom this discovery interested undertook a series of experiments with
Cocaine[11].
Among the first experimenters we must mention specially, Prof. Panas,
Prof. Vulpian, Prof. Dujardin-Beaumetz, Dr. Terrier, Dr. Trousseau, Dr.
Dehenne.
Prof. Panas reports in a communication made by him to the Académie de
Médecine[12] what he has observed.
He states, besides, that in nearly all respects his personal
investigations are confirmatory of those made by Köller.
About five minutes after a few drops of a solution of hydrochloride of
Cocaine composed of 0.5 gramme of that salt to a gramme of distilled
water have been instilled into the eye, anæsthesia of the conjunctival
mucous membrane of the cornea begins to manifest itself and reaches the
deep parts in about fifteen or twenty minutes if the instillations are
repeated every five minutes.
At the same time there is a certain amount of mydriasis, but this
is less pronounced than that produced by atropine. This pupillary
dilatation, which is more perceptible in young subjects and not in
glaucomatous states, lasts, at least, for twenty-four hours. With that
occurs a slight paralysis of the ciliary muscle.
"On account of this," says Professor Panas, "Cocaine should be placed
among the slightly mydriatic substances of which the passing effect
might be utilized for ophthalmoscopic explorations of the fundus of the
eye, under the same head as, and better than, homatropine."
According to M. Dujardin-Beaumetz, Cocaine not only deadens
sensibility, but it can further be utilized with morphinomaniacs as
a substitute for morphine without presenting the objections of the
latter substance; and he adds that subcutaneous injections made with
this alkaloid are not irritating (_Bulletin de l'Académie de Médecine_,
session of the 18th of November, 1884).
Prof. Vulpian, at
|
uy and so swer,
Þ't hir heuedis þei may not hold vp
But hongen it in þ'e fendis cup."
3. Yet with regard to one class of questions, the tongue of the preacher
was restrained. After touching the subject of confession and the frailty
of some confessors, he adds in a significant way:
"Of þis mater coude I sey mar,
But God wod þ't I ne dar,
For beter is skilful pes to holde
Þan in speche ben to bolde."
4. The following extract will not fail to interest the student of
prophecy:--
"Get wone ful many iewis thore, [_i.e._ in captivity]
And so schul þei don euer more,
Til ageyn domes day,
Þan schul þei þens out-stray,
And ouer al þer þei go
Cristen folk schul þei slo;
And þei schul receyue antecrist
And wene þ't he be ih[=u] crist;
And sone after comiþ domes day,
As we in prophecye her say."
5. The last passage I shall cite is a curious exposition of the First
Commandment (p. 455.):--
"Þ'e first heste is þis: Þu schalt worschipen Þi lord god & him
alone seruyn. In þ't heste is forboden to don any sacrifice to
mawmettis or worschipe to fals goddis. In þ't heste also is
forboden al maner wicchecraftis, enchauntementis, wiþ seruys and
markis and al manere experimentis, coniuraciouns, as men wone to
do and maken for thynges i-stolen, in bacynes, in swerdis and in
certeyn names wreten and enclosed, holi water and holi candel and
oþere manye maneris whiche ben nought good to neuene. In þ't heste
also is forboden al maner iogelyng and for to tellyn of þing þ't
is to comen, be sterres and planets, or be metell, or be destene,
or be schynynge of þ'e pawme of mannes hond or eny oþere maneris.
For þei aproperen to man þing þ't oneliche falleþ to god, to witen
of þinges þ't arn to come," &c.
C. H.
St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge.
A FUNERAL IN HAMBURGH.
MR. GATTY'S observations (Vol. iii., p. 499.) regarding the funeral of
an Irish labourer, have reminded me that while on a visit some years ago
to a brother in the city of Hamburgh, we one Sunday spent the day with a
worthy pastor of a small village a few miles from that city, where we
went early enough to attend morning service in the village church; and
in the afternoon, while indulging with our pipes and coffee in an alcove
in the pastor's garden, I observed a funeral approach the churchyard
gate, and understanding that the ceremony was different to what I had
been accustomed to, I laid down my pipe and walked into the churchyard
to observe what passed, and my movement induced my brother and another
or two to become spectators also. The funeral party having arranged
themselves at the entrance, the ceremony commenced as follows. The
parish clerk or verger walked first, having a lemon in one hand and a
bunch of evergreen in the other; he was followed by six choristers or
singing boys, then six men as bearers carrying the coffin, and after
them the mourners and other attendants. As soon as the cavalcade moved
off, the clerk or verger gave out a strophe of some psalm or hymn, which
he and the boys chanted while moving round the churchyard; and thus
chanting they followed a green path, which I discovered was kept close
mown for the purpose; and I observed our worthy pastor had joined the
cavalcade, though alone, and at some little distance from the mourners.
I understood it was customary thus to move three times round, but being
a very sultry afternoon, the party made two turns serve, when coming to
the open grave the bearers let down the coffin into it, and then another
strophe was chanted, which ended, the mourners took a last look at the
coffin, and silently dropped their sprigs of evergreen upon it; the
bearers then each took a spade, already provided for them, and quickly
filled up the grave, and adjusted its form, when the funeral party
returned silently home as they came. The pastor had now retreated again
to the alcove in his garden, where we soon joined him, and he told me
that as we had gone to witness the ceremony, it would have been thought
disrespectful had he not also shown himself, though it did not appear
that his attendance was necessary. The general practice here observed of
the bearers filling up the grave, shows that the Irish labourers had
some more general custom for their practice than MR. GATTY appears to be
aware of.
W. S. HESLEDEN.
FOLK LORE.
_The Baker's Daughter._--_Ophelia_ (Act IV. Sc. 5.) says that
"The owl was a baker's daughter."
This reminds me of a Welsh tradition concerning the female who refused a
bit of dough from the oven to the Saviour "when He hungered," and was
changed into _Cassek gwenwyn_, [Hebrew: Lilith] _lilish_[TR: Lilith],
_lamia_, _strix_, the night spectre, _mara_, or screech-owl.
G. M.
_"Pray remember the Grotto" on St. James's Day_ (Vol. i., p. 5.).--The
interesting note with which MR. WILLIAM J. THOMS presented the firstborn
of "NOTES AND QUERIES," may perhaps admit of a postscript, borrowed from
one of Mr. Jerdan's well-deserving pupils, the _Literary Gazette_
for 1822:
"I am inclined to believe that the illuminated grottos of
oyster-shells for which the London children beg about the streets,
are the representatives of some Catholic emblem which had its day,
as a substitute for a more classical idol. I was struck in London
with the similarity of the plea which the children of both
countries urge in order to obtain a halfpenny. The 'It is but once
a year, sir!' often reminded me of the
'La Cruz de Mayo
Que no come ni bebe
En todo el ano.'
'The Cross of May,
Remember pray,
Which fasts a year and feasts a day.'"
_Letters from Spain._ By Don Leucadio Doblado.
This to prove that I _did_ remember the grotto.
* &?
Manpadt House.
_The King's Evil._--One Mr. Bacon of Ferns, being an one-and-twentieth
son born in wedlock, without a daughter intervening, has performed
prodigious cures in the king's evil and scrofulous cases, by stroking
the part with his hand. (_The Gentleman's Magazine_ for December 1731,
p. 543.)
* &?
_Bees._--Being at a neighbour's house about a month ago, the
conversation turned upon the death of a mutual acquaintance a short time
prior to my visit. A venerable old lady present asked, with great
earnestness of manner, "Whether Mr. R.'s bees had been informed of his
death?" (Our friend R. had been a great bee-keeper.) No one appeared to
be able to answer the old lady's question satisfactorily, whereat she
was much concerned, and said, "Well, if the bees were not told of Mr.
R's death they would leave their hives, and never return. Some people
give them a piece of the funeral cake; I don't think that is absolutely
necessary, but certainly it is better to tell them of the death." Being
shortly afterwards in the neighbourhood of my deceased friend's
residence, I went a little out of my way to inquire after the bees. Upon
walking up the garden I saw the industrious little colony at full work.
I learned, upon inquiring of the housekeeper, that the bees had been
properly informed of Mr. R.'s death.
I was struck with the singularity of this specimen of folk-lore, and
followed up the subject with further inquiries amongst my acquaintance.
I found that in my own family, upon the death of my mother, some
five-and-twenty years ago, the bees were duly informed of the event. A
lady friend also told me, that twenty years ago, when she was at school,
the father of her school-mistress died, and on that occasion the bees
were made acquainted with his death, and regaled with some of the
funeral cake.
I wish to know whether this custom prevails in any other, and what part
of England, and to what extent?
L. L. L.
North Lincolnshire.
THE CAXTON COFFER.
Reflecting on the extreme rarity of the works which issued from the
press of Caxton, the question arises, What number of copies was he
accustomed to print? On that point, as it seems, we have only
conjectures.
Maittaire assumes that the number was about 200; an opinion which I
shall not controvert. Dibdin, however, inclines to think, with regard to
_The golden legend_ and other works of the same class, "that at least
400 copies were struck off;" and in support of this conjecture, cites
the practice of Sweynheym and Pannartz, as proved by the memorial
addressed in their behalf to Sixtus IV., by J. Andrea, bishop of Aleria,
in 1472, which practice he thus states:--
"If we are to judge from the celebrated list of the number of
copies of the different works printed by those indefatigable
typographical artists, Sweynheym and Pannartz, it would appear
that 275 was the usual number of copies of a particular work;
although sometimes they ventured to strike off as many as 550;
and, twice, not fewer than 1100 copies."
Now, our renowned bibliographer misinterprets the important document
which he cites. Sweynheym and Pannartz printed 300 copies of a
_Donatus_, and the same number of a _Speculum vitæ humanæ_, and of two
more works. In all other cases, each impression of the works which
proceeded from their press consisted of only 275 copies. The words
_Volumina quingenta quinquaginta_ refer to works of which two editions
were published, or which were in two volumes; and the words _Volumina
mille centum_, to a work of which there were two editions of two volumes
each. So the conjecture of Dibdin loses its best support.
As Sweynheym and Pannartz printed only 275 copies of the works of such
authors as St. Augustin and St. Jerome, of Cæsar, Cicero, Livy, Ovid,
Quinctilian, and Virgil--works which must have found purchasers in all
parts of Europe--it is rather improbable that Caxton should have
ventured to exceed that number with respect to books for which, being
chiefly translations, there could be no demand beyond the shores of
England.
BOLTON CORNEY.
Minor Notes.
_Braham Moor._--The following _remarkable_ account of this place by John
Watson, Esq., of Malton, in the year 1781, may be interesting to some of
the readers of your paper. Braham is situated five miles S.W. of
Tadcaster, and close to, and in, the remains of the old Roman road
called "Watling Street:"--
"Upon the middle of this moor a man may see ten miles around him;
within those ten miles there is as much free stone as would build
ten cities as large as York; within those ten miles there is as
much good oak timber as would build those ten cities; there is as
much limestone, and coals to burn it into lime, as the building of
those ten cities would require; there is also as much clay and
sand, and coals to burn them into bricks and tiles, as would build
those ten cities; within those ten miles there are two iron forges
sufficient to furnish iron for the building of those ten cities,
and 10,000 tons to spare; within those ten miles there is lead
sufficient for the ten cities, and 10,000 fodders to spare; within
those ten miles there is a good coal seam sufficient to furnish
those ten cities with firing for 10,000 years; within those ten
miles there are three navigable rivers, from any part of which a
man may take shipping and sail to any part of the world; within
those ten miles there are _seventy_ gentlemen's houses, all
_keeping coaches_, and the least of them an esquire, and ten parks
and forests well stocked with deer; within those ten miles are ten
market towns, one of which may be supposed to return 10,000_l._
per week."
CHAS. W. MARKHAM.
Becca Hall, Tadcaster.
_Portraits of Burke._--Through the kindness of a friend I have just
examined what I take to be an interesting and curious work of art, viz.,
a miniature of the great Edmund Burke, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and said to be the _only miniature_ he ever painted. It is a small oval
of ivory executed in water colours, and represents him past the meridian
of life, his hair combed back from his ample forehead, and powdered; the
coat (according to the fashion of the day) without a collar, and, as
well as the waistcoat, of a chocolate colour; a white stock, and the
shirt frill of lace; the features, although retaining great animation
and intelligence, are round and plump. The painting is carefully and
delicately finished. The same friend also possesses another miniature of
the same right honourable gentleman (artist unknown), deserving notice:
it is in a much larger oval, and drawn in coloured crayons. This
likeness represents the statesman at a much earlier period of life, and
is most exquisitely executed: his fine auburn hair in natural waves, if
I may use the expression, is also thrown off the face, the features
rather sharp, the nose prominent, the eyes brilliant, the lips
beautifully expressed, and, on the whole, one of the most highly
finished specimens of this style I ever saw: the costume the same as
that already described, the colour being a snuff-brown. In this
portrait, a black ribbon crosses the lace frill, indicating the presence
of an eye-glass, an appendage not observable in portraits taken later in
life. The lady who owns these paintings is the widow of a gentleman
lately deceased, who being related to, was brought up under the
guardianship of this great man, and was by him introduced into public
life; circumstances which prove the authenticity of the works thus
briefly described.
M. W. B.
Bruges, Sept. 26, 1851.
Queries.
GENERAL JAMES WOLFE, WHO FELL AT QUEBEC.
A short time ago I accidentally became possessed of a small packet of
autograph letters, by this distinguished man, to a very intimate friend
and brother officer. These letters were found in an old military chest,
which had belonged to the latter. They are twelve in number; the first
is dated Glasgow, 2d April, 1749, and the last, Salisbury, 1st December,
1758, on the eve of his embarkation with the memorable expedition
against Quebec. The letters are written in a small and remarkably neat
hand, and Wolfe's seal is still adhering to some of them. They contain
much honourable sentiment, and proofs of a warm generous heart.
The perusal of these curious letters, and their allusions to passing
incidents, have excited a desire to become better acquainted with the
details of Wolfe's personal history; but in this I experience
considerable difficulty, from the meagreness with which his biographers
appear to have treated the subject. I shall accordingly feel much
obliged by any of your military, or other correspondents, favouring me
with references to the fullest and best account of this distinguished
officer. I am anxious to obtain information, in particular, on the
following points.
1. Wolfe's family connexions? I am aware who his father was, but should
like to know if the former had any brothers or sisters, and who is the
present representative? What was his mother's name and family?
2. Where was Wolfe educated? In one of the letters he mentions that he
was taken from his studies at fifteen, and entered the army at that
early age.
3. The different regiments in which he held a commission, with his rank
in each, the steps and date of promotion?
4. His _first_ and subsequent military services?
5. How long was he stationed in Scotland, on what duty, and in what
places?
6. In particular, was he engaged in the formation of any of the military
roads in that country, _when_ and _where_?
7. Did he serve in Scotland during the rebellion of 1745-46, and was he
present at the battle of Culloden? If so, in what regiment, and with
what rank?
8. Are there any good portraits of Wolfe extant, and where are they to
be seen?
9. Was his body brought to England, and are memorials of him preserved,
such as his sword, pistols, &c.? His spurs were lately in the possession
of a gentleman near Glasgow.
[Ezh.]
WALKER'S SUFFERINGS OF THE CLERGY.
Is it the intention of the Ecclesiastical History Society to publish a
new edition of Walker's _Sufferings of the Clergy_? At the time when the
society was instituted it was on the list of works to be published by
them.
Surely, if that is the case, somewhat might be done to correct the many
inaccuracies, and, in other ways, increase the value of a work which has
preserved the memory of some of the most exalted acts of Christian
heroism that England has ever witnessed.
Will the editor of "NOTES AND QUERIES" open his pages to receive notes
and corrections for a future edition of _The Sufferings of the Clergy_?
DRYASDUST.
[It is believed that the trading speculation, miscalled a Society,
has ended with considerable loss to both undertakers and
subscribers; and is not likely to publish any more of the works
which figured in its rhodomontade prospectus. Certainly it is very
desirable that there should be a new, careful, and critical
edition of Walker; and any assistance which can be rendered by
"NOTES AND QUERIES" will be at the service of anybody who will
undertake such a work. It would be well, however (and it is
mentioned here with general reference to all such cases, though it
is particularly applicable to the present), if the learned doctor
would specify some mode by which the readers of "NOTES AND
QUERIES", may address him directly. The Editor suggests this, not
to save himself trouble, or because he grudges room (or rather
would grudge room if he had it) for many voluminous and important
communications, which would be very valuable to the Doctor, but
which, from length, and want of general interest, could not be
inserted in this little work. It is probable that he would by this
mode obtain many communications which the writers would not send
to "NOTES AND QUERIES," from being aware that they could not be
inserted. There would be nothing in this to prevent his
maintaining his incognito; and, therefore, the Editor ventures to
request his correspondents to send to "NOTES AND QUERIES" anything
that is brief, and may promise to be of general interest; and to
address anything which may be more voluminous to DR. DRYASDUST, at
our publisher's, No. 186. Fleet Street.]
Minor Queries.
207. _Colonies in England._--Can any of your correspondents give me any
information about a colony of Spaniards said to exist at Brighton; of
Flemings in Pembrokeshire; of Frisians in Lancashire; of Moors in (I
think) Staffordshire; and of some Scandinavian race, with dark eyes and
dark hair, at Yarmouth in Norfolk. I should feel thankful for the
mention of other colonies besides these, if any more exist, as I believe
many do, in other parts of England.
THEOPHYLACT.
208. _Buxtorf's Translation of the "Treatise on Hebrew Accents," by
Elias Levita._--John Buxtorf the elder, in his _Bibliotheca Rabbinica_
(printed along with his useful book _De Abbreviaturis Hebraicis_: Basil,
1630), p. 345., speaking of the curious and valuable work on the Hebrew
Accents, by R. Elias Levita, called
[Hebrew: Sefer Tuv Ta'am],
says, "Habemus cum Latine a nobis translatum."
Can any of your readers inform me whether this translation was ever
printed; and, if not, whether the MS. of it is known to exist?
JAMES H. TODD.
Trin. Coll. Dublin.
209. _The Name "Robert."_--Can any of your readers offer any suggestions
as to how the name "Robert," and its various diminutives, became
connected with so much diablerie?
Besides the host of _hob_-goblins, _hob_-thrush, _hob_-with-the-lantern,
and the Yorkshire _Dobbies_, we have those two mysterious wights _Robin_
Hood and _Robin_ Goodfellow, and "superstitious favourite" the _Robin_
Redbreast. It is a term also frequently applied to idiotcy (invariably
among our lower orders linked with the idea of super-naturalism).
_Hobbil_ in the northern and _Dobbin_ in the midland districts of
England are terms used to denote a heavy, torpid fellow. The French
_Robin_ was formerly used in the same sense.
SAXONICUS.
210. _Meaning of "Art'rizde."_--In Halliwell's _Archaic Dictionary_, p.
821. col. 2., there is a quotation from Middleton's _Epigrams and
Satyres_, 1608. Will you, or any of your readers, be kind enough to
inform me what is the meaning of the word "Art'rizde" which occurs in the
quotation, and also give some information as to the book from which it
is quoted? Dyce professes to publish _all_ of Middleton's known works,
but in his edition (1840) there are no epigrams to be found.
QUÆSO.
211. _Sir William Griffith of North Wales._--Elizabeth, daughter of
William Fiennes, Constable of Dover Castle, who was slain at the battle
of Barnet, 10 Edw. IV., married, according to the pedigrees of Fiennes,
"_Sir William Griffith, of North Wales, Knt._" It appears there were
several persons of this name, and one styled Chamberlain of North Wales,
but no such wife is given to him. Can any of your Welsh genealogists
_identify_ the Sir William Griffith by reference to any evidence or
authorities, manuscript or otherwise, which state the marriage, and show
whether Elizabeth Fiennes had any issue?
G.
212. _The Residence of William Penn._--I have been informed that Chatham
House, opposite the barracks at Knightsbridge, was the residence of
Penn. This house was built in 1688; it had formerly large garden grounds
attached both in front and behind. Another account informed me that a
house, now known as the "Rising Sun," was the honoured spot. This house
has only of late years been turned into a public-house; it is of neat
appearance, and the date of 1611 is, or was till lately, to be seen at
the two extremes of the copings. Query, Can either of these houses be
pointed out with certainty as having been the residence of the great
Quaker, and, if so, which? Why was the first-mentioned house called
Chatham House?
H. G. D.
213. _Martial's Distribution of Hours._--
"Prima salutantes atque altera continet hora;
Exercet raucos tertia causidicos.
In quintam varios extendit Roma labores,
Sexta quies lassis ----"
Martial, iv. 8.
These lines are the forenoon portion of Martial's well-known
distribution of hours and occupation.
Taking these hours then, for the sake of simplification, at the equinox,
when they assimilate in length to our modern hours and assuming it as
granted that "_quies lassis_" refers to the noon-tide siesta, and
therefore that "_sexta_" cannot signify any time previous to our twelve
o'clock, or noon, I wish to ask the classical readers of "NOTES AND
QUERIES"--
1st. How far into the day are we carried by the expression "_in
quintam_?"
2nd. If no farther than to a point equivalent to our eleven o'clock,
A.M., in what way is the vacant hour between that point and _sexta_, or
noon, accounted for by Martial?
A. E. B.
Leeds.
214. _Moonlight._--A sermon of Dr. Pusey's contains the following
beautiful illustrations of the danger of much knowledge and little
practice:
"The pale cold light of the moon, which enlightens but warns not,
putrifies what it falls upon."
Will any one inform me whether this is a physical truth, or only an
allowable use of a popular opinion?
PHILIP HEDGELAND.
215. _Ash-sap given to new-born Children._--Lightfoot, in his _Flora
Scotia_, vol. ii. p. 642., says--
"That in many parts of Scotland (the Highlands), at the birth of a
child the nurse or midwife puts one end of a great stick of the
ash-tree into the fire, and while it is burning receives into a
spoon the sap or juice which oozes out at the other end, and
administers this as the first spoonfuls of liquor to the new-born
babe."--Phillip's _Sylva Flora_.
Why?
G. CREED.
216. _Cockney._--In John Minshieu's _Ductor in Linguas_, published in
1617, the origin of this word is thus explained:--
"That a citizen's son riding with his father out of London into
the country, and being a novice and merely ignorant how corn and
cattle increased, asked, when he heard a horse neigh, what the
horse did? His father answered, the horse doth neigh. Riding
further he heard a cock crow, and said, doth the _cock neigh_
too?"
I should not have troubled you with this story had I not been anxious to
ascertain the real origin of the word "Cockney," about which Johnson
seems to have been nearly as much in the dark as I am. For any other and
more rational explanation I shall be much obliged, as well as by being
informed from what source Minshieu derived this story of a cock and a
horse, which I am confident I have met with elsewhere, and which is
probably familiar to many of your readers.
H. C.
Workington.
217. _Full Orders._--This term is well understood to mean those orders
conferred in the church which elevate a deacon to the rank of a priest,
capable of a full and entire performance of the duties of the Christian
ministry. An interesting point has recently been stirred afresh,
touching the validity of any ministerial commission which does not draw
its authority from the imposition of episcopal hands. I am not proposing
to start a controversial question, unsuited to the quiet and pleasant
pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES;" but there branches out from this question
a Query solely relating to the Church of England, and involving no
dispute; and therefore I beg to ask, whether our church holds that a
bishop can confer the full orders of the priesthood without any
concomitant laying on of the hands of the presbytery? The rubric in the
office for the Ordering of Priests, says, "_The Bishop with the Priests
present shall lay their hands severally upon the head of every one that
receiveth the order of Priesthood_:" and the Bishop then says, "Receive
the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God,
now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands," &c. Is, then,
the aid of the priests _essential_ to the due performance of the rite?
Does the expression "_our_ hands" mean both bishop's and priests' hands,
as the joint instruments of conveying authority to do the work and
office of a priest? Is there any instance of an Anglican bishop
ordaining a priest without assistance? I am aware that Beveridge
considers that the bishop's hands alone are sufficient; that it has
never been the practice in the Greek or the Eastern churches for priests
to take a part in the ceremony of conferring "full orders;" and that the
custom of their doing so is referred to a decree of the Council of
Carthage, A.D. 398, which says, "When a priest is ordained, the
bishop blessing him and laying the hand upon his head, let all the
priests also, that are present, hold their hands upon his head, by the
hands of the bishop." Without the slightest reference to which is really
the orthodox method, I would merely ask, whether the Church of England
could _legally_ forego the intervention of the priests, just as the
Church of Scotland dispenses with the aid of bishops in the act of
conferring "full orders?"
ALFRED GATTY.
218. _Earwig._--Can any correspondent furnish a derivation of _ear-wig_
superior to the ones in vogue?
[Greek: AXÔN.]
219. _The Soul's Errand._--I will thank any one to tell me on what
grounds the stanzas called the _Soul's Errand_ are reported to have been
written by Sir Walter Raleigh the night before his execution. The first
stanza is (memoriter)--
"Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errant!
Fear not to touch the best,
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie."
It will be satisfactory to hear at the same time in what work they are
to be found. A nobleman of high rank is said to have them engraved on a
silver table of the period.
ÆGROTUS.
Minor Queries Answered.
_Call a Spade, a Spade._--What is the origin of the common saying _to
call a spade, a spade_? Is it an old proverb or a quotation? In a letter
of Melancthon's to Archbishop Cranmer respecting the formularies of the
Anglican Church, dated May 1st, 1548, the following sentence occurs,
which seems to be another form of it:--
"In Ecclesiâ rectius, _scapham, scapham dicere_; nec objicere
posteris ambigua dicta."
Is _scapham, scapham dicere_, I would also ask, a classical quotation,
or a modern Latin version of the other expression?
W. FRASER.
[Mr. Halliwell, in his _Dictionary_, says, "The phrase _To call a
spade a spade_ is applied to giving a person his real character or
qualities. Still in use." "I am plaine, I must needs call _a spade
a spade_, a pope a pope."--_Mar-Prelate's Epitome_, p. 2.]
_Prince Rupert's Drops._--At the risk of being thought somewhat
ignorant, I beg for enlightenment with regard to the following passage
extracted from a late number of _Household Words_:--
"Now the first production of an author, if only three lines long,
is usually esteemed as a sort of Prince Rupert's Drop, which is
destroyed entirely if a person make on it but a single scratch."
If you, or some of your correspondents, would not think this too trivial
a matter to notice, and would inform me what the allusion to "Prince
Rupert's Drop" refers to, I should be very much obliged.
YRAM.
[For the history of Prince Rupert's Drops our correspondent is
referred to our 100th Number, p. 234. These philosophical toys,
which exhibit in the most perfect manner the effects of expansion
and contraction in melted glass, are made by letting drops of
melted glass fall into cold water. Each drop assumes an oval form
with a tail or neck resembling a retort; and possesses this
singular property, that if a small portion of the tail is broken
off the whole bursts into powder with an explosion, and a
considerable shock is communicated to the hand that grasps it.]
_"Worse than a Crime."_--Who first remarked, with reference to the
murder of the Duc D'Enghien by Napoleon, "It was worse than a crime, it
was a blunder?"
T. ALLASON.
Furnival's Inn, Oct. 3. 1851.
[This saying has always been attributed to Talleyrand; and it is
so clearly the remark of a clever politician, but lax moralist,
that we have little doubt it has been very justly appropriated to
that distinguished sayer of good things.]
_Arbor Lowe, Stanton Moor, Ayre Family._--Can any of your readers oblige
me with information respecting the Druidical remains at Arbor Lowe and
Stanton Moor, in the Peak of Derbyshire? I am unable to find any but
meagre notices; and in one or two so-called histories of Derbyshire,
they are only casually mentioned. Also any particulars concerning the
old family of the Ayres, who formerly lived at Birchever, and whose
house still stands in a very ruinous condition at the foot of the Routor
Rocks?
I have heard that some very singular histories are connected with the
family.
H.
[Arbor Lowe and Stanton Moor will be found very fully described by
that indefatigable Derbyshire antiquary Mr. Bateman, in his
_Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire_, published in 1848.]
_Bishop of Worcester "On the Sufferings of Christ."_--Who was the Bishop
of Worcester about the year 1697? I have a book by him _On the
Sufferings of Christ_, and it only states by Edward Bishop of Worcester.
I presume it is Dr. Stillingfleet.
[Greek: Sigma.]
[This work is by Bishop Stillingfleet; the first edition was
published in 1696, and Part II. in 1700, the year following the
Bishop's death.]
_Lord Clifford._--Is the present Lord Clifford lineally descended from
the Lord Clifford who was Lord High Treasurer _temp._ Charles II., or
whether he derives through any collateral branch?
CLERICUS.
[The present Lord Clifford, the eighth baron, is lineally
descended from Thomas first Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, who was
so created 22nd April, 1672.]
_Latin Translation of Sarpi's Council of Trent._--Can any one inform me
who translated this into Latin? I have a copy of an early edition,
without printer's name or place of publication, and with the fictitious
name _Petri Suavis Polani_; an anagram, though not an accurate one, of
_Pauli, Sarpis, Veneti
|
which he begs his friend Wegeler in a letter to
send him from Bonn.
We have hinted that Ludwig van Beethoven was not happy in his home. If
every one is haunted by some skeleton, his was grim enough. Not many
years after their marriage his wife Josepha had become addicted to
drinking, and in fact her habits were such that it was found necessary
to place her in the restraint of a convent at Cologne. Thayer attributes
this failing to grief for the loss of her children, only one of whom
lived to manhood; but this trait in her character was unfortunately
reproduced in her son Johann.[2]
The latter appears to have been a man of vacillating, inert temperament,
gifted with a good voice and artistic sensibility, but not capable of
any sustained effort. At the age of twenty-four we find him filling the
post of Tenor in the Electoral Chapel with the miserable stipend of one
hundred thalers, and not distinguished in any way, unless we except his
ingenuity in spelling or misspelling his own name in the petitions which
he from time to time addressed to the Elector for an increase of salary.
In these he calls himself _Bethoven_, _Betthoven_, _Bethof_,
_Biethoffen_; but this instance does not warrant us in concluding that
he was a man of no education whatever, for the orthography even of those
who considered themselves scholars was at that time very erratic.
At the age of twenty-seven, on an income not much larger than that just
mentioned, Johann van Beethoven took unto himself a wife. The entry in
the register of the parish of St. Remigius runs thus:--
"Copulavi-- "Nov. 12, 1767.
"JOHANNEM VAN BEETHOVEN, filium legitimum LUDOVICI VAN BEETHOVEN et
MARIÆ JOSEPHÆ POLL,
Et
MARIAM MAGDALENAM KEFERICH, viduam LEYM, ex Ehrenbreitstein, filiam
HENRICI KEFERICH et ANNÆ MARIÆ WESTROFFS."
The object of his choice was a young widow, Maria Magdalena, daughter of
the head cook at the castle of Ehrenbreitstein. Her first husband,
Johann Leym, one of the _valets de chambre_ to the Elector of Treves,
had left her a widow at the age of nineteen. The fruit of this plebeian
union between the tenor singer of the Electoral Chapel and the daughter
of the head cook to his Grace the Archbishop of Treves was the great
maestro.
What a downfall must the discovery of this fact have been to the
numerous Viennese admirers of Beethoven, who for long persisted in
attributing to him a noble origin, confounding the Flemish particle
_van_ with the aristocratic _von_! It was impossible, they thought, that
Beethoven's undoubted aristocratic leanings could be compatible with so
humble a parentage. Hence the absurd fable, promulgated by Fayolle and
Choron, which represented him as a natural son of Frederic II., King of
Prussia, which was indignantly repudiated by Beethoven himself.
In general careless of his own reputation, he could not bear that the
slightest breath of slander should touch his mother; and in a letter
addressed to Wegeler begged him to "make known to the world the honour
of his parents, particularly of his mother." Her memory was always
regarded by him with the deepest tenderness, and he was wont to speak
lovingly of the "great patience she had with his waywardness."
We cannot conclude this short sketch better than by presenting the
reader with Thayer's picturesque description of Bonn, as it must have
appeared in the eyes of the young Beethoven.
The old town itself wore an aspect very similar to that of the present
day. There were the same churches and cloisters, the same quaint flying
bridge, the same ruins of Drachenfels and Godesberg towering above the
same orchard-embedded villages. The Seven Hills looked quietly down on
the same classic Rhine, not as yet desecrated by puffing tourist-laden
steamboat or shrieking locomotive.
Gently and evenly flowed the life-current in the Elector's capital, no
foreboding of nineteenth century bustle and excitement causing even a
ripple on the calm surface.
"Let our imagination paint for us a fine Easter or Whitsun morning in
those times, and show us the little town in its holiday adornment and
bustle.
"The bells are ringing from castle tower and church steeple; the country
people, in coarse but comfortable garments (the women overladen with gay
colours), come in from the neighbouring villages, fill the
market-places, and throng into the churches to early mass.
"The nobles and principal citizens, in ample low-hanging coats, wide
vests, and knee-breeches (the whole suit composed of some
bright-coloured stuffsilk, satin, or velvet), with great white
fluttering cravats, ruffles over the hands; buckles of silver, or even
of gold, below the knee and on the shoes; high frizzed and powdered
perruques on the head, covered with a cocked hat, if the latter be not
tucked underneath the arm; a sword by the side, and generally a
gold-headed cane; and, if the morning be cold, a scarlet mantle thrown
over the shoulders.
"Thus attired they decorously direct their steps to the castle to kiss
the hand of his Serene Highness, or drive in at the gates in ponderous
equipages, surmounted by white-powdered, cocked-hatted coachman and
footman.
"Their wives wear long narrow bodices with immense flowing skirts. Their
shoes with very high heels, and the towering rolls over which their hair
is dressed, give them an appearance of greater height than they in
reality possess. They wear short sleeves, but long silk gloves cover
their arms.
"The clergy of different orders and dress are attired as at the present
day, with the exception of the streaming wigs. The Electoral Guard has
turned out, and from time to time the thunder of the firing from the
walls reaches the ear.
"On all sides strong and bright contrasts meet the eye; velvet and silk,
'purple and fine linen,' gold and silver. Such was the taste of the
period; expensive and incommodious in form, but imposing, magnificent,
and indicative of the distinction between the different grades of
society."
Such was the Bonn of 1770.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: We are told on good authority that the elder Beethoven had
invested his money in "two cellars of wine," which he bought from the
growers of the district, and sold into the Netherlands. An unlucky
speculation! Johann, we learn, was early an adept at
"wine-tasting."--THAYER, Vol. i. App., p. 328.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
BOYHOOD.
Birth--Early Influences and Training--Neefe--First Attempts at
Composition--The Boy Organist--Max Friedrich's National
Theatre--Mozart and Beethoven--Disappointment.
On the 17th of December, 1770, in the old house in the Bonngasse, Ludwig
van Beethoven first saw the light. He was not the eldest child, Johann
having about eighteen months previously lost a son who had also been
christened Ludwig.
Beethoven's infant years flew by happily, the grandfather being still
alive, and able to make good any deficiency in his son's miserable
income; but in the year 1773 the old man was gathered to his fathers,
and the little household left to face that struggle with poverty which
embittered Beethoven's youth.
The father, however, was not yet the hardened, reckless man he
afterwards became, and could still take pleasure in the manifest joy
exhibited by his little son whenever he sat at the pianoforte and
played or sang. The sound of his father's voice was sufficient to draw
the child from any game, and great was his delight when Johann placed
his little fingers among the keys and taught him to follow the melody of
the song.
On the title-page of the three Sonatas dedicated to the Elector
Maximilian Friedrich, Beethoven says, "From my fourth year music has
been my favourite pursuit;" and such would seem to have been really the
case.
The readiness with which the child learned was, however, unfortunate for
him. No long interval had elapsed since the extraordinary performances
of the young Mozarts had astonished the whole musical world, and the
evil genius of Johann van Beethoven now prompted him to turn his son's
talents to the same account. He resolved to make of Ludwig a prodigy,
and foresaw in his precocious efforts a mine of wealth which would do
away with any necessity for exertion on his part, and allow him to give
full scope to what was fast becoming his dominant passion.
With this end in view he undertook the musical education of his boy, and
the little amusing lessons, at first given in play, now became sad and
serious earnest. Ludwig was kept at the pianoforte morning, noon, and
night, till the child began positively to hate what he had formerly
adored.
Still the father was relentless: Handel, Bach, Mozart, all had been
great as child-musicians; and if the boy (only a baby of five years)
showed signs of obstinacy or sulkiness, he must be forced into
submission by cruel threats and still more cruel punishments. Many a
time was the little Ludwig seen in tears, standing on a raised bench
before his pianoforte, thus early serving his apprenticeship to grief.
In short, Johann was fast doing all he could to ruin the genius of his
son, when, fortunately for the world, it soon became evident that if
Ludwig were to do wonders as a prodigy, he would require a better
teacher than his father, and the boy was accordingly handed over to one
Pfeiffer, an oboist in the theatre, and probably a lodger in Johann's
house.
This man seems to have been of a genial, kindly nature, though only too
willing to second his landlord's views with regard to the boy; for we
learn that when the two came home from the tavern far on in the night
(as was too often the case) the little Ludwig would be dragged from his
bed and kept at the pianoforte till daybreak! Beethoven seems, however,
to have had a great regard for Pfeiffer, who was an excellent pianist,
and from whom he declared he had learned more than from any one else.
On hearing many years after that he was broken down and in poverty, he
sent him, through Simrock the music publisher, a sum of money.
This ruthless conduct on the part of Johann, though unjustifiable and
inhuman, probably layed the foundation of the technical skill and power
over the pianoforte which so greatly distinguished Beethoven. It is not
positively certain that the father gained his end, and made money by
exhibiting the child, though we have the testimony of the widow Karth
(who as a child inhabited the same house as the Beethovens) that on one
occasion the mother made a journey to Holland and Belgium--probably to
some relations in Louvain,--where she received several considerable
presents from noble personages before whom the wonder-child had
performed. This, however, is a mere childish reminiscence, not to be
depended on, though it certainly coincides with all we know of Johann's
character.
The boy was also forced to learn the violin, and this he disliked
infinitely more than the piano, a fact which puts to flight the pretty
anecdote narrated in the "Arachnologie" of Quatremère Disjonval, who
gravely states that whenever the boy began to practise--in an old ruined
garret filled with broken furniture and dilapidated music-books--a
spider was in the habit of leaving its hiding-place, and perching itself
upon his violin till he had finished. When his mother discovered her
son's little companion she killed it, whereupon this second Orpheus,
filled with indignation, smashed his instrument! Beethoven himself
remembered nothing about this, and used to laugh heartily at the story,
saying it was far more probable that his discordant growls frightened
away every living thing--down to flies and spiders.
When he was nine years old, Pfeiffer left Bonn to act as bandmaster in a
Bavarian regiment, and the boy was placed under the care of Van den
Eeden, the court organist. At his death, which took place not long
after, Ludwig was transferred to his successor, Christian Gottlob
Neefe, whose pupil he remained for several years.
This Neefe, long since forgotten, was one of the best musicians of the
time, and thought worthy to be named in the same breath with Bach and
Graun. He was a ready composer, and the favourite pupil of Johann Adam
Hiller, Bach's successor as Cantor in the Thomasschule at Leipzig. He
appears, moreover, to have been an amiable, conscientious man, and so
high did his artistic reputation stand that he, although a Protestant,
was tolerated as organist in the archbishop's private chapel.
How comes it, then, that with all these qualifications Beethoven would
not afterwards allow that he had profited by his instructions? The
question is not easily solved. Beethoven himself wrote from Vienna to
his old teacher in 1793, "I thank you for the advice which you often
gave me whilst striving in my divine art. If I ever become a great man
you have a share in it."
Notwithstanding this tribute there was a coldness between them. It may
be that master and pupil had not that entire sympathy with each other
which is essential to any worthy result from the relationship.
Beethoven, as we know, was self-willed, and overflowing with an
originality which, even at that early age, would not easily brook
dictation. Neefe, on the other hand, was a _young_ man, and endowed, as
he himself tells us in his Autobiography, with a certain satirical
tendency, which he may have allowed somewhat too free play in
criticising his young pupil's efforts in composition. If the latter
conjecture be correct, it gives the clue to the earnest advice Beethoven
was wont to give the critics in after years--never to judge the
performances of a beginner harshly, as "many would thus be deterred from
following out what they might, perhaps, have ultimately succeeded in."
Contempt to a sensitive, shrinking nature is like the blast of the east
wind on a tender flower; downright condemnation is easier to bear than
the sneer which throws the young aspirant, smarting and humiliated, back
into himself--his best energies withered for the moment.
Whatever Beethoven's feeling to Neefe may have been, it did not, at any
rate, prevent his making very decided progress under his tuition, at
which the organist himself rejoiced, as we learn from the following
letter written by him, and published in _Cramer's Magazine_--the first
printed notice of Beethoven:--"Louis van Beethoven, son of the Tenor
mentioned above, a boy of eleven years, with talent of great promise. He
plays the pianoforte with great execution and power, reads very well at
sight, and, to say all in brief, plays almost the whole of Sebastian
Bach's 'Wohl-temperirte Clavier,' which Herr Neefe has put into his
hands. He who knows this collection of preludes and fugues through all
the keys (which one might almost call the _non plus ultra_) will
understand what this implies. Herr Neefe has also given him, so far as
his other occupations permit, some introduction to the study of
thorough-bass. Now he exercises him in composition, and for his
encouragement has had printed in Mannheim nine variations for the
pianoforte written by him on a March. This young genius deserves help in
order that he may travel. He will certainly be a second Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart if he continue as he has begun."
What could be kinder than the tone of this letter?
The allusion to Mozart in the last sentence does credit to Neefe's
discernment, as the great composer was at that time comparatively little
known. It is to be presumed that at this period Beethoven also studied
the works of C.P.E. Bach, since there is evidence that he was familiar
with them. His progress, in short, was such that we find him in 1782,
when he had not completed his twelfth year, installed as Neefe's
representative at the organ, while the latter was absent on a journey of
some duration.
Thus we may picture the boy Beethoven to ourselves, at an age when other
children are frolicsome and heedless, as already a little man, earnest,
grave, reserved, buried in his own thoughts, his Bach, and his organ. He
had no time to join his young companions in their games, even had his
inclination prompted him to do so; for besides the hours devoted to
music, he attended the public school, where he went through the usual
elementary course, and learned besides a little Latin. His knowledge of
the latter must, however, have been very slight, as when composing his
first Mass he was obliged to make use of a translation, which,
considering that he was brought up in a Catholic family, is singular
enough. Johann v. Beethoven was not the man to waste money, as he
thought, on giving his son a liberal education, so that the degree of
culture attained by Beethoven was due only to his own efforts and the
influences afterwards thrown around him.
In the year 1783 the three sonatas already alluded to were published,
Beethoven at the time being nearly thirteen--not _eleven_ years of age
as was stated,--the falsifying of his age being part of his father's
plan with regard to him. We give the dedication entire, because (though
probably not written wholly by Beethoven himself) it offers a curious
contrast to his subsequent ideas regarding the princes and great ones of
the earth:--
"Most illustrious Prince! From my fourth year music has been my
favourite pursuit. So early acquainted with the sweet Muse, who
attuned my soul to pure harmonies, I won her, and methought was
loved by her in return. I have now attained my eleventh year, and my
Muse has often whispered to me in hours of inspiration, Try to write
down the harmonies of thy soul! Eleven years old, thought I, how
would the character of author become me? and what would riper
artists say to it? I felt some trepidation. But my Muse willed it--I
obeyed, and wrote.
"And dare I now, most Serene Highness, venture to lay the first
fruits of my youthful labour before your throne? and may I hope that
you will cast on them the encouraging glance of your approval? Oh
yes! for knowledge and art have at all times found in you a wise
protector, a generous patron; and rising talent has thriven under
your fatherly care. Filled with this cheering conviction I venture
to approach you with these youthful efforts.
"Accept them as the pure offering of childlike reverence, and look
with favour,
"Most illustrious Prince,
"On them and their young composer,
"LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN."
It has been generally imagined that Neefe was paid by the Elector for
the instruction given to Beethoven, but this is merely a supposition,
without any proof whatever. It is more than likely that Neefe considered
the assistance rendered to him by the boy an equivalent for his lessons.
We have seen how, as early as 1782, he was qualified to relieve him in
the organ duty, rather a heavy task, owing to the number of services at
which the organist was expected to be present.
In addition to this, Neefe soon found another way of employing him--but
this will require a little explanation.
Whilst awaiting his appointment as court organist, Neefe had acted as
musical director to a troupe of singers known as the Grossmann Company,
from the name of the leader and organizer. This was one of the best
operatic companies in Germany, all its members being actors of
experience and reputation.
Now it had entered the Elector's head to take this company into his own
service, and found a national theatre (in imitation of that at Vienna)
which should serve as a school of refinement for the worthy citizens of
Bonn. Neefe found himself, therefore, burdened with double duties as
conductor and organist, and in the season of 1783, owing to the absence
of one of his colleagues (the well-known Lucchesi), was almost
overwhelmed with work. He found it impossible to attend the morning
rehearsals in the theatre, and accordingly young Ludwig was appointed
_cembalist_ in the orchestra, _i.e._, to preside at the pianoforte. In
those days this was considered a distinction (as such Haydn regarded it
in London), and in fact only an accomplished musician could fill the
post, as all the accompaniments were played from the score.
To this early initiation may be attributed the extreme facility with
which Beethoven read, _a prima vista_, the most involved and complicated
scores, even when in manuscript, and that manuscript written by a Bach
in a manner calculated to drive any ordinary reader to despair.
For two seasons young Ludwig was the accompanist at all rehearsals, and
in addition to the advantage of thus working out in the most practical
way all that he learned of theory, he also gained a thorough
acquaintance with the works of Grétry and Gluck.
The operas were varied by dramatic representations, and these must have
had an immense influence on the observant, reflective boy; for the
_répertoire_ of the company was large, and embraced not only the
standard pieces of the day, but the new plays of Lessing, and "The
Robbers" of Schiller, which had begun to create a ferment of excitement
throughout Germany; besides translations from Molière, Goldoni, and our
own Garrick and Cumberland.
To return to our young _cembalist_, the two years 1783-84 must have been
a busy time to him between the chapel and the orchestra, but not a penny
did he receive for his services, although he may have earned a trifle by
playing the organ every morning at the six o'clock mass in the church of
St. Remigius.
When he was thirteen, however, through Neefe's influence he was
nominated officially to the post he had so long filled in reality, that
of assistant organist, and would have drawn a salary but for an event
which threw him back again.
The Elector Max Friedrich died, the operatic company was dismissed, and
Neefe, having nothing to do but play his organ, had no further need of
an assistant.
This must have been a great blow to the boy; not that he cared for the
money in itself, but he knew how it would have lightened his poor
mother's cares, and shed a gleam of sunshine over the poverty-stricken
household.
His father was now beginning to throw off all restraint; his failing was
generally known, and more than once he was rescued from the hands of the
police and brought home by his son in a state of unconsciousness. Long
ere this, two sons, Caspar Anton Carl and Nikolaus Johann, respectively
four and six years younger than Ludwig, had been added to the family,
and doubtless many were the secret councils between the boy and his
mother as to how the few thalers of Johann (_minus_ what was spent in
the alehouse) could be made to meet the needs of the household. It was
probably about this time that Beethoven began to give lessons, that most
wearisome of all employments to him, and so for more than a year, to the
great hindrance of his own studies, contributed his mite to the general
fund.
The year 1785, however, brought with it a little heartening; Ludwig's
former appointment as assistant organist was confirmed by the new
Elector, and with the yearly stipend of a hundred thalers an era of hope
dawned for the lad.
Max Franz, Archbishop of Cologne, was the youngest son of Maria Theresa,
and the favourite of his brother, the Emperor Joseph II., whom he
strongly resembled in character and disposition.
To any one familiar with the musical history of the period and the
Emperor's relation to Mozart, this will be sufficient to indicate the
pleasure with which the Bonn musicians must have hailed his advent. Nor
were their expectations disappointed; Max Franz surpassed his
predecessors not only in the munificence of his support, but (what is
perhaps of more importance) in the real interest shown by him in the
progress of art at his court. Neither did he confine his patronage to
music alone (though, as was natural in a son of Maria Theresa, this was
his first care); painting, science, and literature alike felt the
influence of his generous mind. The university was founded and endowed
by him, and the utmost efforts made to meet that universal demand for a
higher culture, and that striving after truth in art, which the works of
Schlegel, Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, and others were rapidly
disseminating throughout the length and breadth of Germany. As Wegeler
(the friend and biographer of Beethoven, at that time a medical student
of nineteen) writes, "It was a splendid, stirring time in many ways at
Bonn, so long as the genial Elector, Max Franz, reigned there." It can
readily be imagined, therefore, that a youth so full of promise as
Beethoven could not escape the notice of such a prince, and that to his
own talents, backed by the recommendation of Neefe--not to the influence
of any patron--he owed the only official appointment ever held by him.
For the next year he seems to have had a comparatively easy life, his
salary no doubt going to his mother, and the little he could make by
teaching carefully put aside for a great purpose he had formed. A
characteristic anecdote of this period is worth repeating, inasmuch as
Beethoven himself used often to speak of it with glee in after life as a
specimen of his boyish achievements.
In the old style of church music, on the Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday
of Passion Week it was usual to sing select portions from the
Lamentations of Jeremiah, consisting of short phrases of from four to
six lines. In the middle of each phrase a pause was made, which the
accompanist was expected to fill up as his fancy might dictate by a
free interlude on the pianoforte--the organ being prohibited during
these three days. Now it so happened that the singer to whom this was
allotted in the Electoral Chapel was one Heller, a thoroughly
well-practised but somewhat boastful musician. To him Beethoven declared
that he was able to throw him out in his part without employing any
means but such as were perfectly justifiable. Heller resented the
insinuation, and rashly accepted a wager on the subject. When the
appropriate point was reached, Beethoven ingeniously modulated to a key
so remote from the original one, that although he continued to hold fast
the key-note of the latter, and struck it repeatedly with his little
finger, Heller was completely thrown out, and obliged abruptly to stop.
Franz Ries the violinist, father of the afterwards celebrated Ferdinand,
and Lucchesi, who were present, declared themselves perfectly astounded
at the occurrence, and the mystified singer rushed in a tumult of rage
and mortification to the Elector and complained of Beethoven. The
good-humoured Max Franz, however, rather enjoyed the story, and merely
ordered the young organist to content himself with a more simple
accompaniment for the future.
In the spring of 1787, Ludwig at length reached the height of his boyish
aspirations. His little savings had accumulated to what was in his eyes
a large sum, and he looked forward with eagerness to a journey to
Vienna. It has been supposed that the funds for this visit were supplied
by others, but this is improbable. At that time Beethoven had no
wealthy friends; there is no evidence to show that the Archbishop
assisted him, and certain is it that no money was forthcoming from his
father. We are obliged to fall back upon the supposition that his own
scanty earnings, eked out perhaps by his mother, were his only means,
especially as we know that they proved insufficient for his purpose, and
that he was obliged to borrow money for his journey home.
What were Beethoven's intentions with regard to this visit?
His father's conduct, which must have many a time brought the flush of
shame to his young brow, his mother's evidently failing health, the
numerous unsupplied wants of the family, now increased by the birth of a
daughter,[3]--all these circumstances combined to urge on his sensitive,
loving nature the necessity of making some exertion, of taking some
decided step for the assistance of his dear ones.
Vienna, so far away, was his goal; there were assembled all the great
and noble in art--Gluck, Haydn, Mozart! the very mention of these names
must have roused the responsive throb of genius in the lad. To Vienna he
would go, and surely if there were any truth in the adage that "like
draws to like," these men must recognise the undeveloped powers within
him; and help him to attain his object.
That some such hopes as these must have beat high in Beethoven's breast,
animating him for the effort, is evident from the reaction that set in,
the despair that took possession of him when he found himself forced by
the iron course of events to abandon his project.
Arrived in the great capital he obtained an interview with Mozart, and
played before him. The maestro, however, rewarded his performance with
but feeble praise, looking upon it as mere parade; and probably in
technical adroitness the boy before him was far behind the little
Hummel, at that time under his tuition; for Beethoven's style, through
his constant organ-playing, was somewhat heavy and rough.
Beethoven, sensitively alive to everything, perceived Mozart's opinion,
and requested a thema for an improvisation. Somewhat sceptically Mozart
complied, and now the boy, roused by the doubt cast upon his abilities,
extemporized with a clearness of idea and richness of embellishment that
took his auditor by storm. Mozart went excitedly to the bystanders in
the anteroom, saying, "Pay heed to this youth--much will one day be said
about him in the world!"
The amiable Mozart did not live to see the fulfilment of his prophecy,
but he appears to have taken an interest in the boy, and to have given
him a few lessons.
Beethoven afterwards lamented that he had never heard Mozart play, which
may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the master was much
occupied at the time with his "Don Giovanni," and also had that year to
mourn the loss of his father.
The following letter fully explains the cause of Beethoven's sudden
departure from Vienna, and the apparent shipwreck of all his hopes:--
"_Autumn._ _Bonn_, 1787.
"MOST WORTHY AND DEAR FRIEND,--I can easily imagine what you must
think of me--that you have well-founded reasons for not entertaining
a favourable opinion of me, I cannot deny.
"But I will not excuse myself until I have explained the reasons
which lead me to hope that my apologies will be accepted.
"I must tell you that with my departure from Augsburg, my
cheerfulness, and with it my health, began to decline. The nearer I
came to my native city, the more frequent were the letters which I
received from my father, urging me to travel as quickly as possible,
as my mother's health gave great cause for anxiety. I hurried
onwards, therefore, as fast as I could, although myself far from
well. The longing to see my dying mother once more did away with all
hindrances, and helped me to overcome the greatest difficulties. My
mother was indeed still alive, but in the most deplorable state; her
complaint was consumption; and about seven weeks ago, after enduring
much pain and suffering, she died.
"Ah! who was happier than I, so long as I could still pronounce the
sweet name of mother, and heard the answer! and to whom can I now
say it? To the silent images resembling her, which my fancy presents
to me?
"Since I have been here, I have enjoyed but few happy hours.
Throughout the whole time I have been suffering from asthma, which I
have reason to fear may eventually result in consumption. To this is
added melancholy, for me an evil as great as my illness itself.
"Imagine yourself now in my position, and then I may hope to receive
your forgiveness for my long silence.
"With regard to your extreme kindness and friendliness in lending me
three carolins in Augsburg, I must beg you still to have a little
indulgence with me, as my journey cost me a great deal, and here I
have not the slightest prospect of earning anything. Fate is not
propitious to me here in Bonn.
"You will forgive my having written at such length about my own
affairs; it was all necessary in order to excuse myself.
"I entreat you not to withdraw your valuable friendship from me;
there is nothing I so much desire as to render myself worthy of it.
"I am, with all esteem,
"Your most obedient servant and friend,
"L. V. BEETHOVEN,
"_Cologne Court Organist_.
"_To_ Monsieur de Schaden,
"_Counsellor at Augsburg_."
When years afterwards Ferdinand Ries came as a boy of fifteen to
Beethoven in Vienna, and solicited his help and countenance, the
master, who was much occupied at the time, told him so, adding, "Say to
your father that I have not forgotten how my mother died. He will be
satisfied with that." Franz Ries had, in fact, at the time of the
mother's illness, lent substantial assistance to the impoverished
family; and this to the heart of the son was a sure claim on his lasting
gratitude.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Margaret, who died while still an infant.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
YOUTH.
Despondency--The Breuning Family--Literary Pursuits--Count
Waldstein--National Theatre of Max Franz--King Lux and his
Court--The Abbé Sterkel--Appointment as Court Pianist--First
Love--Second Visit of Joseph Haydn.
How "flat, stale, and unprofitable" must everything in Bonn have
appeared to our Beethoven after the charms of Vienna--charms real in
themselves, and surrounded by the ideal nimbus of his fresh young hopes
and strivings! The desolate, motherless home, his neglected orphan
brothers, his drunken father, the weary round of teaching,--it was no
light task for an impetuous, ardent genius to lift; but it had to be
faced, and with a noble self-sacrifice he entered on the dreary path
before him.
He had his reward--the very occupation which he disliked more than any
other, opened up to him a friendship which secured to him more peace and
happiness than he had yet known, and whose influence was potent
throughout his whole life--that, namely, with the family Von Breuning.
Madame von Breuning was a widow; her husband, a state councillor and a
member of one of the best families in Bonn, had perished in the attempt
to rescue the Electoral Archives from a fire that had broken out in the
palace, and since this calamity she had lived quietly with her brother,
the canon and scholar, Abraham v. Keferich, solely engaged in the
education of her children. These were four in number: three
boys--Christoph, Stephan, and Lenz; and one girl--Eleanore. It appears
that Beethoven (who was about four years older than Stephan) was
receiving violin lessons at the same time with the latter from Franz
Ries; and Stephan, struck, no doubt, with the genius of his
fellow-pupil, managed to get him introduced to his mother's house in the
capacity of pianoforte teacher to the little Lenz. Madame von Breuning
was not slow to perceive the extraordinary gifts of her son's new
acquaintance; and
|
adjuster Schadensachverständiger
adjuster Schadensbearbeiter
adjustable insurance anpassbare Versicherung, offene Versicherung
adjustment Anpassung, Schadensregulierung
adjustment Regulierung
adjustment Schadensregelung; Berichtigung
adjustment bureau Schadensbüro
adjustment costs Regulierungskosten
adjustment of a loss Schadensregulierung
adjustment of average Havarieverteilung
adjustment of prices Anpassung der Preise, Anpassung der Kurse
adjustment office Schadensbüro
adjustment premium Nachprämie, Anpassungsprämie
administer verwalten
administration Verwaltung
administration department Verwaltungsabteilung
administration of property Vermögensverwaltung
administrative verwaltungstechnisch
administrative board Verwaltungsrat
administrator Testamentsvollstrecker
administrator Verwalter
admissibility Zulässigkeit
admissible zulässig
admission of bonds Zulassung von Obligationen
admission of securities Zulassung von Wertpapieren
admission of shares Zulassung von Aktien
admit zulassen
admittance Zulass
adopt annehmen, übernehmen
adopt sth. etwas annehmen
advance Kursgewinn
advance vorschießen; Vorschuss
advance Vorschuss
advance Vorschuss, Darlehen
advance against goods Warenlombard
advance against securities Effektenlombard
advance against shipping documents Bevorschussung von Versanddokumenten
advance money on securities Wertpapiere beleihen
advance of salary Gehaltsvorschuß
advance payment Vorauszahlung
advance upon mortgage Hypotheken beleihen
advancing stocks steigende Aktien
advantage Vorteil
advantageous vorteilhaft
advantages of a location Vorteile eines Standorts
adventure Abenteuer, wagen
adventurer Abenteurer; Spekulant
adventurer Spekulant
adversary Gegner; Prozessgegner
advertise werben
advertisement Werbung; Inserat; Anzeige
advertiser Inserent
advertising Werbung
advertising agency Werbeagentur
advertising department Werbeabteilung
advertising media Werbeträger; Werbemittel
advice Avis, Benachrichtigung
advice Rat
advice Rat; Ratschlag
advice note Avis; Versandanzeige
advice of acceptance Akzeptmeldung
advice of amendment Änderungsanzeige
advice of arrival Empfangsanzeige; Eingangsanzeige
advice of collection Inkassoanzeige
advice of deal Ausführungsanzeige
advice of dispatch Versandanzeige
advice of execution Meldung der Durchführung eines Geschäfts
advice of fate Benachrichtigung (Bezahltmeldung etc.)
advice of loss Verlustanzeige
advice of negotiation Begebungsanzeige
advice of non-acceptance Meldung über Nichtakzeptierung
advice of non-payment Meldung über Nichtzahlung
advice of payment Bezahltmeldung
advice of receipt Empfangsanzeige
advise beraten
advise raten; beraten
advised to a beneficiary einem Begünstigten avisiert
adviser Ratgeber
advisory beratend
advisory function Beratungsfunktion
affair Angelegenheit
affect beeinträchtigen
affidavit eidesstattliche Erklärung
affiliate sich angliedern
affiliate zusammenschließen
affiliated bank Filialbank
affiliation Angliederung
affiliation Verschmelzung
affirm bekräftigen, bestätigen
affirm bekräftigen; bestätigen
affirmation Zustimmung
affirmative zustimmend; bejahend
affluence Reichtum; Überfluss
affluent reich; im Überfluss schwimmend
affluent society Überflussgesellschaft
affreight befrachten
affreightment Befrachtung
after hours nach Geschäftsschluss
after official hours nach Schluss, nach Dienstschluss
aftereffect Nachwirkung
against acceptance gegen Akzeptierung
against all obligations gegen alle Verpflichtungen
against all responsibilities gegen alle Verantwortlichkeiten
against all risks gegen alle Gefahren
against all risks gegen alle Risiken
against an indemnity gegen eine Garantie
against payment gegen Zahlung
against stipulated documents gegen Übergabe vorgeschriebener Dokumente
age at entry Eintrittsalter
age at expiry Endalter
age limit Altersgrenze
age limit Höchstalter, Altersgrenze
agency Agentur
agency Agentur, Geschäftsstelle
agency Agentur, Vertretung
agency agreement Vertretungsvertrag
agency of necessity Vertretung im Notfall ohne Ermächtigung
agenda Tagesordnung
agent Vertreter; Agent
agent's commission Vertretungsprovision
agglomeration Zusammenballung
aggregate Gesamtsumme
aggregate amount Gesamtbetrag
aggregate demand Gesamtnachfrage
aggregate supply Gesamtangebot
aggregate table Aggregattafel
aggregation Anhäufung
aggression Angriff
aggressive aggressiv; angriffslustig
aggressiveness Aggressivität
aggressor Angreifer
aggrieved party Geschädigter
aging Alterung
agio Aufgeld
agio Aufgeld; Zuschlag
agitate agitieren
agitator Agitator
agree übereinstimmen; vereinbaren
agree tacitly stillschweigend übereinstimmen
agreed value vereinbarter Wert
agreement Vereinbarung
agreement Vertrag
agreement on the part of the bank Zustimmung von Seiten der Bank
agricultural economics Landwirtschaftslehre
agricultural insurance landwirtschaftliche Versicherung
agriculture Landwirtschaft
aid Hilfe
aid Hilfe, Fürsorge
aim zielen; Ziel
air journey Luftreise
air passenger insurance Fluggastversicherung
air pollution Luftverschmutzung
air terminal Flugabfertigungsstelle mit Busbahnhof
air transport insurance Lufttransportversicherung
aircraft Flugzeug
aircraft hull insurance Flugzeugkaskoversicherung
aircraft insurance Luftfahrtversicherung
aircraft passenger insurance Fluggastversicherung
airfreight Luftfracht
airlift Luftkorridor
airline Fluglinie, Fluggesellschaft
airline Luftfahrtslinie
airliner großes Passagierflugzeug
airliner Passagierflugzeug
airmail Luftpost
alien Ausländer
alienate veräußern
align koordinieren
all advice or information sämtliche Meldungen oder Nachrichten
all documents sent for collection alle zum Inkasso übersandten Dokumente
all other stipulations of the credit alle anderen Bedingungen des Kredits
all parties concerned alle beteiligten Parteien
all risks whatsoever alle möglichen Risiken
all-in insurance Pauschalversicherung, Gesamtversicherung
all-risk insurance Gesamtversicherung
all-risk insurance Versicherung gegen alle Risiken
all-time peak absoluter Höchststand
allocate zuweisen
allocation Zuteilung
allocation Zuweisung
allocation Zuweisung; Kontingentierung
allocation of foreign exchange Devisenzuteilung
allocation of funds Bereitstellung von Mitteln
allocation to reserves Zuweisung an die Reserven
allonge Verlängerungsstück an Wechsel
allot zuteilen
allot zuweisen
allot shares Aktien zuteilen
allotment Zuteilung
allotment Zuweisung
allotment note Zuweisungszettel
allotment of bonus Verteilung der Rückvergütung
allotment of shares Zuteilung von Aktien
allottee Zeichner dem Aktien zugeteilt werden
allow erlauben
allow gewähren, gestatten
allow a credit einen Kredit gewähren
allow a discount einen Rabatt gewähren
allow an application einen Antrag genehmigen
allow inspection Einsicht gewähren
allowable zulässig
allowance Erlaubnis
allowed time zugestandene Zeit
alongside ship längsseits
alter ändern; abändern
alteration Änderung
alternate demand alternatives Bedarfsdeckungsgut
alternate deposit Einlage mit mehrfacher Ziehungsberechtigung
alternative Alternative
alternative costs Ersatzwert
amalgamate verschmelzen
amalgamation Verschmelzung
ambiguity Mehrdeutigkeit
ambulatory umherziehend
amend abändern
amend ergänzen
amend verbessern
amend a policy Police abändern
amendment Abänderung
amendment Verbesserung
amendment Zusatz, Abänderung
amends Wiedergutmachung
amenities Annehmlichkeiten
amenity value Annehmlichkeitswert
amicable gütlich, unter Freunden
amicable adjustment gütliche Beilegung, Schlichtung
amicable settlement gütlicher Vergleich, Vergleich
amicably gütlich, außer Gericht, außergerichtlich
amortization Amortisierung
amortization Tilgung
amortization of a mortgage Tilgung einer Hypothek
amortization payment Tilgungsleistung
amortize amortisieren; abzahlen
amortize tilgen
amount Betrag
amount Betrag, betragen
amount insured Versicherungsbetrag
amount of a claim Höhe einer Forderung
amount of an invoice Rechnungsbetrag
amount of annuity Annuität
amount of damage Schadensbetrag
amount of depreciation Abschreibungsbetrag
amount of draft Wechselbetrag
amount of indemnification Entschädigungssumme
amount of interest Zinsbetrag
amount of investment Investitionsbetrag
amount of loss Schadenssumme
amount of loss Schadenswert, Schadensumfang, Schadenshöhe
amount of money Geldbetrag
amount of money invested Höhe der Anlage
amount of security Höhe der Sicherheitsleistung
amount of subscription Zeichnungsbetrag
amount of turnover Umsatzhöhe
amount overdrawn überzogener Betrag
amount payable zu zahlender Betrag
amount payable on settlement Abfindungswert
amounting to betragend
amounting to in Höhe von, belaufend auf
amounts collected eingezogene Beträge
ample reichlich
ample means reichliche Mittel
ample security reichliche Sicherheit
amusement Vergnügen
amusement tax Vergnügungssteuer
an accepted standard akzeptierte Standardrichtlinien
an account with ein Konto bei
an amendment to the credit eine Änderung des Akkreditivs
an attempt to include ein Versuch aufzunehmen
an ever increasing number eine ständig steigende Zahl
an example is ein Beispiel hierfür ist
an indication of the rate of interest eine Angabe des Zinssatzes
an instruction to collect interest eine Weisung zum Einzug von Zinsen
an item of written comment eine Stellungnahme
an order ein Auftrag
an unconditional interest clause eine unbedingte Zinsklausel
an undertaking by the nominated bank eine Verpflichtung der benannten Bank
an undertaking of the bank ein Versprechen der Bank
an undertaking to accept eine Verpflichtung zur Akzeptleistung
an undertaking to negotiate eine Verpflichtung zur Negoziierung
an undertaking to pay eine Verpflichtung zu zahlen
analyses Analysen
analysis Analyse
analysis department Finanzanalyseabteilung
analysis of profitability Rentabilitätsanalyse
analysis of trends Trendanalyse
analyst Analytiker
analyze analysieren
anchorage Ankergebühr
ancillary untergeordnet
ancillary industry Zulieferindustrie
and/or und/oder
annex Anhang
annotation Anmerkung, Kommentar, Erläuterung
annotation Erläuterung; Anmerkung
announce ankündigen
announcement Ankündigung
annual jährlich
annual account Jahresabrechnung
annual amortization jährliche Tilgungsrate
annual general meeting Jahreshauptversammlung
annual general meeting Jahrshauptversammlung
annual meeting Jahresversammlung
annual payment jährliche Zahlung
annual premium Jahresprämie
annual report Jahresbericht
annual return Jahresmeldung
annuitant Rentenempfänger
annuity Annuität
annuity Annuität; Rente
annuity jährliche Zahlung
annuity Rente
annuity bank Rentenbank
annuity certificate Rentenbrief
annuity contract Rentenversicherungsvertrag
annuity insurance Rentenversicherung
annulment Nichtigkeitserklärung
answerable for damages schadensersatzpflichtig
antedate vordatieren
anti-dumping duty Anti-Dumping-Abgabe
anti-dumping policy Anti-Dumping-Politik
anti-trust legislation Anti-Trust-Gesetzgebung
anticipate vorwegnehmen
anticipated cost erwartete Kosten
anticipated price erwarteter Preis
anticipated profit erwarteter Gewinn
anticipated profit imaginärer Gewinn
anticipation Vorwegnahme
anticipatory vorwegnehmend
any bank irgendeine Bank
any bank of his own choice irgendeine Bank nach eigener Wahl
any bank, other than irgendeine Bank, mit Ausnahme von
any charges incurred by banks alle Gebühren, die den Banken entstehen
any discrepancies in the documents etwaige Unstimmigkeiten in den Dokumenten
any expenses incurred by banks alle Auslagen, die den Banken entstehen
any or all of which einzeln oder insgesamt
any other drawee ein anderer Bezogener
any reference whatsoever irgendwelche Bezugnahme
apologize sich entschuldigen
apology Entschuldigung
apparent value scheinbarer Wert
appeal appellieren; Rechtsmittel einlegen
appear scheinen; erscheinen
appear to be scheinen zu sein
appear to be as listed scheinen der Auflistung zu entsprechen
appearance äußerliches Erscheinungsbild
append hinzufügen
appendix Anhang
appliance Gerät
applicant Antragsteller, Bewerber, Zeichner
applicant Bewerber
applicant for insurance Antragsteller
application Bewerbung; Anwendung
application Verwendung, Anwendung
application for a job Stellenbewerbung
application for a loan Darlehensantrag
application for official quotation Antrag auf Börsenzulassung (Br.)
application for payment Zahlungsaufforderung
application for shares Antrag auf Zuteilung von Aktien
application form Bewerbungsformblatt
application form Versicherungsantrag, Antragsformular
application of funds Verwendung der Mittel
application of proceeds Verwendung des Erlöses
applied economics Angewandte Volkswirtschaftslehre
apply for a pension Pension beantragen, Rente beantragen
apply for insurance Versicherung beantragen
appoint einsetzen
appointment Berufung
appointment Verabredung
appointment of a committee Einsetzung eines Ausschusses
apportion zuteilen
appraisal Schätzung des Wertes
appraisal of damage Abschätzung des Schadens
appraised value Schätzwert
appreciate würdigen
appreciation Würdigung
appreciation of prices Kurserhöhung, Anstieg der Preise
apprentice Lehrling
apprenticeship Lehre
approach annähern
approbation Genehmigung
appropriate angemessen
appropriation Inbesitznahme
appropriation of funds Verteilung von Geldmitteln
appropriation of net proceeds Verteilung des Reingewinns
appropriation of payments Zweckbestimmung von Zahlungen
approval Billigung
approval Genehmigung
approve billigen
approve genehmigen, billigen
approved gebilligt
approximate annähernd
approximately annähernd; ungefähr
approximation Annäherung
approximative annähernd
apt angemessen
aptitude test Neigungstest
arbiter Schiedsrichter
arbitrage Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit
arbitral schiedsrichterlich
arbitrary willkürlich
arbitrary decision Ermessenentscheidung
arbitration Arbitrage
arbitration Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit
arbitration award Schiedsspruch
arbitration clause Schiedsgerichtsbarkeitsklausel
arbitration proceedings Schiedsverfahren
arbitrator Schiedsrichter; Richter am Schiedsgericht
archives Archiv
are authorized to do sth. sind berechtigt, etwas zu tun
are binding on all parties sind für alle Beteiligten bindend
are binding upon all parties sind für alle Parteien verbindlich
are likely to sind wahrscheinlich
are to sind angehalten, sollen
are to be borne by the principal müssen vom Auftraggeber getragen werden
are to be construed as sind dahin auszulegen dass
are to be released sind freizugeben
area Gebiet
argue argumentieren
argument Argument
argumentation Beweisführung
arising entstehend
arising from their failing sich ergebend aus ihrer Nichtbefolgung
arithmetic mean arithmetisches Mittel
arithmetic progression arithmetische Progression
arrange arrangieren
arrangement Regelung; Vereinbarung
array mathematische Anordnung; Array
arrear Rückstand
arrears Rückstände, Zahlungsrückstände
arrears Rückstände; Zahlungsrückstände
arrears of interest rückständige Zinsen
arrival Ankunft
arrive ankommen
arson Brandstiftung
article Artikel; Gegenstand
article of a contract Punkt eines Vertrags
article of an agreement Punkt einer Vereinbarung
Articles of Association Satzung
articles of association Statuten der Gesellschaft (Br.)
articles of clerkship Lehrvertrag
articles of corporation Statuten des Gesellschaft (US)
Articles of Partnership Satzung einer oHG
artificial künstlich
artisan Handwerker
as a loan als Leihgabe
as a means of transmitting information als Nachrichtenübermittlungsträger
as accurately as possible so genau wie möglich
as appropriate wie jeweils anwendbar
as customary wie üblich
as defined in (B) below wie unten unter (B) definiert
as far as possible nach Möglichkeit, soweit wie möglich
as from now von jetzt ab
as intermediary zwischengeschaltet
as much... as eben sosehr... wie auch
as mutually agreed wie gegenseitig vereinbart
as per agreement wie vereinbart
as per instructions gemäß den Weisungen
as soon as practicable so bald wie möglich
as specified in the credit gemäß den Bestimmungen des Akkreditivs
as stipulated in a document wie in einem Dokument niedergelegt
as stipulated in the credit wie im Kredit vorgeschrieben
as superimposed on a document wie einem Dokument hinzugefügt
as the case arises von Fall zu Fall
as the case may be gegebenenfalls
as the case may be je nach Lage des Falles
as the case may be wie immer es sein mag
ascertain festsetzen
ascertain sich vergewissern
ascertainable bestimmbar, errechenbar
ascertainable feststellbar
ascertained festgestellt
ascertainment of damage Feststellung des Schadens
ascertainment of loss Feststellung des Schadens
ask for a quotation eine Kursangabe verlangen
asked price der geforderte Preis
asked price geforderter Preis
asked quotation Briefkurs
aspect Ansicht
aspirant Aspirant; Bewerber
assemble zusammenbauen
assembly Montage
assembly line Montageband
assent beipflichten
assent einwilligen; Einwilligung
assert behaupten
assess veranlagen
assessable securities nachschusspflichtige Wertpapiere
assessed bewertet, veranlagen, bemessen
assessment Bewertung, Veranlagung, Bemessung
assessment Veranlagung
assessment of damage Feststellung des Schadens
assessment of damage Feststellung des Schadenswertes
assessor Assessor
asset Aktivposten
assets Aktivposten der Bilanz
assets Aktivseite der Bilanz; Aktiva
assets abroad Vermögen im Ausland
assets and liabilities Aktiva und Passiva
assets of a bank Vermögenswerte einer Bank
assets of a company Gesellschaftsvermögen
assign zuweisen
assignee Zessionar
assigner Zedent
assignment Zession
assignment Zuweisung
assignment in blank Blankoindossament
assignment of a debt Abtretung einer Forderung
assignment of account Kontoabtretung
assignment of shares Übertragung von Aktien
assignment of wages Lohnabtretung
assignor Abtretender
assist helfen
assistance Hilfe
assistance after accident Hilfeleistung
assistance to all parties Unterstützung aller Beteiligten
assistant Gehilfe
associate Gesellschafter
associated angeschlossen
associated companies angeschlossene Gesellschaften
associated company angegliederte Gesellschaft
association Gesellschaft
association of banks Bankvereinigung, Bankverein
assort sortieren
assorted sortiert; gemischt
assortment Sortiment
assume annehmen
assume annehmen, voraussetzen, vermuten
assume a mortgage eine Hypothek übernehmen
assume debts Schulden übernehmen
assume no liability übernehmen keine Haftung
assume no responsibility übernehmen keine Verantwortung
assuming that in der Annahme dass
assumption Annahme
assumption Annahme, Vermutung
assumption of a debt Übernahme einer Schuld
assumption of a liability Übernahme einer Haftung
assumption of a risk Übernahme eines Risikos
assumption of an obligation Übernahme einer Schuld
assurance Lebensversicherung
assurance Versicherung; bes. Lebensversicherung
assurance Zusicherung
assure versichern; zusichern
assure zusichern
assured versichert
assurer Versicherer
at a discount verbilligt, herabgesetzt
at a month's notice mit monatlicher Kündigung
at a premium über Nennwert
at a sacrifice mit Verlust
at all hazards auf alle Fälle
at best bestmöglich
at call auf Abruf
at call auf tägliche Kündigung
at call auf Verlangen
at full value zum vollen Wert
at legal interest zum gesetzlichen Zinssatz
at maturity bei Fälligkeit
at par zum Nennwert
at short notice kurzfristig
at the best bestmöglich
at the current rate zum Tageskurs
at the disposal of the presentor zur Verfügung des Einreichers
at the expense of the principal auf Kosten des Auftraggebers
at the latest from spätestens vom
at the price of zum Kurs von
at the responsibility of the sender in der Verantwortlichkeit des Absenders
at the risk of auf Gefahr des
at the risk of the latter auf Gefahr des letzteren
at which presentation is to be made wo die Vorlegung erfolgen soll
at your earliest convenience umgehend
attach beifügen
attached angefügt; in der Anlage
attempt versuchen; Versuch
attend zugegen sein
attendance Anwesenheit
attention Aufmerksamkeit
attest attestieren, Attest
attest bescheinigen
attest a signature eine Unterschrift beglaubigen
attestation Bescheinigung
attestation Bescheinigung, Testat
attestation of weight Nachweis des Gewichts
attitude Haltung
attitude survey Erforschung der Einstellung zu einer Sache
attorney (US) Rechtsanwalt; (Br.) Staatsanwalt
attorney-at-law (US) Rechtsanwalt
attract anziehen
attractive attraktiv; reizvoll
attractiveness Attraktivität; Anziehungskraft
attribute Eigenschaft
auction Versteigerung
auctioneer Versteigerer; Auktionator
audit Revision
auditor Buchprüfer; Revisor
autarchy wirtschaftliche Unabhängigkeit; Autarkie
authentic echt
authenticate beglaubigen
authenticate a signature eine Unterschrift beglaubigen
authenticity Echtheit
authority Autorität
authority Vollmacht
authority for cancellation Löschungsbewilligung
authority for registration Bewilligung der Eintragung
authority to accept Vollmacht zu akzeptieren
authority to act Vollmacht zu handeln
authority to confirm Vollmacht zu bestätigen
authority to negotiate Vollmacht zu negoziieren
authority to pay Vollmacht zu zahlen
authority to sign Unterschriftsberechtigung
authority to sign Vollmacht zu unterschreiben
authorization Bevollmächtigung
authorize bevollmächtigen
authorize ermächtigen
authorize a payment eine Zahlung anweisen
authorized bevollmächtigt
authorized by the law in force gestattet nach geltendem Recht
authorized capital zur Ausgabe berechtigtes Aktienkapital
authorized clerk an der Börse zugelassener Angestellter
authorized clerk ermächtigter Angestellter
authorized dealer zugelassener Händler
authorized stock genehmigtes Aktienkapital
authorized to sign zeichnungsberechtigt
authorizes another bank ermächtigt eine andere Bank
automated systems automatisierte Systeme
automated teller machine Geldautomat
automatic automatisch
automation Automatisierung
automobile accident Verkehrsunfall
automobile insurance Kraftfahrzeugversicherung
availability Verfügbarkeit
availability date Valuta
available verfügbar
available for acceptance benutzbar zur Akzeptleistung
available for disposal verfügbar zur Verwendung
available for negotiation benutzbar zur Negoziierung
available for sight payment benutzbar zur Sichtzahlung
available funds verfügbare Mittel
aval Wechselbürgschaft
average Durchschnitt
average adjuster Havariekommissar
average clause Proportionalregel
average duration Durchschnittsdauer
average expectation Durchschnittserwartung
average rate Durchschnittssatz
averaging Durchschnittberechnung
aviation insurance Luftfahrtversicherung
aviation risk Flugrisiko
avoid vermeiden
avoid a contract Vertrag für nichtig erklären
avoidance Vermeidung
award Belohnung; Preis; Schiedsspruch
award damages Schadensersatz gewähren
B
baby bonds Kleinstobligationen
back decken, unterstützen
back Rückseite
back interest rückständige Zinsen
back pay Nachzahlung
back up sb. jemanden unterstützen
backdate rückdatieren
backdate zurückdatieren
background Hintergrund
backing Unterstützung
backing of currency Stützung der Währung
backlog Rückstand
backlog of debts aufgelaufene Schulden
backvalue Rückvaluta
backward rückständig
backward area rückständiges Gebiet
backwardation Prolongationsgebühr
bad claim unbegründeter Anspruch
bad debts Dubiose
bad debts uneinbringliche Forderungen
bad debts insurance Ausfallversicherung
bad debts insurance Kreditversicherung
bad in form nicht formgerecht
bad money schlechtes Geld, Falschgeld
badge Abzeichen
badness schlechte Beschaffenheit
bag einpacken; eintüten; Beutel; Tasche; Tüte
baggage Gepäck
baggage insurance Gepäckversicherung
bagman (Br.; veraltet) Handlungsreisender
bail Bürgschaft
bailee clause Gewahrsamsklausel
balance ausgleichen, saldieren
balance Restbetrag
balance Saldo
balance forward Saloübertrag
balance in your favor Saldo zu Ihren Gunsten
balance of accounts Rechnungsabschluß
balance of an account Saldo eines Kontos
balance of an invoice Rechnungsbetrag; Rechnungssaldo
balance of an invoice Saldo einer Rechnung
balance of debt Schuldensaldo
balance of international payments internationale Zahlungsbilanz
balance of payments Zahlungsbilanz
balance of trade Handelsbilanz
balance sheet Bilanz
balance to be brought forward Saldovortrag
balances with foreign bankers Nostroguthaben bei ausländischen Banken
balances with home bankers Nostroguthaben bei inländischen Banken
balancing Saldierung; Abschluss
bale Ballen
ballast Ballast
ban verbannen; Verbot
bancomat Geldautomat
bank Bank
bank acceptance Bankakzept
bank acceptance Bankakzept eines Wechsels
bank accommodation Unterbringung bei einer Bank
bank account Bankkonto
bank balance Bankguthaben
bank bill Bankakzept, Finanzwechsel
bank capital Bankkapital
bank charge Bankgebühr
bank check Bankscheck
bank clerk Bankbeamter
bank company Bankhaus
bank customer Bankkunde
bank credit Bankdarlehen
bank credit Bankkredit
bank deposit Bankeinlage
bank deposit Sparbucheinlage
bank deposit insurance Bankeinlagenversicherung
bank drawn upon bezogene Bank
bank employee Bankangestellter
bank examiner Bankrevisor
bank failure Bankzusammenbruch
Bank for International Settlement Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich
bank guarantee Bankgarantie
bank holiday Bankfeiertag
bank indebtedness Bankverschuldung
bank loan Bankdarlehen
bank loan Bankkredit
bank manager Bankdirektor, Filialleiter
bank messenger Bankbote
bank money Bankgeld
bank note Banknote
bank note Geldschein, Banknote
bank of circulation Notenbank
bank of deposit Depositenbank
Bank of England Bank von England; britische Zentralbank
bank of issue Notenbank
bank official Bankbeamter
bank overdraft Girokontenüberziehung
bank place Bankplatz
bank premises Geschäftsräume der Bank
bank premises zur Bank gehöriges Grundstück
bank rate Diskontsatz
bank rate Diskontsatz der Bank von England
bank rate for loans Lombardzinsfuß
bank receipt Bankquittung
bank reserves Bankreserven
bank statement Kontenauszug der Bank
bank stock Bankkapital
bank transfer Banküberweisung
bank with ein Konto haben bei
bankable diskontfähig
banker Bankfachmann
banker Bankier, Bankfachmann
banker Bankier; Bankbeamter; Bankangestellter
banker's acceptance Bankakzept
banker's discretion Bankgeheimnis
banker's draft Banktratte
banker's draft Banktratte; von Bank gezogener Scheck
banker's order Bankanweisung
banker's order Zahlungsauftrag
banking account Bankkonto
banking and finance Bank- und Finanzwesen
banking business Bankgewerbe, Bankgeschäft
banking center Bankplatz, Standort mehrerer Banken
banking circles Bankkreise
banking company Firma mit bankartigen Geschäften
banking executives leitende Bankleute
banking practice Bankpraxis
banking secrecy Bankgeheimnis
banking syndicate Bankenkonsortium
banking system Banksystem
banking technique Banktechnik, Bankmethoden
bankrupt bankrott
bankrupt zahlungsunfähig; Zahlungsunfähiger
bankrupt's assets Konkursmasse
bankruptcy Bankrott
bankruptcy Bankrott; Zahlungseinstellung
banks are bound by such contracts Banken sind durch solche Verträge gebunden
banks are in no way concerned with Banken haben in keiner Hinsicht etwas zu tun
banks are only permitted to act Banken sind nur berechtigt zu verfahren
banks concerned with a collection Banken, die mit einem Inkasso befasst sind
banks must examine all documents Banken müssen alle Dokumente prüfen
banks utilizing the services Banken, welche die Dienste in Anspruch nehmen
bar Barren
bar chart Balkendiagramm
bargain Gelegenheit, günstiges Angebot
bargain günstige Gelegenheit; günstiges Angebot
bargain hunter Spekulant auf Gelegenheiten
bargain-sale Ausverkauf mit günstigen Gelegenheiten
bargaining Verhandeln
barometer Barometer
barometer stocks Standardwerte
|
ropshire, and _vice versa_.” And the
worst of it is, that to this day I do not know if he was joking or not,
as he gave me a “pass.”
The college could accommodate about two hundred students, most of whom
boarded inside, though this was optional. The course was of three years
for the degree of B.S.A.—Bachelor of the Science of Agriculture. They
also used to give a certificate at the end of the second year for those
students who could not complete a full course. The first year’s work was
to a large extent general education, for the benefit of the farmers’
lads, being courses in literature, mathematics, and chemistry, though
there were also lectures on agriculture, dairy-work, and veterinary
science. The lectures were in the mornings and every alternate
afternoon, the other afternoons being filled with practical work on the
farm, for which the students were paid, according to their ability, from
1 cent to 10 cents per hour. The second year there is more of
agriculture, chemistry, veterinary science, &c., and less of other
matters; and the same applies to the third year. During the long
holidays from June to September the students who so desire can remain
and work on the farm under pay. This enables students practically to pay
their way through college without assistance from their people. The
college farm consists of some 600 acres, some 200 of which are under
cultivation, though a large tract of this is given up to experimental
work with different kinds of grains, different admixtures of soils, &c.
The college also grows all varieties of fruits and flowers that do well
in that climate. They have fine specimens of the different breeds of
cattle, hogs, and sheep, for use in the lecture-rooms; also a splendidly
equipped dairy, where cheese- and butter-making is taught.
For the athletic side of education there was a fine gymnasium and
swimming-pool, and a recreation field for football, baseball, &c. Here,
we English students were in our element, and, so far as I remember,
during the two sessions I attended lectures at the college the football
club was almost entirely composed of Englishmen, though there were some
fine Canadian players in the team also. The students were supposed to be
fed entirely on the products of the farm, and the meals were certainly
unequalled in any hotel in the city. Still we kicked on general
principles, as men do almost everywhere. On one occasion the boys
thought they were getting rhubarb-pie and rhubarb-pudding too
frequently, and sent up a note to that effect to the president, who, of
course, ignored it altogether. Then, of course, it became a matter of
honour that the rhubarb should stop, and next morning there was not a
plant of rhubarb growing on the college grounds. It cost the students a
fine of $1 per head, but every one was happy.
The college was supported by the government of the province, which at
that time was of the “Grit” or Liberal party, and the students were all
enthusiastic politicians whenever they could get off in the evening to
attend a political meeting. I remember one night I was on my way to a
dance, but was prevailed upon to go first to a political meeting with
the boys. When we arrived, one hundred strong, at the City Hall, we were
refused admittance. But, putting the football team at the head of the
wedge, we soon arrived close up to the stage. On either side of the
stage were hoses and nozzles for use in case of fire, and some brilliant
genius took one down and turned it on us. Then the fun really began, for
we stormed the stage, got hold of both hoses, and watered up that
assembly good and plenty. We were most of us pretty damp, and I know, as
I clambered down a fire-escape, that my shirt front was not in condition
for a ballroom.
Our president, Mr. Mills, was one of the finest men I have ever come
across, and the boys all thought a great deal of him. There was a door
between the college and his private house, and he used to say that he
never allowed college matters to pass that door. No matter what trouble
you got into in the college, you were always a welcome guest in the
president’s house. I early got into the bad graces of the Professor of
Agriculture, who had no love for English students, and the word was
passed to the farm-foreman to see that no easy jobs came our way. This
finally led to my rustication. I had been invited out to an “At Home”
one evening, and that afternoon happened to be hoeing sugar-beets when
the farm-foreman came along. I asked him to let me off early, so that I
could wash and change my clothes. He, thinking to be sarcastic by giving
what he thought to be an impossible task for me, said, “You can go when
you have hoed five more rows.” I asked him to mark them out, and then
started in to make the weeds fly, and, incidentally, some beets also. I
got through about five o’clock, shouldered my hoe, and started home,
when I met the foreman. He asked me where I was going, and I told him I
was through. He came back and found it as I had said, and then told me
to go back to work, as he was only joking. I told him I did not
understand jokes of this sort, and started off. Then he lost his temper,
ran after me, and tried to use force to stop me. He was, of course, much
stronger than I was, but, unfortunately, did not know how to handle
himself; so after a short session I went on my way rejoicing. When I
returned to my room that night I found a note from the agricultural
professor—who was in charge, as the president was away—giving me
twenty-four hours to clear out, for insubordination and assaulting my
superior. I borrowed a tent, and went into camp. One of my friends
down-town happened to be a big political gun, and the next time I was at
his house he asked me all about it. I told him the facts, and within a
week I got a letter from the Minister of Agriculture asking for proofs,
which I forwarded in the shape of letters from other students who had
been working with me at the time. By return mail I got a letter ordering
my reinstatement; and the next morning, when I applied for my old room
it was given me without more ado.
Guelph has two Volunteer Artillery companies, one filled with students
from the college, and one with town boys, four guns to each battery. I
joined the college battery, and after a couple of months of steady drill
in Guelph we were taken out to camp at Niagara, on the lake near the
falls. There were five or six other batteries there also, some cavalry,
and some infantry. One day while standing listening to the band I got
into conversation with an artilleryman from Welland, and after some talk
found, to my astonishment, that he had been a room-mate of mine at
Westward Ho. Since then I have met two or three other boys from the old
school. It was wonderful how quickly they licked us into shape, for the
Canadian lads are, like the Americans of the south and west, natural
soldiers, being bright, intelligent, anxious to learn, and able to stand
considerable hardship—as was proven in the Riel rebellion, and also, I
think, in Africa, where some of my old Guelph friends went. That the
college turned out good men is proved in the person of the president. He
had worked his way through college practically without assistance from
his people, took his degree at the head of his class, and with it a
professorship in the Mississippi Agricultural College. Then, after
various other positions, he was selected as president of his former
college on the retirement of our old head.
I would advise no young English lad to go to the college until he has
worked at least a year or two on some Canadian farm to get the practical
knowledge necessary to really get the good out of his college course. He
should also have the rudiments of a good general education. Here I might
mention that the college did not teach spelling; in this country it is
not thought as much of as in England, and nearly all Americans are bad
spellers. For instance, the business man who, on reading about
Roosevelt’s spelling reform, said that he could not see anything new
about it, as that was the way he had spelled all his life! If here and
in other places I seem to roast Americans, they must not be offended, as
it is meant in all good nature; and they must also remember that I have
been roasted by them for the past sixteen years, and this is the first
time I have had a chance to get back at them without giving them a
chance to answer me.
CHAPTER II
Calgary—A Cow-puncher—"Roping"—Life on a Ranch—A Calgary
Hail-storm—“Gun-plays” and "Bad-men"—Sarci Indians.
Leaving the Agricultural College at Guelph on the start of the summer
holidays of 1891, I took advantage of settlers’ cheap rates and went to
Calgary, at the foot of the Rockies, to try and get some practical
experience. After drifting round for a week, I found that green
Englishmen were at a discount, but finally managed to get work with a
Mr. Berney, who owned two ranches, one within three miles of town, and
the other on Pine Creek, about thirty-eight miles out. Mr. Berney asked
if I could ride, and on my saying yes, told one of the boys to bring out
Bill and saddle him. I noticed all the family (consisting of four grown
girls and two boys) and most of the men loitering round in front when I
proceeded to mount, but thought nothing of it at the time. I rode Bill
out a mile or so, circled him at a good speed, and rattled him up to the
house, trying to show off, as a young lad will, in front of the girls;
but I noticed they all looked very disappointed. After this trial I
moved my baggage, and was duly installed, and Bill was turned over to me
as a saddle-horse. I found out a month later the meaning of the trial
and the girls’ disappointment. I had come in from town, taken off my
saddle, and proceeded to ride Bill down to the creek to water; I had on
a pair of box spurs (which are taboo in the cattle country), and, coming
up the steep bank, I happened to touch Bill with one of the spurs, and
the next second I knew what bucking meant. Luckily the ground was soft.
George Berney told me then that the horse had originally belonged to a
livery stable in town much frequented by cow-punchers, where, originally
a bad bucker, he had been trained by means of cockleburrs put under his
saddle blanket to become an expert. Every young man who came to the
stable looking for a mount, and bragged of his riding, was given Bill.
But one day a young Englishman, who insisted on saddling and doing for
himself, rode Bill to a standstill, and in an English saddle! So Bill
was sold for a song to Mr. Berney, and the family had hoped to see some
fun when I mounted; only it happened to be Bill’s day off. I moved to
the out-ranch, and learned to do many kinds of work, and found out that
on a ranch one did many things besides ride, such as building log
corrals seven feet high and sixty feet across, with two wings to guide
the cattle right to the gate.
I built cattle stables, horse stables, and fences all out of logs of
spruce, and during the five months I was there I broke twelve or
fourteen horses to the saddle. None were very bad, and I was never
thrown again in Calgary, though I had a rather nasty experience with a
half-broken mare. She was seven years old, and had never had a rope on
her, but in a couple of weeks, during odd times, I broke her and thought
she was gentle. Her only fault had been rearing, and she never bucked or
kicked. One day I put on my best tight riding-breeches and top-boots,
and started off to show her to some friends of mine on Sheep Creek,
about sixteen miles away. About a mile from our shack I had to cross
Pine Creek, which has high steep banks, but luckily very little water.
Going up the opposite bank the mare suddenly took it into her head to
rear, and the next instant we were off the bank and into the creek. I
fell clear on my feet; but the mare, falling square on her back, had
buried the horn and pommel of the saddle in the bottom of the creek, and
could not turn over. I grabbed her head, and could just keep her muzzle
out of the water, though the rest of her was under. I shouted and
shouted, and emptied my pistol, and did all I knew to attract attention,
till finally, after about twenty minutes which seemed hours, the local
scout of the mounted police came to see what was up, and helped me to
get the mare out. My clothes were a sight, and I split the knees of my
riding-breeches as I fell.
I had learned to rope fairly well on foot, but never made much of a
success of it on horseback. By the way, the word “lasso” is never heard
in the cattle country; the phrase is “roping.” After I had learned to
rope stumps, and could catch Bill two throws out of three, I began to
think I was a star. I went to a local round-up on Pine Creek, and went
into the corral to get out a mare and yearling colt that belonged to us.
I was rather nervous after I once was in, but made my throw after the
approved fashion from the ground, and to my amazement captured the mare
and colt in the same loop. I had a gay ten minutes; but some of the
boys, after they got through laughing, came to my assistance, roped the
mare by the legs, threw her, and got my rope off. In a corral it is not
permissible to whirl a rope round your head, as it frightens the
animals, but the throw must be made from the ground, where the coil is
spread out. Only in Buffalo Bill shows, where it gives more flourish to
the proceedings, and sometimes when roping from a horse at the gallop,
is this done—_i.e._ whirling the rope—and I have seen good ropers, both
in Canada and Texas, even in the latter case trail a rope behind and
throw it with one forward swing. Another point about ropes is never to
tie one to the horn of your saddle while riding, if you have anything at
the other end. I had gone out one day to bring in a two-year-old heifer
from a neighbouring ranch. After getting my rope on her horns, I took
one turn round the horn of my saddle, and proceeded to pull her home,
she protesting. After we had gone a few miles she quieted down, and I
thought I would take a smoke. I tied my rope in two half-hitches to the
horn of my saddle, got out my tobacco and papers, and proceeded to make
a cigarette. Just then simultaneously my horse stopped dead and the
heifer circled me on the dead run, and I could not get the brute of a
horse to turn. I cut away the rope before it cut me in two, and gained
another experience at the cost of a fine waxed linen rope and a sore
waistband.
My life on the ranch was far from being all hard work, and so it is on
most ranches, though probably I was more favourably situated than most,
owing to the owner having a large family who were fond of amusement and
could well afford it. We had picnics, surprise parties, and dances, in
all of which we hands had our share, being treated as members of the
family. The work, of course, was not neglected on these occasions, but
so arranged as not to interfere, and if some one had to stay behind we
took it in turns. The theory of a surprise party is as follows. A number
of young people arrange to have a party at a certain person’s house; all
the edibles are cooked beforehand and taken along by the guests, and the
hosts are taken by surprise. But so many accidents occurred, such as the
hosts going to bed early, or, worse, going out and locking up the house,
that in practice notice is generally given to the hosts of the proposed
surprise a couple of days beforehand. The people in the West are most
hospitable—in fact, this applies to a great extent to all Canada. A
stranger is always taken on trust till he proves himself unworthy.
Riding past any ranch-house near a meal-time, the owner will call you to
come in and eat, if he is at home. Should he be out, however, you will
generally come across a note like the following pinned to the door:
“Have gone... will be back... the key is under the stone to the right
of the steps. Go in and make yourself at home.” This I have often done,
hunting out his grub and cooking what I needed; and on one occasion,
getting caught out at night, I fed my horse, ate supper, and went to
bed. I woke up when the owner returned, smoked and talked with him (a
complete stranger) till he was undressed, and turned in again till
morning. In the morning you get up, help with the chores (odd jobs such
as feeding the stable animals), have breakfast, saddle up, and depart.
Calgary is a beautiful place on the slope of the foothills, at an
elevation of about 3400 feet, rather cold in winter, but delightful in
the summer and fall. On the out-ranch, however, where there was a lot of
timber, the winged pests—mosquitoes, gnats, horse- and deer-flies—made
work in the woods very trying, more especially the two latter, whose
bite will draw blood every time. The surrounding country, especially out
towards Fort McLeod, is full of immense sloughs, where the wild slough
grass will often grow to a height of five feet, and as much as 1000 tons
can be cut off a single slough. But haying is made hard work by the
gnats and mosquitoes.
It was while haying that I first saw a Calgary hailstorm. George Berney
was running the hay-rack (which consists of an immense crate on wheels,
so that it can be loaded and handled by one man) and I was raking, when,
looking up, I saw terrible blue-black clouds rolling up the valley
towards us, for all the world like Atlantic rollers. I shouted to
George, lifted the rake, and headed for the house, about a mile away. By
the time we had the horses safely in the stable and got over to the
shack, the storm reached us. I have never seen its equal before or
since. We could hear the roar of the hail long before it reached us, and
when it did reach the clapboard roof it was deafening. One stone we
measured was eight and a half inches in circumference, and seemed
composed of about a dozen smaller ones congealed together. We had about
twenty chickens killed; and some people lost heavily, losing even colts,
calves, and pigs. The oat-crop, which was being harvested at the time,
was so cut to bits and driven into the ground that not even straw was
saved.
My first experience in Calgary was with the mounted police, for as we
stopped at the station three policemen boarded our tourist sleeping-car,
and while one stood guard at each door, the third walked over to one of
the seats, lifted the spring cushion, and pulled out from the recess
underneath a 2½-gallon keg of whisky. He asked the porter if it was his,
and then asked every passenger, but all denied any knowledge of it. It
was then taken outside, the head knocked out, and the whisky emptied on
the ground. Of course the police had received previous notice from some
one, possibly the very man who had sold it and knew its destination.
This prohibition of whisky, combined with the mounted police, has kept
the North-West Territories from becoming, like Montana and Texas, a land
full of “gun-plays” and “bad-men.” Not but what there has been whisky
smuggled in in carloads of kerosene cans; there have also been
“gun-plays” and “bad-men,” but they are the exception and not the rule,
as further south. How easily a “bad-man” is made the following will
show. A young fellow, well known and well liked round Calgary, got on a
spree, and, after mounting his horse, proceeded yelling down the street.
A city policeman (distinct from the mounted police) tried to arrest him.
The puncher (cowboy) took down his rope, and galloping past the officer,
roped him, and dragged him down the street at the end of the rope;
finally he dropped the rope and rode off, leaving the officer seriously
hurt. So far, only a Western version of what the university students
used to do to the English police. But the sequel was different. The
young fellow, instead of coming in the next morning, giving himself up,
and taking his medicine, took to the hills, and it was up to the mounted
police to bring him in. The open-house system I have mentioned before
made it easy for him to live. But living in the hills and being hunted
is demoralising, and the next thing was a “hold-up” of the Edmonton
stage, for funds to leave the country, in which a man was killed. A
reward was then offered for him, and people were warned not to harbour
him. He was finally killed one night in town, shot from behind as he
stood against the lighted window of a saloon looking in. Whether he was
killed for the reward—which the killer was afterwards afraid to claim
because of the young man’s friends—or whether it was a private grudge,
no one ever knew, as the man who did it never came forward; or possibly
he was killed for the money he took off the stage.
There is something peculiar about the air of the West which makes a man
take readily to a gun and wish to be a law unto himself; but it is a
strange fact that the worst “gun-men” the West has produced were
easterners, and generally city-bred. Though in this case the mounted
police had no success, they are generally on the spot when needed, as I
saw on the Calgary racecourse one day. One of the onlookers called one
of the jockeys a thief, and accused him of pulling a horse in the race.
He had hardly finished speaking when the jockey, riding close up to the
fence, slipped his stirrup-strap, and cut him over the head with the
stirrup. They were both punchers, and their friends took it up, and two
or three guns were drawn. But before anything occurred three mounted
police rode up; one arrested the jockey, and the sight of the others
soon restored peace.
The doctor for the Sarci Indian reservation, near Calgary, was Mr.
Berney’s son-in-law. During the Riel rebellion the Sarci head chief
promised that none of his bucks should go out; but, unfortunately, he
fell sick, and the young bucks began to get restive, though as long as
he was alive they did not dare to disobey the old chief. Dr. George told
me he never had a case in his life where so much depended on his keeping
his patient alive. However, the old man pulled through, and only a few
stragglers joined the rebellion; had he died, Calgary would have been in
the greatest danger. These Indians are a lazy, dirty lot, but have
wonderful natural endurance. A mounted policeman told me of a chase an
Indian on foot led him and a mounted comrade. They ran him eight miles
before they captured him, and only twice did they get within roping
distance of him, when he dodged like a rabbit. After leading them over
the roughest ground he could find, he finally circled to where there was
a herd of Indian ponies grazing, as his last chance. But one of the
policemen headed off and stampeded the ponies, while the other, getting
within striking distance, knocked the Indian down. The Blackfeet,
though, are the only really troublesome Indians, as they are such
inveterate thieves. A homesteader on the head of Sheep Creek came home
one night to find his door-lock broken and all the food in the house
carried off. While investigating, he found in a “draw” close to the
house a camp of eight Blackfeet bucks enjoying his provisions. He kept
his temper, and picking up what he could carry, took it up to the house.
About his third trip he found out that the Indians were playing with
him, for as fast as he could carry the stuff up they were carrying it
back to the tepee. Then he lost his temper, and instead of going over to
the nearest police scout and reporting the matter, he thought he would
play a lone hand and scare the Indians. He pulled out his pistol, and
throwing back the flap of the tepee, fired in two or three shots,
without being very particular whether he hit any one or not.
Unfortunately he killed one of them, and the others ran, being unarmed
except for their knives. As soon as he realised what he had done, he
caught his horse, came into town, and gave himself up. The police
hustled him off to Regina, and that night his house was burned and his
stock killed.
Of course the Calgary I am speaking about was Calgary of 1891, a town of
about 5000 people; now it is a city of nearly 20,000, and the
surrounding country is fast becoming a farming instead of a ranching
section. Large irrigation works have been completed, and land is too
valuable for grazing. The Indians mentioned here are very different from
those to be seen in the States—for instance, at Pipestone, Minnesota.
There the Indians used to hold their “truce of God” and smoked the pipe
of peace, and they still frequent those rocks and hawk the pipes and
other curios of soap-stone. But how changed from the braves of Ruxton
and Cooper and Reid! The proud Pawnee now looks more like the degraded
“digger Indians” of Mayne Reid! In the Dominion, however, the Indians
have not been crushed as in the States; they were still formidable at
the time of the Riel revolt some twenty years ago, and they can hold
their own even now.
CHAPTER III
Road-agents—“Roping” contests—Broncho-busting—Strathclair—A
blizzard—Lumber camps.
Montana, just across the line from Fort McLeod, was for years an example
of what the North-West Territories might have been if it had not been
for the mounted police and prohibition. There, in its earlier days,
gun-men and even road-agents flourished, and killings were of everyday
occurrence. In fact, at one time in Virginia City the sheriff, Plummer,
was at the head of a band of organised road-agents which terrorised the
country. Finally, the people rose in desperation, and following the
example of California, formed a society of Vigilantes, and hanged all
the bad-men, including the sheriff. Most of these men when cornered died
like curs, but there were individuals, like George Sears, who at least
knew how to die. When he was taken to the place of execution, he asked
for time to pray, which was allowed him. Afterwards he made a short
speech, in which he said he deserved his fate, but his contempt of death
showed when requested to climb up the ladder which was to serve as a
drop. He said, “Gentlemen, please excuse my awkwardness, as I have not
had any experience. Am I to jump off or just slide off?”
In Montana, Indian Territory, and Texas, great roping contests are
organised every year, and cow-punchers flock from all over the United
States and Canada to try for the very valuable prizes that are offered.
In San Antonio, Texas, some years ago was held a great contest for the
championship of the world, in which the first prize was $6000 (£1237);
silver-mounted saddles, gold-mounted pistols, and other prizes were also
offered. The steers used in these contests are the very wildest that can
be got. They are held in a large corral, and turned out singly through a
gate in a chute. One hundred and fifty feet back from this gate sits the
cow-puncher on his horse, with his rope coiled and one end tied to his
saddle-horn. The minute the steer is clear of the chute he can start. He
must rope and throw the steer, and tie three of its legs together in
such a way that it cannot rise. As much or more depends on the horse
than on the man, and some of these cow-ponies are truly wonderful. Out
comes the steer with a rush, and away goes the puncher after him with
his rope whirling. He makes his throw, the rope settles over the steer’s
horns, and as it does so the pony stops dead, sticking out his feet in
front and bracing himself for the shock. The rope grows taut along the
steer’s flank, his head is jerked round, and down he goes. Meanwhile the
puncher, as his pony stops, drops off and reaches the steer almost as it
hits the ground, with his tie-rope in his hands; and while the steer
lies for an instant half-stunned, he deftly makes a hitch over three
legs with what is known as a hog-knot, jumps to his feet, and throws up
his hands as a sign that he is through. The pony, without rider, can be
depended upon to keep the steer down by constantly side-stepping to keep
the rope taut if the steer attempts to rise.
At El Paso, during the roping contests there, Clay McConagill did this
feat in the wonderful time of 21½ seconds, counting from the time the
steer left the chute till Clay’s hands were in the air. He is the
champion Texas roper, and holds the world’s record for a single tie. But
in a long-distance contest held in San Antonio he was beaten by Ellison
Carrol of Oklahoma, who tied in this manner twenty-eight consecutive
steers in 18 minutes and 58½ seconds, or an average of 40⅗ seconds each,
one of these ties being made in 22 seconds flat, or within ½ second of
the record. One who has not seen these contests can hardly form an idea
of the speed and skill both of horse and man necessary to accomplish
such a feat as this, or of the excitement among the audience of
cattlemen, all of whom, being good riders and ropers themselves, can
appreciate every move made. There is considerable risk also attached to
it. For instance, a friend of mine had the misfortune to get a coil of
his rope round his arm as he threw, and as the rope drew taut it cut his
hand off at the wrist; and yet he had been born and raised on a ranch!
The S.P.C.A. are now trying, if they have not already succeeded, to put
a stop to these contests on the ground of cruelty to the steers. But I
can see no sense in this, for steers are roped and thrown every day in
this manner on the ranch, during the season of the screw-worm fly, in
order to kill the worms with carbolic and chloroform, and they do not
seem to be very much hurt; and this is where the puncher gets his
practice in the course of his work.
Great broncho-busting (horse-breaking) contests are also held in
different parts of the West, where the worst horses from all over the
country are brought for the men to try on. In these contests, if a man
lay hand on any part of his saddle, or tries to lock his big spurs into
the girth of the saddle, he is disqualified. At one of these contests,
Sowder, one-time champion, for a bet drank a bottle of soda-water,
without spilling a drop, while his horse was bucking. Some horses
develop a devilish ingenuity in trying to get rid of their riders. They
will buck straight ahead, and suddenly, while in the air, make a twist
and turn almost end for end by the time they land. They will buck and
twist first one way and then the other alternately, squealing all the
time with impotent rage. There used to be a big negro in Calgary called
Uncle Tom, who never seemed so happy as when on a bad horse. When his
horse bucked, his face would suddenly open back to the ears in a grin,
and he would holloa, "Dere’s de boy, good boy"; and when the horse
tired, he would pull off his hat and whack it over the head and flank.
When I left Calgary, I took a flying trip home, and on my return decided
to go up to Strathclair and look over our land there. I was met by W.
Geekie, a neighbour, who took me over to his house to stay; but as my
movements were uncertain, it was decided to leave my trunks at the
station for a few days. Geekie, I found, was all prepared to start off
on a trip, hauling provisions up to a lumber camp near Lake
Winnipegosis, so I offered to accompany him and drive one of the teams.
This was in mid-November, and the cold was bitter, but with a good fur
coat over a pilot jacket I expected to be all right. We started out the
next morning, five big freight-sledges and a jumper (small home-made
sledge) for the provisions and bedding, six men all told, and five
gallons of whisky for the eight-day trip. Strathclair with the
surrounding country is a settlement of Highlanders, and they were as
hardy a lot of men as I have ever come across, but very clannish. I had
two or three “Black Angus” steer hides tanned with the hair on for
lap-robes, but found that, in order to be comfortable, I had every few
miles to drop off and flounder through the snow to start a good
circulation. The others mostly used whisky for the same purpose.
We encountered one blizzard on the trip, and I found out that they are
not so black as they are painted, for directly the snow commenced to
fall, the temperature rose, though the wind was very disagreeable. The
flying snow, however, made it impossible to proceed for fear of losing
the way, so we pitched camp in a clump of tamaracs. We slept out some of
the nights, and the experience is not so bad as might be expected,
provided you can get plenty of spruce-boughs and a place sheltered from
the wind. Steer-hides and spruce-boughs make a very comfortable and warm
bed if you pull in your head like a turtle.
If I had a very great enemy, I would wish him a job in a lumber camp, if
they are all like the one we went to. A long house of one room, about 20
feet by 30 feet, with bunks built up on the walls; one door as the only
opening for ventilation; a large cook-stove in the centre, which was
always full of wood, and served the double purpose of heating and
cooking. In this room lived about twenty men—French Canadians,
half-breed Indians, and other conglomerations. Here they cooked, ate,
slept, washed, and dried their clothes steaming against the stove, and
cursed if the door was opened for a minute. After seeing a decrepit
Irish cook dropping ashes and nicotine from his pipe into the food he
was preparing for supper, I fed outside, and stayed out during the night
and part of a day we remained there. I doubt if these men washed their
bodies during an entire winter. Such a state of affairs would not be
tolerated even on a “Stag” cattle-ranch, and I have seen a dirty cowboy
taken out by his fellows, stripped and scrubbed, and the operation never
had to be repeated; nor could he resent it, as he could not fight the
entire ranch.
CHAPTER IV
An injured knee—The "
|
loaded
with books and papers. But I laboured on, perspiring freely. I thought
that I could manage well enough to keep up with him for the distance
we had to go. In a few minutes we began to come to patches of wet
sand, where the feet sank at every step, and our progress was slower,
though a good deal more difficult. We did not seem to get much nearer
the island, though we were walking so hard. This tried me still more;
and, not seeing any need for such a desperate hurry, I said, "Don't
go so fast!" But he kept up the pace, and, pointing to where a white
sail was gliding up the other side of the island, towards Ulverstone,
he said, "Come along! The main channel's filling! We've a channel to
cross on this side, yet. D'ye see yon white line? It's the tide rushing
in! Come on! We can't turn back now!" It was only then that I began to
see how we were situated; and I tramped on at his heels, through the
soft wet sand, perspiring and panting, and still without seeming to get
over much ground. In a few minutes we came to a shallow channel, about
eight or ten yards across. We splashed through, without speaking. It
only took us a little above the knee; but, I perceived that the water
was rising rapidly. Thinking that the danger was over, I stammered out,
"Stop! Slacken a bit! We're all right now!" But the tone, as well as
the words of his reply, startled me, as he shot ahead, crying, "This
is not it! This is nothing! Come on!" I was getting exhausted; and,
when he cried out, "Double!" and broke into a run, I had not breath to
spare for an answer; but I struggled on desperately. The least false
step would have brought me down; and, if I had fallen, I think that
even that delay would have been more than we had to spare. Three or
four minutes brought us up to the channel he had spoken of. It was an
old bed of the river Leven. It must have been from fifteen to twenty
yards wide at that moment, and the tide was increasing it at a terrible
rate. When we got to the edge of the water, I was so done up that
I panted out: "Stop! I can't go so fast!" But my friend turned half
round, with a wild look, and almost screamed: "But you must! It's
death!" Then we went into the water, without any more words. I was a
little on one side of him, and about two yards in the rear. It is a
wonder to me now how I got through that deep, strong, tidal current.
The water must have revived me a little, unconsciously to myself, at
the time. Before we had got to the middle, I saw the book of ballads in
the side pocket of my friend's shooting coat disappearing in the water
as he went deeper into the channel. My clothes began to grow heavy, and
the powerful action of the tide swayed me about so much that I could
hardly keep my feet, and I expected every moment being whelmed over.
But somehow I strove on, the water deepening at every step. A thousand
thoughts crowded into my mind whilst wading that channel. I remember
distinctly the terrible stillness of the scene; the frightful calm of
the blue sky; the rocky island, with its little grove of trees, waving
gracefully in the sunshine--all so beautiful, yet all looking down with
such a majestic indifference upon us, as we wrestled for life with the
rising tide. About mid-channel, when the water was high up my breast,
my friend gave a wild shout for help, and I instantly did the same. The
island was not much more than forty yards off. As my friend turned his
head, I caught a glimpse of his haggard look, and I thought all was
over. The rocks re-echoed our cries; but everything was still as death,
except the little grove of trees waving in the sunshine. There was not
a living soul in sight. My heart sank, and I remember feeling, for an
instant, as if it was hardly worth while struggling any longer. And
here let me bear testimony to a brave act on the part of my friend. In
the deepest part of the channel, when the water was near the top of my
shoulders, he put out his stick sideway, and said, "Get hold!" I laid
only a feeble grasp upon it, for I had enough to do to keep my feet.
When we had waded about three yards in this way, we began to see that
we were ascending the opposite bank rapidly, for it was steeper than
the other one. In two minutes more we were out upon the dry sands, with
our clothes clinging heavily about us, and our hearts beating wild with
mingled emotions. "Now," said I, panting for breath, "let's sit down
a minute." "No, no!" replied he in a resolute tone, pushing on; "come
farther off." A walk of about thirty yards brought us to the foot of
the rocks. We clambered painfully up from stone to stone, till we came
upon a little footpath which led through the grove and along the garden
to the old fisherman's cottage, on the north side of the island. As we
entered the grove I found that my friend had kept hold of the brown
bottle all the way. I did not notice this till we came to the first
patch of grassy ground, where he flung the bottle down and walked on.
He told me afterwards that he believed it had helped to steady him
whilst coming through the channel.
The fisherman's cottage is the only dwelling on the little island. We
found the door open, and the birds were singing merrily among the green
bushes about the entrance. There was nobody in but the old fisherman's
wife, and she was deaf. We might have shouted long enough before she
could have heard us; and if she had heard, the poor old body could
hardly have helped us. When we got to the door, she was busy with
something at the fire, and she did not hear our approach. But, turning
round, and seeing us standing there, she gazed a few seconds with a
frightened look, and then, lifting up both hands, she cried out, "Eh,
dear o' me; good folk! Whativver's to do? Whereivver han yo cum fra?
Eh; heawivver han yo getten ower?"
We told our tale in a few words; and then she began again:--
"Good lorjus days, childer! What browt yo through t' channel at sich
an ill time as this? It's a marcy 'at yo weren't draan'd mony a time
ower! It mud ha' bin my awn lads! Eh, what trouble there'd ha' bin
for someb'dy. What, ye'll ha' mothers livin', likely; happen wives
and childer?... Eh, dear o' me! Bud cum in wi' ye! Whativver are ye
stonnin' theer for? Cum in, an' get your claes off--do! an' get into
bed this minute," said she, pointing to a little, low-roofed room in
the oldest part of the house.
The water from our clothes was running over the floor; but when we
spoke about it in the way of apology, the old woman said, "Nivver ye
mind't watter. Ye've had watter enough for yance, I should think. Get
in theer, I tell ye; an' tak' your weet claes off. Now, don't stan'
gabblin', but creep into bed, like good lads; an' I'll bring ye some
het tea to drink.... Eh, but ye owt to be thankful 'at ye are wheer ye
are!... Ye'd better go into that inside room; It'll be quieter. Leave
your claes i' this nar room, an' I'll hing 'em up to dry. An' put some
o' thoose aad shirts on. They're poor, but they're comfortable. Now, in
wi' ye! ye can talk at efter."
The old woman had four grown-up sons, labourers and fishermen; and
there was plenty of working clothes belonging to them, lying about the
bedroom. After we had stript our wet things, and flung them down, one
after another, with a splash, we put on a rough shirt a-piece, and
crept into bed. In a few minutes she came in with a quart pitcher full
of hot tea, and a cup to drink it from; and, setting it down upon a
chair at the bedside, she said, "Now, get that into ye, and hev a bit
of a sleep. Eh, dear o' me! It's a marcy ye warn't draan'd!"
We lay still, talking and looking about us; but we could not sleep.
The excitement we had gone through had left a band of intense pain
across the lower part of my forehead, as if a hot wire was burning into
it. The walls of the room we lay in were partly those of the ancient
chapel which gives name to the island. In fact, the little ragged,
weed-grown belfrey still stood above our heads, almost the only relic
of the ruined chantry, except the foundations, and some pieces of the
old walls built up into the cottage. This chapel was founded above five
centuries ago, by the monks of Furness. Here they prayed daily "for
the safety of the souls of such as crossed the sands with the morning
tide." The Priory of Conishead was charged with the maintenance of
guides across this estuary, which is perhaps the most dangerous part of
the Morecambe Sands. Baines says of the route across these sands: "The
tract is from Holker Hall to Plumpton Hall, keeping Chapel Island a
little to the left; and the mind of a visitor is filled with a mixture
of awe and gratitude when, in a short time after he has traversed this
estuary, almost dry shod, he beholds the waters advancing into the bay,
and bearing stately vessels towards the harbour of Ulverstone, over the
very path which he has so recently trodden." I can imagine how solemn
the pealing of that little island chapel's bell must have sounded upon
the shores of the estuary, floating over those dangerous waters its
daily warning of the uncertainty of human life. Perhaps the bodies
of drowned men might have lain where we were lying; or travellers
rescued from the tide by those ancient ministers of religion might have
listened with grateful hearts to the prayers and thanksgivings offered
up in that venerable chantry. The chastening interest of old pious
usage clings to the little island still; and it stands in the midst
of the waters, preaching in mute eloquence to every thoughtful mind.
There was something in the sacred associations of the place; there was
something in the mouldering remnant of the little chapel, which helped
to deepen the interest of our eventful visit that day. We could not
sleep. The sun shone in aslant at the one tiny window of our bedroom,
and the birds were singing merrily outside. As we lay there, thinking
and talking about these things, my friend said, "I feel thankful now
that I did not bring Willie with me. If I had done so, nothing could
have saved us. The tide had come in behind, and a minute more at the
channel would have been too much."
After resting about three hours, we got up, and put on some of
the cast-off clothes which had been worn by the old woman's sons
whilst working in the land. My trousers were a good deal too long,
and they were so stiff with dried slutch that they almost stood up
of themselves. When they were on, I felt as if I was dressed in
sheet-iron. I never saw two stranger figures than we cut that day, as
we entered the kitchen again, each amusing himself with the other's
comical appearance.
"Never ye mind," said the old woman; "there's naabody to see ye bud
mysel; ye may think varra weel 'at ye're alive to wear owt at all. But
sart'ny ye looken two bonny baygles! I daat varra mich whether your awn
folk would knaw ye. It quite alters your fayturs. I should't tak ye to
be aboon ninepence to t' shillin' at the varra most. As for ye," said
she, addressing myself, "ye'n na 'casion to talk, for ye're as complete
a flay-crow as ivver I set e'en on,"
The kitchen was cleaned up, and the things emptied from our pockets lay
about. Here books and papers were opened out to dry. There stockings
hung upon a line, and our boots were reared against the fender, with
their soles turned to the fire. On the dresser two little piles of
money stood, and on a round table were the sandwiches and hard-boiled
eggs which my friend had brought in his pockets.
"What are ye for wi' this?" said the old woman, pointing to the
eatables. "One or two o't eggs are crushed a bit, but t' ham's naa
warse, 'at I can see."
"Let us taste what it is like," said my friend.
"That's reight," replied she; "an' yell hev a cup o' het tea to it. I
have it ready here." The tea was very refreshing; but we couldn't eat
much, for we had not quite recovered from the late excitement. After
a little meal, we went out to walk upon the island. Our damp clothes
were fluttering upon the green bushes about the cottage. They were
drying fast; for, though the sun was hot, a cool breeze swept over
the bay from the south-west. We wandered through the grove, and about
the garden, or rather the "kailyard," for the chief things grown in
it were potatoes, cabbages, brocoli, pot-herbs, and such like things,
useful at dinner time. There were very few flowers in it, and they
were chiefly such as had to take care of themselves. In the grove
there were little bowery nooks, and meandering footpaths, mostly worn
by visitors from the neighbouring shores. The island has been much
larger than it is now. Great quantities of limestone rock have been
sold, and carried away to the mainland; and it seems as if this little
interesting leaf of local history was fated to ultimate destruction
in that way. We walked all round it, and then we settled down upon a
grassy spot, at the south-western edge, overlooking the channel we had
waded through. There was something solemn in the thought that, instead
of gazing upon the beautiful bay, we might have been lying at that
moment in the bed of the channel there, with the sunny waters rippling
above us, or drifting out with the retiring tide to an uncrowded grave
in the western sea. The thick woods of Conishead looked beautiful on
the opposite shore, with the white turrets of the Priory rising out of
their embowering shades. A little south of that the spire of Bardsea
church pointed heavenward from the summit of a green hill, marking the
spot where the village stood hidden from our view. White sails were
gliding to and fro upon the broad bay, like great swans with sunlit
wings. It was a beautiful scene. We sat looking at it till we began to
feel chill, and then we went back to the cottage.
About six o'clock the old fisherman returned home from Ulverstone; and,
soon after, two of his sons arrived from Conishead Park, where they
had been working at a deep drain. They were tall, hardy-looking men,
about middle-age. The old fisherman, who knows the soundings of the
sands all round, seemed to think we had picked our way to the island as
foolishly as it was possible to do. He talked about the matter as if we
had as good a knowledge of the sands as himself, and had set out with
the express intention of doing a dangerous exploit. "Now," said he,
pointing a good way north of the way we had crossed, "if ye'd ha' come
o'er by theer, ye mud ha' done it easy. Bud, what the devil, ye took
the varra warst nook o't channel. _I_ wonder as ye weren't _draan'd_.
I've helped to get mony a ane aat o' that hole--baith deead an' alive.
I yence pulled a captain aat by th' yure o't' yed, as had sailed all
ower t' warld, nearly. An' we'd summat to do to bring him raand, an'
all. He was that far geean.... Now, if ye'd ha' getten upo' yon bank,"
continued he, "ye mud ha' managed to ha' studden till help had come to
ye. What, ye wadn't ha' bin varra mich aboon t' middle.... But it's
getten near law watter. I mun be off to t' nets. Will ye go daan wi'
me?"
There were two sets of "stake nets" belonging to the island; one on
the north end, and the other on the western side, in our own memorable
channel. The sons went to those on the north; and the old man took
a stick in his hand, and a large basket on his arm, and we followed
him down the rocks to the other nets. They are great cages of strong
network, supported by lofty poles, or stakes, from which they take
their name. They are so contrived that the fish can get into them at
high water, but cannot escape with the retiring tide. There was rather
more than a foot of water at the bottom of the nets; but there was not
a fish visible, till the old man stepped in; and then I saw that flukes
lay thick about the bottom, half-hidden in the sand. We waded in, and
helped to pick them up, till the great basket was about half full. He
then closed the net, and came away, complaining that it was "nobbut
a poor catch." When we got to the cottage we put on our own clothes,
which were quite dry. And, after we had picked out two dozen of the
finest flukes, which the old man strung upon a stout cord for ease of
carriage, we bade adieu to the fisherman and his family, and we walked
away over the sands, nearly by the way we had come to the island.
The sun had gone down behind old Birkrigg; but his westering splendour
still empurpled the rugged tops of the Cartmel hills. The woods of
Conishead were darkening into shade; and the low of cattle came,
mellowed by distance, from the rich pastures of Furness. It was a
lovely evening. Instead of going up the green lane which leads to the
landward end of Bardsea, we turned southward, along the shore, and took
a grass-grown shady path, which winds round the sea-washed base of the
hill upon which the church stands and so up into the village by a good
road from the beach. The midges were dancing their airy rounds; the
throstle's song began to ring clearer in the stilling woods; and the
lone ouzel, in her leafy covert, chanted little fits of complaining
melody, as if she had lost something. There were other feathered
lingerers here and there in those twilight woods, not willing yet to go
to rest, through unwearied joyfulness of heart, and still singing on,
like children late at play, who have to be called in by their mothers
as night comes on. When we drew near my friend's house, he said, "Now,
we had better not mention this little affair to our people." But, as we
sat at supper that night, I could not help feeling thankful that we wer
e eating fish instead of being eaten by them.
Ramble from Bury to Rochdale.
"Its hardly in a body's pow'r
To keep, at times' fra being sour."
BURNS.
One fine afternoon, at the end of February, I had some business to do
in Bury, which kept me there till evening. As twilight came on, the
skies settled slowly into a gorgeous combination of the grandest shapes
and hues, which appeared to canopy the country for miles around. The
air was clear, and it was nipping cold; and every object within sight
stood out in beautiful relief in that fine transparence, softened by
the deepening shades of evening. The world seemed to stand still and
meditate, and inhale silently the air of peace which pervaded that
tranquil hour of closing day, as if all things on earth had caught
the spirit of "meek nature's evening comments on the fuming shows and
vanities of man." The glare of daylight is naturally fitted for bustle
and business, but such an eventide as this looked the very native hour
of devout thought, and recovery from the details of worldly occupation.
It is said that the town of Bury takes its name from the Saxon word
_byri_, a burgh, or castle. One of the twelve ancient Saxon fortresses
of Lancashire stood in the place now called "Castle Croft," close to
the town, and upon the banks of the old course of the river Irwell.
Immediately below the eminence, upon which the castle once stood, a
low tract of ground, of considerable extent, stretches away from below
the semicircular ridge upon which the northern extremity of the town
is situated, up the valley of the Irwell. Less than fifty years ago
this tract was a great stagnant swamp, where, in certain states of the
weather the people of the neighbourhood could see the weird antics of
the "Wild Fire," or "Jack o' Lantern," that fiend of morass and fen.
An old medical gentleman, of high repute, who has lived his whole life
in the town, lately assured me that he remembers well that, during the
existence of that poisonous swamp, there was a remarkable prevalence of
fever and ague amongst the people living in its neighbourhood; which
diseases have since then comparatively disappeared from the locality.
There is something rich in excellent suggestions in the change which
has been wrought in that spot. The valley, so long fruitful of
pestilences, is now drained and cleared, and blooms with little garden
allotments, belonging to the working people thereabouts. Oft as I
chance to pass that way, on Saturday afternoons, or holidays, there
they are, working in their little plots, sometimes assisted by their
children, or their wives; a very pleasant scene.
I lingered in the market-place a little while, looking at the parish
church, with its new tower and spire, and at the fine pile of new
stone buildings, consisting of the Derby Hotel, the Town Hall, and the
Athenæum. South Lancashire has, for a very long time past, been chiefly
careful about its hard productive work, and practicable places to do
it in; and has taken little thought about artistic ornament of any
sort; but the strong old county palatine begins to flower out a little
here and there, and this will increase as the wealth of the county
becomes influenced by elevated taste. In this new range of buildings,
there was a stateliness and beauty, which made the rest of the town
of Bury look smaller and balder than ever it seemed to me before. It
looked like a piece of the west end of London, dropped among a cluster
of weavers' cottages. But my reflections took another direction. At
"The Derby," there, thought I, will be supplied--to anybody who can
command "the one thing needful"--sumptuous eating and drinking, fine
linen, and downy beds, hung with damask curtaining; together with grand
upholstery, glittering chandelier and looking-glass, and more than
enough of other ornamental garniture of all sorts; a fine cook's shop
and dormitory, where a man might make shift to tickle a few of his five
senses very prettily, if he was so disposed. A beggar is not likely to
put up there; but a lord might chance to go to bed there, and dream
that he was a beggar. At the other end of these fine buildings, the new
Athenæum was quietly rising into the air. The wants to be provided for
in that edifice were quite of another kind. There is in the town of
Bury, as, more or less, everywhere, a sprinkling of naturally active
and noble minds, struggling through the hard crust of ignorance and
difficulty, towards mental light and freedom. Such salt as this poor
world of ours has in it, is not unfrequently found among these humble
strugglers. I felt sure that such as these, at least, would watch the
laying of the stones of this new Athenæum with a little interest. That
is their grand citadel, thought I; and from thence, the artillery of
a few old books shall help to batter tyranny and nonsense about the
ears;--for there is a reasonable prospect that there, the ample page
of knowledge, "rich with the spoils of time," will be unfolded to all
who desire to consult it; and that from thence the seeds of thought
may yet be sown over a little space of the neighbouring mental soil.
This fine old England of ours will some day find, like the rest of the
world, that it is not mere wealth and luxury, and dexterous juggling
among the legerdemain of trade, that make and maintain its greatness,
but intelligent and noble-hearted men, in whatever station of life
they grow; and they are, at least, sometimes found among the obscure,
unostentatious, and very poor. It will learn to prize these, as the
"pulse of the machine," and to cultivate them as the chief hope of
its future existence and glory; and will carefully remove, as much as
possible, all unnecessary difficulties from the path of those who, from
a wise instinct of nature, are impelled in the pursuit of knowledge by
pure love of it, for its own sake, and not by sordid aims.
The New Town Hall is the central building of this fine pile. The
fresh nap was not yet worn off it; and, of course, its authorities
were anxious to preserve its pristine Corinthian beauty from the
contaminations of "the unwashed." They had made it nice, and they
wanted none but nice people in it. At the "free exhibition" of models
for the Peel monument, a notice was posted at the entrance, warning
visitors, that "Persons in Clogs" would not be admitted. There are
some Town Halls which are public property, in the management of which
a kindred solicitude prevails about mere ornaments of wood and stone,
or painting, gilding, and plaster work; leading to such restrictions
as tend to lessen the service which they might afford to the whole
public. They are kept rather too exclusively for grandee-festivals; and
gatherings of those classes which are too much sundered from the poor
by a Chinese wall of exclusive feeling. I have known the authorities
of such places make "serious objections to evening meetings;" and yet,
I have often seen the farce of "public meetings" got up ostensibly for
the discussion of some important question then agitating the population
of the neighbourhood, inviting _public_ discussion, at _eleven_ o'clock
in the _forenoon_, an hour when the heterodox multitude would be secure
enough at their labour; and, in this way, many a pack of fanatic
hounds--and there are some such in all parties--have howled out their
hour with a clear stage and no foe; and then walked off glorying in
a sham triumph, leaving nothing beaten behind them but the air they
have tainted with _ex parte_ denunciation. And, in my erroneous belief
that this Town Hall, into which "Persons in Clogs" were not to be
admitted, was public property, the qualification test seemed to be of
a queer kind, and altogether at the wrong end of the man. Alas, for
these poor lads who wear clogs and work-soiled fustian garments; it
takes a moral Columbus, every now and then, to keep the world awake to
a belief that there is something fine in them, which has been running
to waste for want of recognition and culture. Blessed and beautiful
are the feet, which fortune has encased in the neat "Clarence," of the
softest calf or Cordovan, or the glossy "Wellington," of fine French
leather. Even so; the woodenest human head has a better chance in this
world if it come before us covered with a good-looking hat. But woe
unto your impertinent curiosity, ye unfortunate clog-wearing lovers
of the fine arts!--(I was strongly assured that there were several
curious specimens of this strange animal extant among the working
people of Bury.) It was pleasant to hear, however, that several of
these ardent persons, of questionable understanding, meeting with this
warning as they attempted to enter the hall, after duly contemplating
it with humourous awe, doffed their condemned clogs at once, and,
tucking the odious timber under their arms, ran up the steps in their
stocking-feet. It is a consolation to believe that these clogs of
theirs are not the only clogs yet to be taken off in this world of
ours. But, as this "Town Hall" is private property, and, as it has
been settled by somebody in the north that "a man can do what he likes
with his own," these reflections are, perhaps, more pertinent to other
public halls that I know of than to this one.
In one of the windows of "The Derby" was exhibited a representation of
"The Eagle and Child," or, as the country-folk in Lancashire sometimes
call it, "Th' Brid and Bantlin'," the ancient recognizance of the
Stanleys, Earls of Derby, and formerly kings of the Isle of Man, with
their motto, "Sans changer," in a scroll beneath. This family still
owns the manor of Bury, and has considerable possessions there. They
have also large estates and great influence in the north and west of
Lancashire. In former times they have been accounted the most powerful
family of the county; and in some of the old wars, they led to the
field all the martial chivalry of Lancashire and Cheshire under their
banner. As I looked on the Stanley's crest, I thought of the fortunes
of that noble house, and of the strange events which it had shared with
the rest of the kingdom. Of James, Earl of Derby, who was beheaded at
Bolton-le-Moors, in front of the Man and Scythe Inn, in Deansgate, two
centuries since; and of his countess, Charlotte de Tremouille, who so
bravely defended Lathom House against the parliamentary forces during
the last civil wars. She was daughter to Claude, Duke of Tremouille,
and Charlotte Brabantin de Nassau, daughter of William, Prince of
Orange, and Charlotte de Bourbon, of the royal house of France. Apart
from the pride of famous descent, both the earl and his lady were
remarkable for certain noble qualities of mind, which commanded the
respect of all parties in those troubled times. I sometimes think that
if it had pleased Heaven for me to have lived in those days, I should
have been compelled by nature to fall into some Roundhead rank, and
do the best I could, for that cause. When a lad at school I had this
feeling: and, as I poured over the history of that period, I well
remember how, in my own mind, I shouted the solemn battle-cry with
great Cromwell and his captains, and charged with the earnest Puritans,
in their bloody struggles against the rampant tyrannies of the time.
Yet, even then, I never read of this James, Earl of Derby--the faithful
soldier of an infatuated king--without a feeling of admiration for the
chivalry of his character. I lately saw, in Bolton, an antique cup of
"stone china," quaintly painted and gilt, out of which it is said that
he drank the communion immediately before his execution. Greenhalgh,
of Brandlesome, who was a notable and worthy man, and who governed the
Isle of Man for the Earls of Derby, lived at Brandlesome Hall, near
Bury. Respecting Edward, the third earl, Camden says: "With Edward,
Earl of Derby's death, the glory of hospitality seemed to fall asleep."
Of his munificent housekeeping, too, he tells us: how he fed sixty
old people twice a day, every day, and all comers twice a week; and
every Christmas-day, for thirty-two years, supplied two thousand seven
hundred with meat, drink, money, and money's worth; and how he offered
to raise ten thousand soldiers for the king. Also, that he had great
reputation as a bone-setter, and was a learned man, a poet, and a man
of considerable talent in many directions. The present Lord Stanley[1]
is accounted a man of great ability as a politician and orator, and of
high and impetuous spirit; and is the leader of the Conservative party
in parliament. A century ago, the influence of great feudal families,
like the Stanleys, was all but supreme in Lancashire; but, since that
time, the old landlord domination has declined in the manufacturing
districts; and the people have begun to set more value upon their
independent rights as men, than upon the painful patronage of feudal
landlords.
[1] Succeeded his father, the thirteenth Earl of Derby, in 1851. Has
been Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Secret the Colonies. Accepted
office as Premier, in 1851.
I had no time to devote to any other of the notabilities of Bury
town; and I thought that "Chamber Hall," the birthplace of the great
departed statesman, Peel, would be worth a special pilgrimage some
Saturday afternoon.[2] I had finished my business about seven o'clock,
and, as the nightfall was fine and clear, I resolved to walk over to
Rochdale, about six miles off, to see an old friend of mine there. Few
people like a country walk better than I do; and being in fair health
and spirits, I took the road at once, with my stick in hand, as brisk
as a Shetland pony, in good fettle. Striking out at the town-end, I
bethought me of an old herbalist, or "yarb doctor," who lived somewhere
thereabouts--a genuine dealer in simples, bred up in the hills, on
Ashworth Moor, about three miles from the town, and who had made the
botany of his native neighbourhood a life-long study. Culpepper's
"Herbal" was a favourite book with him, as it is among a great number
of the country people of Lancashire, where there are, perhaps, more
clever botanists in humble life to be found than in any other part of
the kingdom. Nature and he were familiar friends, for he was a lonely
rambler by hill, and clough, and field, at all seasons of the year,
and could talk by the hour about the beauties and medicinal virtues of
gentian, dandelion, and camomile, or tansy, mountain flax, sanctuary,
hyssop, buckbean, wood-betony, and "Robin-run-i'-th'-hedge," and an
endless catalogue of other herbs and plants, a plentiful assortment
of which he kept by him, either green or in dried bundles, ready for
his customers. The country people in Lancashire have great faith in
simples, and in simple treatment for their diseases. I well remember
that one of their recipes for a common cold is "a wot churn-milk
posset, weel sweet'nt, an' a traycle cake to't, at bed-time." They are
profound believers in the kindly doctrine expressed in that verse of
George Herbert's:--
"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of; in ev'ry path
He treads down what befriends him
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh, mighty love! man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him."
[2] Since that time the people of Bury have erected a monument in
their market-place to the
|
was proud; he held himself very much above
the poor white, and he would not associate with the slave of the small
farmer; and the poor white never doubted his own superiority to the
Northern "mudsill"--as the phrase of the day was. The whole life was
somehow pitched to a romantic key, and often there was a queer contrast
between the Gascon-like pretension and the reality--all the more because
of a certain sincerity and single-mindedness that was unable to see the
anachronism of trying to live in the spirit of Scott's romances in our
day and generation.
But with all allowance for this, there was a real basis for romance
in the impulsive, sun-nurtured people, in the conflict between the two
distinct races, and in the system of labor that was an anomaly in modern
life. With the downfall of this system it was inevitable that the social
state should radically change, and especially as this downfall
was sudden and by violence, and in a struggle that left the South
impoverished, and reduced to the rank of bread-winners those who had
always regarded labor as a thing impossible for themselves.
As a necessary effect of this change, the dignity of the agricultural
interest was lowered, and trade and industrial pursuits were elevated.
Labor itself was perforce dignified. To earn one's living by actual
work, in the shop, with the needle, by the pen, in the counting-house or
school, in any honorable way, was a lot accepted with cheerful courage.
And it is to the credit of all concerned that reduced circumstances and
the necessity of work for daily bread have not thus far cost men and
women in Southern society their social position. Work was a necessity of
the situation, and the spirit in which the new life was taken up brought
out the solid qualities of the race. In a few trying years they had
to reverse the habits and traditions of a century. I think the honest
observer will acknowledge that they have accomplished this without loss
of that social elasticity and charm which were heretofore supposed to
depend very much upon the artificial state of slave labor. And they have
gained much. They have gained in losing a kind of suspicion that was
inevitable in the isolation of their peculiar institution. They have
gained freedom of thought and action in all the fields of modern
endeavor, in the industrial arts, in science, in literature. And the
fruits of this enlargement must add greatly to the industrial and
intellectual wealth of the world.
Society itself in the new South has cut loose from its old moorings, but
it is still in a transition state, and offers the most interesting study
of tendencies and possibilities. Its danger, of course, is that of the
North--a drift into materialism, into a mere struggle for wealth, undue
importance attached to money, and a loss of public spirit in the selfish
accumulation of property. Unfortunately, in the transition of twenty
years the higher education has been neglected. The young men of this
generation have not given even as much attention to intellectual
pursuits as their fathers gave. Neither in polite letters nor in
politics and political history have they had the same training. They
have been too busy in the hard struggle for a living. It is true at the
North that the young men in business are not so well educated, not
so well read, as the young women of their own rank in society. And I
suspect that this is still more true in the South. It is not uncommon
to find in this generation Southern young women who add to sincerity,
openness and frankness of manner; to the charm born of the wish to
please, the graces of cultivation; who know French like their native
tongue, who are well acquainted with the French and German literatures,
who are well read in the English classics--though perhaps guiltless of
much familiarity with our modern American literature. But taking the
South at large, the schools for either sex are far behind those of
the North both in discipline and range. And this is especially to
be regretted, since the higher education is an absolute necessity to
counteract the intellectual demoralization of the newly come industrial
spirit.
We have yet to study the compensations left to the South in their
century of isolation from this industrial spirit, and from the
absolutely free inquiry of our modern life. Shall we find something
sweet and sound there, that will yet be a powerful conservative
influence in the republic? Will it not be strange, said a distinguished
biblical scholar and an old-time antislavery radical, if we have to
depend, after all, upon the orthodox conservatism of the South? For it
is to be noted that the Southern pulpit holds still the traditions
of the old theology, and the mass of Southern Christians are still
undisturbed by doubts. They are no more troubled by agnosticism in
religion than by altruism in sociology. There remains a great mass of
sound and simple faith. We are not discussing either the advantage or
the danger of disturbing thought, or any question of morality or of the
conduct of life, nor the shield or the peril of ignorance--it is simply
a matter of fact that the South is comparatively free from what is
called modern doubt.
Another fact is noticeable. The South is not and never has been
disturbed by "isms" of any sort. "Spiritualism" or "Spiritism" has
absolutely no lodgement there. It has not even appealed in any way to
the excitable and superstitious colored race. Inquiry failed to discover
to the writer any trace of this delusion among whites or blacks. Society
has never been agitated on the important subjects of graham-bread or of
the divided skirt. The temperance question has forced itself upon the
attention of deeply drinking communities here and there. Usually it
has been treated in a very common-sense way, and not as a matter
of politics. Fanaticism may sometimes be a necessity against an
overwhelming evil; but the writer knows of communities in the South that
have effected a practical reform in liquor selling and drinking without
fanatical excitement. Bar-room drinking is a fearful curse in Southern
cities, as it is in Northern; it is an evil that the colored people fall
into easily, but it is beginning to be met in some Southern localities
in a resolute and sensible manner.
The students of what we like to call "progress," especially if they are
disciples of Mr. Ruskin, have an admirable field of investigation in the
contrast of the social, economic, and educational structure of the North
and the South at the close of the war. After a century of free schools,
perpetual intellectual agitation, extraordinary enterprise in every
domain of thought and material achievement, the North presented a
spectacle at once of the highest hope and the gravest anxiety. What
diversity of life! What fulness! What intellectual and even social
emancipation! What reforms, called by one party Heavensent, and by
the other reforms against nature! What agitations, doubts, contempt of
authority! What wild attempts to conduct life on no basis philosophic
or divine! And yet what prosperity, what charities, what a marvellous
growth, what an improvement in physical life! With better knowledge of
sanitary conditions and of the culinary art, what an increase of beauty
in women and of stalwartness in men! For beauty and physical comeliness,
it must be acknowledged (parenthetically), largely depend upon food.
It is in the impoverished parts of the country, whether South or North,
the sandy barrens, and the still vast regions where cooking is an
unknown art, that scrawny and dyspeptic men and women abound--the
sallow-faced, flat-chested, spindle-limbed.
This Northern picture is a veritable nineteenth-century spectacle. Side
by side with it was the other society, also covering a vast domain, that
was in many respects a projection of the eighteenth century into the
nineteenth. It had much of the conservatism, and preserved something
of the manners, of the eighteenth century, and lacked a good deal the
so-called spirit of the age of the nineteenth, together with its doubts,
its isms, its delusions, its energies. Life in the South is still on
simpler terms than in the North, and society is not so complex. I am
inclined to think it is a little more natural, more sincere in manner
though not in fact, more frank and impulsive. One would hesitate to use
the word unworldly with regard to it, but it may be less calculating. A
bungling male observer would be certain to get himself into trouble by
expressing an opinion about women in any part of the world; but women
make society, and to discuss society at all is to discuss them. It is
probably true that the education of women at the South, taken at
large, is more superficial than at the North, lacking in purpose, in
discipline, in intellectual vigor. The aim of the old civilization was
to develop the graces of life, to make women attractive, charming, good
talkers (but not too learned), graceful, and entertaining companions.
When the main object is to charm and please, society is certain to be
agreeable. In Southern society beauty, physical beauty, was and is much
thought of, much talked of. The "belle" was an institution, and is yet.
The belle of one city or village had a wide reputation, and trains
of admirers wherever she went--in short, a veritable career, and was
probably better known than a poetess at the North. She not only ruled
in her day, but she left a memory which became a romance to the next
generation. There went along with such careers a certain lightness and
gayety of life, and now and again a good deal of pathos and tragedy.
With all its social accomplishments, its love of color, its climatic
tendency to the sensuous side of life, the South has been unexpectedly
wanting in a fine-art development--namely, in music and pictorial art.
Culture of this sort has been slow enough in the North, and only
lately has had any solidity or been much diffused. The love of art, and
especially of art decoration, was greatly quickened by the Philadelphia
Exhibition, and the comparatively recent infusion of German music has
begun to elevate the taste. But I imagine that while the South naturally
was fond of music of a light sort, and New Orleans could sustain and
almost make native the French opera when New York failed entirely to
popularize any sort of opera, the musical taste was generally very
rudimentary; and the poverty in respect to pictures and engravings was
more marked still. In a few great houses were fine paintings, brought
over from Europe, and here and there a noble family portrait. But the
traveller to-day will go through city after city, and village after
village, and find no art-shop (as he may look in vain in large cities
for any sort of book-store except a news-room); rarely will see an
etching or a fine engraving; and he will be led to doubt if the taste
for either existed to any great degree before the war. Of course he will
remember that taste and knowledge in the fine arts may be said in the
North to be recent acquirements, and that, meantime, the South has been
impoverished and struggling in a political and social revolution.
Slavery and isolation and a semi-feudal state have left traces that must
long continue to modify social life in the South, and that may not wear
out for a century to come. The new life must also differ from that in
the North by reason of climate, and on account of the presence of the
alien, _insouciant_ colored race. The vast black population, however
it may change, and however education may influence it, must remain a
powerful determining factor. The body of the slaves, themselves inert,
and with no voice in affairs, inevitably influenced life, the character
of civilization, manners, even speech itself. With slavery ended, the
Southern whites are emancipated, and the influence of the alien race
will be other than what it was, but it cannot fail to affect the tone of
life in the States where it is a large element.
When, however, we have made all allowance for difference in climate,
difference in traditions, total difference in the way of looking at life
for a century, it is plain to be seen that a great transformation
is taking place in the South, and that Southern society and Northern
society are becoming every day more and more alike. I know there are
those, and Southerners, too, who insist that we are still two peoples,
with more points of difference than of resemblance--certainly farther
apart than Gascons and Bretons.
This seems to me not true in general, though it may be of a portion of
the passing generation. Of course there is difference in temperament,
and peculiarities of speech and manner remain and will continue, as they
exist in different portions of the North--the accent of the Bostonian
differs from that of the Philadelphian, and the inhabitant of Richmond
is known by his speech as neither of New Orleans nor New York. But the
influence of economic laws, of common political action, of interest
and pride in one country, is stronger than local bias in such an age of
intercommunication as this. The great barrier between North and South
having been removed, social assimilation must go on. It is true that
the small farmer in Vermont, and the small planter in Georgia, and the
village life in the two States, will preserve their strong contrasts.
But that which, without clearly defining, we call society becomes
yearly more and more alike North and South. It is becoming more and more
difficult to tell in any summer assembly--at Newport, the White Sulphur,
Saratoga, Bar Harbor--by physiognomy, dress, or manner, a person's
birthplace. There are noticeable fewer distinctive traits that enable
us to say with certainty that one is from the South, or the West, or the
East. No doubt the type at such a Southern resort as the White Sulphur
is more distinctly American than at such a Northern resort as Saratoga.
We are prone to make a good deal of local peculiarities, but when we
look at the matter broadly and consider the vastness of our territory
and the varieties of climate, it is marvellous that there is so little
difference in speech, manner, and appearance. Contrast us with Europe
and its various irreconcilable races occupying less territory. Even
little England offers greater variety than the United States. When we
think of our large, widely scattered population, the wonder is that we
do not differ more.
Southern society has always had a certain prestige in the North. One
reason for this was the fact that the ruling class South had more
leisure for social life. Climate, also, had much to do in softening
manners, making the temperament ardent, and at the same time producing
that leisurely movement which is essential to a polished life. It is
probably true, also, that mere wealth was less a passport to social
distinction than at the North, or than it has become at the North; that
is to say, family, or a certain charm of breeding, or the talent
of being agreeable, or the gift of cleverness, or of beauty, were
necessary, and money was not. In this respect it seems to be true that
social life is changing at the South; that is to say, money is getting
to have the social power in New Orleans that it has in New York. It is
inevitable in a commercial and industrial community that money should
have a controlling power, as it is regrettable that the enjoyment of
its power very slowly admits a sense of its responsibility. The
old traditions of the South having been broken down, and nearly all
attention being turned to the necessity of making money, it must follow
that mere wealth will rise as a social factor. Herein lies one danger to
what was best in the old régime. Another danger is that it must be put
to the test of the ideas, the agitations, the elements of doubt and
disintegration that seem inseparable to "progress," which give Northern
society its present complexity, and just cause of alarm to all who watch
its headlong career. Fulness of life is accepted as desirable, but it
has its dangers.
Within the past five years social intercourse between North and South
has been greatly increased. Northerners who felt strongly about the
Union and about slavery, and took up the cause of the freedman, and were
accustomed all their lives to absolute free speech, were not comfortable
in the post-reconstruction atmosphere. Perhaps they expected too much of
human nature--a too sudden subsidence of suspicion and resentment. They
felt that they were not welcome socially, however much their capital and
business energy were desired. On the other hand, most Southerners were
too poor to travel in the North, as they did formerly. But all these
points have been turned. Social intercourse and travel are renewed. If
difficulties and alienations remain they are sporadic, and melting away.
The harshness of the Northern winter climate has turned a stream of
travel and occupation to the Gulf States, and particularly to Florida,
which is indeed now scarcely a Southern State except in climate. The
Atlanta and New Orleans Exhibitions did much to bring people of all
sections together socially. With returning financial prosperity all the
Northern summer resorts have seen increasing numbers of Southern people
seeking health and pleasure. I believe that during the past summer more
Southerners have been travelling and visiting in the North than ever
before.
This social intermingling is significant in itself, and of the utmost
importance for the removal of lingering misunderstandings. They who
learn to like each other personally will be tolerant in political
differences, and helpful and unsuspicious in the very grave problems
that rest upon the late slave States. Differences of opinion and
different interests will exist, but surely love is stronger than hate,
and sympathy and kindness are better solvents than alienation and
criticism. The play of social forces is very powerful in such a republic
as ours, and there is certainly reason to believe that they will be
exerted now in behalf of that cordial appreciation of what is good and
that toleration of traditional differences which are necessary to a
people indissolubly bound together in one national destiny. Alienated
for a century, the society of the North and the society of the South
have something to forget but more to gain in the union that every day
becomes closer.
III.--NEW ORLEANS.
|The first time I saw New Orleans was on a Sunday morning in the month
of March. We alighted from the train at the foot of Esplanade Street,
and walked along through the French Market, and by Jackson Square to the
Hotel Royal. The morning, after rain, was charming; there was a fresh
breeze from the river; the foliage was a tender green; in the balconies
and on the mouldering window-ledges flowers bloomed, and in the decaying
courts climbing-roses mingled their perfume with the orange; the shops
were open; ladies tripped along from early mass or to early market;
there was a twittering in the square and in the sweet old gardens; caged
birds sang and screamed the songs of South America and the tropics; the
language heard on all sides was French or the degraded jargon which
the easy-going African has manufactured out of the tongue of Bienville.
Nothing could be more shabby than the streets, ill-paved, with
undulating sidewalks and open gutters green with slime, and both
stealing and giving odor; little canals in which the cat, become the
companion of the crawfish, and the vegetable in decay sought in vain a
current to oblivion; the streets with rows of one-story houses, wooden,
with green doors and batten window-shutters, or brick, with the painted
stucco peeling off, the line broken often by an edifice of two stories,
with galleries and delicate tracery of wrought-iron, houses pink and
yellow and brown and gray--colors all blending and harmonious when
we get a long vista of them and lose the details of view in the broad
artistic effect. Nothing could be shabbier than the streets, unless
it is the tumble-down, picturesque old market, bright with flowers and
vegetables and many-hued fish, and enlivened by the genial African, who
in the New World experiments in all colors, from coal black to the pale
pink of the sea-shell, to find one that suits his mobile nature. I liked
it all from the first; I lingered long in that morning walk, liking it
more and more, in spite of its shabbiness, but utterly unable to say
then or ever since wherein its charm lies. I suppose we are all wrongly
made up and have a fallen nature; else why is it that while the most
thrifty and neat and orderly city only wins our approval, and perhaps
gratifies us intellectually, such a thriftless, battered and stained,
and lazy old place as the French quarter of New Orleans takes our
hearts?
I never could find out exactly where New Orleans is. I have looked
for it on the map without much enlightenment. It is dropped down there
somewhere in the marshes of the Mississippi and the bayous and lakes. It
is below the one, and tangled up among the others, or it might some
day float out to the Gulf and disappear. How the Mississippi gets out
I never could discover. When it first comes in sight of the town it is
running east; at Carrollton it abruptly turns its rapid, broad, yellow
flood and runs south, turns presently eastward, circles a great portion
of the city, then makes a bold push for the north in order to avoid
Algiers and reach the foot of Canal Street, and encountering there the
heart of the town, it sheers off again along the old French quarter and
Jackson Square due east, and goes no one knows where, except perhaps Mr.
Eads.
The city is supposed to lie in this bend of the river, but it in fact
extends eastward along the bank down to the Barracks, and spreads
backward towards Lake Pontchartrain over a vast area, and includes some
very good snipe-shooting.
Although New Orleans has only about a quarter of a million of
inhabitants, and so many only in the winter, it is larger than Pekin,
and I believe than Philadelphia, having an area of about one hundred and
five square miles. From Carrollton to the Barracks, which are not far
from the Battle-field, the distance by the river is some thirteen miles.
From the river to the lake the least distance is four miles. This vast
territory is traversed by lines of horse-cars which all meet in Canal
Street, the most important business thoroughfare of the city, which
runs north-east from the river, and divides the French from the American
quarter. One taking a horse-car in any part of the city will ultimately
land, having boxed the compass, in Canal Street. But it needs a person
of vast local erudition to tell in what part of the city, or in what
section of the home of the frog and crawfish, he will land if he takes
a horse-ear in Canal Street. The river being higher than the city, there
is of course no drainage into it; but there is a theory that the water
in the open gutters does move, and that it moves in the direction of
the Bayou St. John, and of the cypress swamps that drain into Lake
Pontchartrain. The stranger who is accustomed to closed sewers, and to
get his malaria and typhoid through pipes conducted into his house by
the most approved methods of plumbing, is aghast at this spectacle
of slime and filth in the streets, and wonders why the city is not in
perennial epidemic; but the sun and the wind are great scavengers, and
the city is not nearly so unhealthy as it ought to be with such a city
government as they say it endures.
It is not necessary to dwell much upon the external features of New
Orleans, for innumerable descriptions and pictures have familiarized
the public with them. Besides, descriptions can give the stranger little
idea of the peculiar city. Although all on one level, it is a town of
contrasts. In no other city of the United States or of Mexico is the
old and romantic preserved in such integrity and brought into such
sharp contrast to the modern. There are many handsome public buildings,
churches, club-houses, elegant shops, and on the American side a great
area of well-paved streets solidly built up in business blocks. The
Square of the original city, included between the river and canal,
Rampart and Esplanade streets, which was once surrounded by a wall, is
as closely built, but the streets are narrow, the houses generally are
smaller, and although it swarms with people, and contains the cathedral,
the old Spanish buildings, Jackson Square, the French Market, the French
Opera-house, and other theatres, the Mint, the Custom-house, the old
Ursuline convent (now the residence of the archbishop), old banks, and
scores of houses of historic celebrity, it is a city of the past, and
specially interesting in its picturesque decay. Beyond this, eastward
and northward extend interminable streets of small houses, with now and
then a flowery court or a pretty rose garden, occupied mainly by people
of French and Spanish descent. The African pervades all parts of the
town, except the new residence portion of the American quarter. This,
which occupies the vast area in the bend of the river west of the
business blocks as far as Carrollton, is in character a great village
rather than a city. Not all its broad avenues and handsome streets
are paved (and those that are not are in some seasons impassable), its
houses are nearly all of wood, most of them detached, with plots of
ground and gardens, and as the quarter is very well shaded, the effect
is bright and agreeable. In it are many stately residences, occupying a
square or half a square, and embowered in foliage and flowers. Care
has been given lately to turf-culture, and one sees here thick-set
and handsome lawns. The broad Esplanade Street, with its elegant
old-fashioned houses, and double rows of shade trees, which has
long been the rural pride of the French quarter, has now rivals in
respectability and style on the American side.
New Orleans is said to be delightful in the late fall months, before the
winter rains set in, but I believe it looks its best in March and April.
This is owing to the roses. If the town was not attached to the name
of the Crescent City, it might very well adopt the title of the City of
Roses. So kind are climate and soil that the magnificent varieties of
this queen of flowers, which at the North bloom only in hot-houses, or
with great care are planted out-doors in the heat of our summer, thrive
here in the open air in prodigal abundance and beauty. In April the town
is literally embowered in them; they fill door-yards and gardens, they
overrun the porches, they climb the sides of the houses, they spread
over the trees, they take possession of trellises and fences and walls,
perfuming the air and entrancing the heart with color. In the outlying
parks, like that of the Jockey Club, and the florists' gardens at
Carrollton, there are fields of them, acres of the finest sorts waving
in the spring wind. Alas! can beauty ever satisfy? This wonderful
spectacle fills one with I know not what exquisite longing. These
flowers pervade the town, old women on the street corners sit behind
banks of them, the florists' windows blush with them, friends despatch
to each other great baskets of them, the favorites at the theatre and
the amateur performers stand behind high barricades of roses which the
good-humored audience piles upon the stage, everybody carries roses
and wears roses, and the houses overflow with them. In this passion for
flowers you may read a prominent trait of the people. For myself I like
to see a spot on this earth where beauty is enjoyed for itself and
let to run to waste, but if ever the industrial spirit of the
French-Italians should prevail along the littoral of Louisiana and
Mississippi, the raising of flowers for the manufacture of perfumes
would become a most profitable industry.
New Orleans is the most cosmopolitan of provincial cities. Its
comparative isolation has secured the development of provincial traits
and manners, has preserved the individuality of the many races that
give it color, morals, and character, while its close relations
with France--an affiliation and sympathy which the late war has not
altogether broken--and the constant influx of Northern men of business
and affairs have given it the air of a metropolis. To the Northern
stranger the aspect and the manners of the city are foreign, but if he
remains long enough he is sure to yield to its fascinations, and become
a partisan of it. It is not altogether the soft and somewhat enervating
and occasionally treacherous climate that beguiles him, but quite as
much the easy terms on which life can be lived. There is a human as well
as a climatic amiability that wins him. No doubt it is better for a man
to be always braced up, but no doubt also there is an attraction in a
complaisance that indulges his inclinations.
Socially as well as commercially New Orleans is in a transitive state.
The change from river to railway transportation has made her levees
vacant; the shipment of cotton by rail and its direct transfer to ocean
carriage have nearly destroyed a large middle-men industry; a large
part of the agricultural tribute of the South-west has been diverted;
plantations have either not recovered from the effects of the war or
have not adjusted themselves to new productions, and the city waits
the rather blind developments of the new era. The falling off of law
business, which I should like to attribute to the growth of common-sense
and good-will is, I fear, rather due to business lassitude, for it is
observed that men quarrel most when they are most actively engaged in
acquiring each other's property. The business habits of the Creoles were
conservative and slow; they do not readily accept new ways, and in
this transition time the American element is taking the lead in all
enterprises. The American element itself is toned down by the climate
and the contagion of the leisurely habits of the Creoles, and loses
something of the sharpness and excitability exhibited by business men in
all Northern cities, but it is certainly changing the social as well as
the business aspect of the city. Whether these social changes will make
New Orleans a more agreeable place of residence remains to be seen.
For the old civilization had many admirable qualities. With all its love
of money and luxury and an easy life, it was comparatively simple. It
cared less for display than the society that is supplanting it. Its rule
was domesticity. I should say that it bad the virtues as well as
the prejudices and the narrowness of intense family feeling, and
its exclusiveness. But when it trusted, it had few reserves, and its
cordiality was equal to its _naivete_. The Creole civilization differed
totally from that in any Northern city; it looked at life, literature,
wit, manners, from altogether another plane; in order to understand the
society of New Orleans one needs to imagine what French society would
be in a genial climate and in the freedom of a new country. Undeniably,
until recently, the Creoles gave the tone to New Orleans. And it was the
French culture, the French view of life, that was diffused. The young
ladies mainly were educated in convents and French schools. This
education had womanly agreeability and matrimony in view, and the graces
of social life. It differed not much from the education of young ladies
of the period elsewhere, except that it was from the French rather than
the English side, but this made a world of difference. French was a
study and a possession, not a fashionable accomplishment. The Creole had
gayety, sentiment, spice with a certain climatic languor, sweetness of
disposition, and charm of manner, and not seldom winning beauty; she was
passionately fond of dancing and of music, and occasionally an adept in
the latter; and she had candor, and either simplicity or the art of it.
But with her tendency to domesticity and her capacity for friendship,
and notwithstanding her gay temperament, she was less worldly than some
of her sisters who were more gravely educated after the English manner.
There was therefore in the old New Orleans life something nobler than
the spirit of plutocracy. The Creole middle-class population had, and
has yet, captivating _naivete_, friendliness, cordiality.
But the Creole influence in New Orleans is wider and deeper than this.
It has affected literary sympathies and what may be called literary
morals. In business the Creole is accused of being slow, conservative,
in regard to improvements obstinate and reactionary, preferring to
nurse a prejudice rather than run the risk of removing it by improving
himself, and of having a conceit that his way of looking at life is
better than the Boston way. His literary culture is derived from France,
and not from England or the North. And his ideas a good deal affect the
attitude of New Orleans towards English and contemporary literature.
The American element of the town was for the most part commercial, and
little given to literary tastes. That also is changing, but I fancy it
is still true that the most solid culture is with the Creoles, and it
has not been appreciated because it is French, and because its point
of view for literary criticism is quite different from that prevailing
elsewhere in America. It brings our American and English contemporary
authors, for instance, to comparison, not with each other, but
with French and other Continental writers. And this point of view
considerably affects the New Orleans opinion of Northern literature. In
this view it wants color, passion; it is too self-conscious and prudish,
not to say Puritanically mock-modest. I do not mean to say that the
Creoles as a class are a reading people, but the literary standards
of their scholars and of those among them who do cultivate literature
deeply are different from those at the North. We may call it provincial,
or we may call it cosmopolitan, but we shall not understand New Orleans
until we get its point of view of both life and letters.
In making these observations it will occur to the reader that they are
of necessity superficial, and not entitled to be regarded as criticism
or judgment. But I am impressed with the foreignness of New Orleans
civilization, and whether its point of view is right or wrong, I am very
far from wishing it to change. It contains a valuable element of variety
for the republic. We tend everywhere to sameness and monotony. New
Orleans is entering upon a new era of development, especially in
educational life. The Tonlane University is beginning to make itself
felt as a force both in polite letters and in industrial education. And
I sincerely hope that the literary development of the city and of the
South-west will be in the line of its own traditions, and that it will
not be a copy of New England or of Dutch Manhattan. It can, if it is
faithful to its own sympathies and temperament, make an original and
valuable contribution to our literary life.
There is a great temptation to regard New Orleans through the romance of
its past; and the most interesting occupation of the idler is to stroll
about in the French part of the town, search the shelves of French and
Spanish literature in the second-hand book-shops, try to identify the
historic sites and the houses that are the seats of local romances, and
observe the life in the narrow streets and alleys that, except for the
presence of the colored folk, recall the quaint picturesqueness of
many a French provincial town. One never tires of wandering in the
neighborhood of the old cathedral, facing the smart Jackson Square,
which is flanked by the respectable Pontalba buildings, and supported
on either side by the ancient Spanish courthouse, the most interesting
specimens of Spanish architecture this side of Mexico. When the court is
in session, iron cables are stretched across the street to prevent the
passage of wagons, and justice is administered in silence only broken by
the trill of birds in the Place d'Armee and in the old flower-garden in
the rear of the cathedral, and by the muffled sound of footsteps in the
flagged passages. The region is saturated with romance, and so full of
present sentiment and picturesqueness that I can fancy no ground more
congenial to the artist and the story-teller. To enter into any details
of it would be to commit one's self to a task quite foreign to the
purpose of this paper, and I leave it to the writers who have done and
are doing so much to make old New Orleans classic.
Possibly no other city of the United States so abounds in stories
pathetic and tragic, many of which cannot yet be published, growing
out of the mingling of races, the conflicts of French and Spanish, the
presence of adventurers from the Old World
|
Revival Spiritual Songs
_Folk-Song Collectors of Yore_ 10
_Features of American Folk-Tunes_ 12
Tonal Trends, Tune Families
Metrical Patterns
Scales, Modes
Rufty’s Classification, Chart of Tunes
_Tunes of Religious and Worldly Folk-Songs Compared_ 17
_Conclusion_ 21
_Acknowledgments_ 23
Fifty-one Religious Ballads 27
Ninety-eight Folk-Hymns 87
One Hundred and one Revival Spiritual Songs 169
Bibliography 241
List of Abbreviations of Titles 245
Index of Songs by Titles 246
Index of First Lines of Texts 250
Illustrations
1. Typical country singers of early American spiritual
folk-songs Frontispiece
2. The “big singings” take place at county seats and in even
larger centers Frontispiece
3. “Dinner on the grounds” xii
4. Classification chart of tunes facing page 16
5. The Original Sacred Harp, 1911 edition 24
6. The sole occurrence of ‘The Babe of Bethlehem’ 26
7. The ‘Morning Trumpet’ in seven-shape notation 26
8. Benjamin Franklin White, and Thurza Golightly White, of
Hamilton, Georgia 86
9. The White memorial in Atlanta 86
10. The Sacred Harp appeared in 1844 86
11. The Southern Harmony, 1835 166
12. William (Singin’ Billy) Walker, of Spartanburg, South
Carolina 168
13. William Walker’s grave in Spartanburg, South Carolina 168
Introduction
Since the sort of folk-song indicated by the title of this book is in
all probability unfamiliar to many, I shall assume that my chief task
in this Introduction is to make its nature clear. The first step in
this explanation will be to distinguish the present material from some
other better known sorts of folk-song.
“Is it mountain songs you are collecting? Is it those old ballads?”
“Is it the negro spirituals?” These questions were put to me again and
again by interested persons while the present collection was in the
making.
No, these are not mountain songs and still they are. What do we mean
by mountain songs? The very first mountain song I ever recorded was
sung to me on the treeless flats of North Dakota. It had arrived there
from Kentucky by way of Saint Louis and Los Angeles and had been
carried over this circuitous route to its northwestern place of
recording by the singers in three generations of one family. The first
sailor’s shanty I ever heard was in the mountains of Virginia. It had
come from a logging camp in Michigan by way of Chicago. Every
folk-song hunter can tell similar tales; and all such experiences
convince us that the naming of a type of song after a restricted
region or a particular environment, while furnishing a convenient
designation, may lead also to much misunderstanding.
The mountain songs designation is one of the least appropriate. Its
only justification lies in the fact that some types of traditional
song, the secular ballads among them, have persisted perhaps in larger
numbers in mountainous regions like those of the southern Appalachians
and the Ozarks and are more widely sung there than elsewhere. These
songs were Irish, Scotch, and English across the water. They came from
highlands and lowlands. They were the common possession of early
Americans of those ethnic stocks,—those people who never left the
tidewater parts, those who came into the highlands and settled there,
and those greater numbers who trekked through the mountain gaps, down
the western slopes and spread into the rolling country and plains. The
present collection is of songs sung by all these people in all of
these parts in early and more recent times and now. Hence, to call
them “mountain songs” would be quite inadequate and misleading.[1]
Those who asked if the present collection were to be of the “old
ballads” manifested by their question some acquaintance with one
variety, an important one withal, of traditional secular folk-song in
America. My answer to them was negative, as it is to my present
readers. This collection is made up neither of the secular ballads nor
of their close relatives, the secular folk-_songs_, as far at least as
their _texts_ are concerned. Nor is it a collection of negro
spirituals or negro songs of any kind. And yet it is one of
folk-songs, and spiritual ones, as its title truthfully indicates. I
shall now attempt to explain this; for it must seem to some an
anomaly. The explanation will necessitate my making a brief survey
first of recent trends in the activities of those interested in
folk-songs.
_Recent Trends in Song Search_
Until recent years practically all the folk-songs published in America
have been those with secular texts. The existence of traditional
spiritual folk-songs in this land seems not to have been recognized by
folklorists. Negro songs were, to be sure, largely spiritual and they
have been regarded as folksongs; but that was an entirely different
matter, one in which the students of the white man’s culture were not
primarily interested. Early curiosity as to the “slave songs” was not
academic. It was rather a popular interest allied with one which was
of a missionary-religious nature. The songs themselves, as they became
known in northern and eastern centers during the post-Civil War period
through the activities of traveling concert groups from southern negro
schools, were popularly believed in those parts to be the negroes’ own
creations and to be rooted in Africa. They were regarded thus as lying
essentially outside the sphere of the white man’s cultural traditions.
These attitudes of mind tended to hold apart the two groups, those
concerned with the white man’s song traditions and those interested in
the religious songs of the black folk. It was a negro-song apologist,
Henry E. Krehbiel, who signed, as he thought, the decree of complete
separation of the two song bodies with his book _Afro-American Folk
Songs_ in 1914; and for most people that was definitive. Even as late
as the end of the 1920’s Krehbiel’s word stood practically
unchallenged. I shall adduce evidence presently however of the error
of his assumption.
In the mean time knowledge of our own American folk-songs deepened and
broadened. The earlier interest, one which grew out of the soil tilled
by Francis J. Child and was confined to the ballads alone, shorn of
their tunes, expanded in the latter part of the second decade of the
present century into one which included also folk-_songs_ and the
tunes of both ballads and songs. Notable among folklorists with this
more comprehensive outlook was the late Cecil J. Sharp who, after long
experience in the English folk-song field, took up the hunt in the
southern Appalachians. Even the first collection of a part of his
findings, published in 1917, provided a revelation as to the wealth of
the existing material and was recognized as a model in the matter of
musical recording. From then on, the gathering of folk-songs was
carried on with renewed enthusiasm and with greater stress laid on the
melodies.
One phase of song hunting began in the middle of the 1920’s outside
the circle of the folklorists and in complete ignorance of the facts
that what was sought was genuine folk material. I refer to the study
in the field of the southern religious “country singings”. I make this
charge of ignorance the more unhesitatingly since it was my own, and
since I worked alone in that field for some years. A report of the
early stages of my work appeared in 1933 in a volume entitled _White
Spirituals in the Southern Uplands_. Readers of that book have
probably recognized that, while I may have told the story of the
country singing institution quite thoroughly, I realized then only
dimly that the songs under observation were folk-traditional. This
realization has come since then gradually, first by reason of a series
of accidental findings and more recently as the result of rather
extended study.
Why the folklorists never came upon this material before it fell into
my hands is not hard to explain. One reason is that the strongest link
binding the songs in question to the traditional secular folk-songs is
their _tunes_, and all musical considerations were generally
neglected, especially by the earlier folklorists in this land. Another
reason was probably that folklorists never thought, any more than I
did, of singing _groups_ which used _song books_, as likely
environment for their search. A third reason was that the country
songs were _religious_, a sort which was and is still generally
thought of as _church music_ and thus as being far removed from the
folk. And finally, collectors have as a rule sought folk-songs in the
mountains and other _remote_ places; whereas the country singings are
found in the less sparsely populated parts of the lower uplands.
Cecil Sharp should have escaped much of this prejudice and
misconception; for his own British Isles are full of religious
folk-songs, as he well knew; even though they do not appear there to
any extent in a group-singing environment. But that he did not escape
it is indicated clearly by his experience in the southern mountains,
as he tells of it in the Introduction to his _English Folk Songs from
the Southern Appalachians_. When he came to a home in the mountains
and made known his desire to hear songs, he was generally
misunderstood. The mountain people thought he wanted to hear them sing
“hymns”. But he did not; and though he does not tell us why, he
indicates that it was because he was convinced that the “hymns” were
not folk-songs. At any rate, he soon learned to ask for “love songs”.
And as a result there appeared but two songs of a religious nature,
the ‘Cherry Tree Carol’ and ‘Hicks’ Farewell’, among the 122 in his
first publication. In the subsequent two-volume collection of his
American findings, edited by Maud Karpeles and published in 1932, we
find a group of but half a dozen religious songs under the heading
“Hymns”. There are also a few biblical ballads in the collection.
Some years after Sharp missed all but completely his opportunity to
become the discoverer, or uncoverer, of American religious folk-songs,
one of his English co-workers, Anne G. Gilchrist, found some
remarkable analogies between the secular folk-songs of England on the
one hand and the spiritual songs of the early Primitive Methodists of
that land and the early American revivalists on the other; and she
published a report of her research in the _Journal of the [English]
Folk-Song Society_, viii (1927-1931), pp. 61-95, in an article
entitled “The Folk Element in Early Revival Hymns and Tunes.” This was
a real though brief contribution to the very subject which engages us
here; for it demonstrated the linking of the nineteenth century
religious songs with the older and principally secular folk tradition
of her land.
At about the same time, two Americans made smaller contributions.
Ethel Park Richardson recorded eleven of the white man’s “spirituals”
from oral tradition, as it seems, and included them in her _American
Mountain Songs_; and Samuel E. Asbury furnished the Texas Folk-Lore
Society with a group of camp-meeting songs which he had heard in the
1880’s in western North Carolina. The Society published them in 1932.
On Miss Gilchrist’s pages and even more often on the pages of American
collectors in the late 1920’s appeared indications of a growing belief
that the old white spirituals were the progenitors of the negro
spirituals and that, therefore, Krehbiel’s assumption as to negro
authorship of the slave songs was in a measure erroneous. Among those
who shared constructively in this belief were Newman I. White and Guy
B. Johnson. Mr. White consulted a number of the old country-song
manuals to good advantage in the preparation of his _American Negro
Folk-Songs_. His use of them was to find merely _textual_ antecedents
of negro spiritual borrowings. Mr. Johnson used some of the same
manuals happily in the preparation of his _Folk Culture on St. Helena
Island_. His purpose, like that of Mr. White, was to show negro song
sources; but his work had the added merit of calling attention to some
_musical_ analogies between the spiritual songs of the white and the
black Americans. My own contributions to the solution of the problem
of negro song sources are mentioned on page 9 of this Introduction.
All this evidence assumes considerable weight in proof of the thesis
that the negro spirituals, instead of lying outside the white people’s
song tradition, represent a selective adoption and carrying-on of that
tradition.
If the preceding paragraphs have in a measure made clear the nature of
the songs to be presented here, they have done so by the method of
elimination and by a review of some of the directions taken recently
by students of song, trends which seem to have led inevitably to the
uncovering of the body of song found in the old manuals of the country
singers and to the establishing of its status as folk-song. It is the
revealing of this material and the establishing of its identity which
are the chief reasons for the existence of the present volume.
_Varieties of Religious Songs_
The old song books spoken of above contain various sorts of religious
pieces. Among these are the early psalm tunes, evangelical hymns,
spiritual songs, religious ballads, “fuguing” songs, and anthems. Each
of these varieties represents loosely a phase of, or a period in,
religious, musical, or poetic development. Some are folk-songs and
many are not. The psalm tunes with their Old-Testament texts—the sober
song fare of the early Protestants in Europe, in the British Isles,
and in the American Colonies—are probably to some extent of folk
origin; but since psalm singing in early America can not be looked on
as a free expression of the folk, and since the psalm tunes themselves
gave way easily to other far more folky types of religious song, I
have chosen to exclude them from the present discussion and
collection. The fuguing songs are examples of an early American art
development in composing and in group singing in New England during
the latter part of the eighteenth century. Despite their enduring
popularity in southern rural folk-singing circles and despite the fact
that many of them are found to be constructed on the basis of
folk-melodic themes, I have decided that they would be inappropriate
to this collection. The same objection, that they are of an
essentially _composed_ nature, holds also for the anthems and has
demanded their elimination.
After making these exclusions I centered attention on three mutually
rather distinct types of song all of which seemed to be in varying
degrees folk products—the _religious ballads_, _hymns_, and _spiritual
songs_.
Religious Ballads
The religious ballads by and large are folk-produced beyond any
reasonable doubt. They are uniformly songs for individual singing, not
for groups. The sung _story_ was the thing. In one ballad it would be
the story of some bad woman, Wicked Polly for example, “who died in
sin and deep despair” and went to hell; in another, of some good
woman, the Romish Lady for instance, who was burned at the stake for
espousing the Protestant cause. Much ballad material was furnished
also by the Bible. Scriptural events like the curing of the man sick
with the palsy, the restoring of sight to blind Bartimeus, Daniel’s
experience in the lions’ den, the raising of Lazarus, the baby Moses
in the rushes, the Prodigal Son parable, the birth of Christ, His
crucifixion and death,—all are retold in the ballads.
A younger variety of song which I include under the heading of
_religious ballads_ is that in which the singer tells his story in the
first person. Such stories are those of the poor wayfaring stranger
just a-going over Jordan, the departing preacher or missionary, a
dying boy or girl, and even a pious gold hunter dying on his way to
California. The story may be also the plaint of the religious
“mourner”, the backslider, and the criminal sinner, or the exultant
tale of the saved. Still another group of ballads is aimed more
directly at the conversion of the “young, the gay, and proud.” They
usually begin by telling the religious experience of the singer and
close with a warning as to the tragic results of worldliness and an
exhortation to turn from “this vain world of sin.” These songs are
quite similar to the worldly ballads in form, and their tunes are, as
will be pointed out presently, of the common folk stock.
Folk-Hymns
The ballads (excepting the _experience_ variety) probably did not
originate in any particular organized religious movement. The
folk-hymns were, on the other hand, bound up genetically with the
protestant evangelical activity which followed John Wesley’s lead in
England and then in America. The Wesleyan Revival began as an ordered
small-group affair and spread and developed ultimately into a movement
whose aspects and practices were completely free-affairs of the
uninhibited masses. In the same way the song of that movement,
beginning with merely the taste of textual freedom offered by Watts
and the Wesleys, and of musical freedom offered by those who furnished
the melodies, spread ultimately far beyond the “allowed” tunes and
hymn texts of the authorities until religious gatherings were
musically completely liberated.
When John Wesley picked up a popular melody here and there on his
travels through England and set it to a good hymn text, he little
realized that he was setting an example and starting a movement which
was to bring into existence hundreds of folk-hymns; that is, songs
with old folk-tunes which everybody could sing and with words that
spoke from the heart of the devout in the language of the common man.
With the spread of this movement to America a fertile soil for its
further development seems to have been found. Here it became known as
the Great Southern and Western Revival. Here its store of songs, made
after the pattern used in England, was greatly enlarged. In fact the
masses took the matter of what they were to sing so completely into
their own hands that the denominational authorities, especially the
Methodists, though they tried to control it, became helpless.[2]
In looking through the folk-hymns in the second part of this
collection one will see scores of tunes which are clearly recognizable
as those still sung to ‘Barbara Allen’, ‘Lord Lovel’ and other ancient
ballads. This is adequate evidence, I assume, as to where the folk
sought and found its hymn tunes. The extent of this tune borrowing
process is indicated on page 18f of this Introduction. The texts, on
the other hand, may be from the pen of Watts or other eighteenth
century English religious poets, or they may be the humbler creations
of rural American religious verse makers, like John Adam Granade, or
John Leland.
It is impossible to date the beginning of folk-hymn making and singing
in America definitely. But on the assumption that they were a part of
the Wesleyan movement, we cannot place the beginning of their general
use in America before the 1770’s. The part of the land where they
first attained popularity—again judging by their Wesleyan
affinities—was the upland and inland South; for during the last two
decades of the eighteenth century (the time of the first spread of the
Methodist movement) four-fifths of the adherents to this sect were to
be found in that section.[3]
Revival Spiritual Songs
The revival spiritual songs represent a further advance of the song
movement which brought forth the folk-hymns, toward the folk level. As
the eighteenth century expired the post-Wesleyan religious tide was
high and the camp meeting, the significant institution which became
the cradle of the revival spiritual songs, was born. One may therefore
get a clearer insight into this new song development if one recalls
the character of its early environment. One might well remember, for
example, that the camp meetings began and remained in nature
surroundings, in the wilderness; that they were immense holiday
gatherings;[4] that they thus took on the free-and-easy aspects of the
pioneers as a whole rather than of any particular class; and that they
were completely free from denominational and all other authoritarian
control.
Bearing all this in mind it is perhaps easier to understand how the
folk-hymns—grown up in a less boisterous environment—failed to satisfy
the new conditions. At the camp meetings it was not a question of
inducing every one to sing, but of letting every one sing, of letting
them sing songs which were so simple that they became not a hindrance
to general participation but an irresistible temptation to join in.
The tunes of the folk-hymns were adequate. But the texts (Watts,
Wesley and their schools) still demanded a certain exercise of
learning and remembering which excluded many from the singing. The
corrective lay in the progressive simplification of the texts; and it
was in the main this text simplification which brought about and
characterised the type of camp-meeting song which was called, in
contradistinction to all other types, the spiritual song.
The methods of song-text reducing are familiar. When the American
youth sings
Found a horse-shoe, found a horse-shoe,
Found a horse-shoe, just now;
Just now found a horse-shoe,
Found a horse-shoe just now
he is not only following a practice of the early spiritual song makers
and singers—his horse-shoe song itself is a parody of a spiritual in
this collection—but he is singing in the infinitely older manner of
his race. He is singing an organically constructed tune and refusing
to let words interfere with it, a tendency which may be observed from
‘Sumer is icumen in’ to the nineteenth century songs of sailors and to
other work-songs and children’s songs, like that of ‘The Big Bad
Wolf’, today.
The text simplification in religious folk-songs began modestly. The
variety of spiritual song which is closest to the folk-hymn is that in
which each short stanza of text (four short lines usually) is followed
by a chorus of the same length, as for example:
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye,
To Canaan’s fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie.
_Chorus_
I’m bound for the promised land,
I’m bound for the promised land;
O who will come and go with me?
I’m bound for the promised land.
The verse was mastered probably by comparatively few singers, even
though it may have been “lined out” by the song leader. But the whole
assemblage had its chance to join lustily in singing the chorus.
A simpler form of spiritual song went directly into a refrain after
the first text couplet:
O when shall I see Jesus
And dwell with him above,
_And shall hear the trumpet sound_
_In that morning._
And from the flowing fountain
Drink everlasting love,
_And shall hear the trumpet sound_
_In that morning_.
Then came the chorus:
_Shout O glory_
_For I shall meet above the skies_
_And shall hear the trumpet sound_
_In that morning._
An offspring of this same ‘Morning Trumpet’ song may serve to
illustrate the next step in simplification, one in which the singers,
instead of using new poetic lines in subsequent stanzas, were
satisfied with slight variations of those already sung:
Oh, brother, in that day
We’ll take wings and fly away,
_And we’ll hear the trumpet sound_
_In that morning._
Oh, sister, in that day
We’ll take _etc._
Oh, preachers, in that day,
and so on, with “leaders,” “converts,” etc. without end.
The next step is seen in those songs where one short phrase is sung
three times and then followed by a one-phrase refrain:
Where are the Hebrew Children,
Where are the Hebrew Children,
Where are the Hebrew Children?
_Safe in the promised land._
These songs were sometimes called “choruses,” for they are often
really nothing else,—detached choruses, the text varied a bit from
verse to verse, functioning as complete songs.
The last word in brevity of text is where simply one short phrase or
sentence, sung over and over, is made to fill out the whole tune frame
as a stanza. ‘Death, Ain’t You Got No Shame’, in this collection is
one example among many. Such songs as this were too meager to be
welcomed warmly into the old song books. They survive therefore
chiefly in oral tradition. But meagerness of text is not, we must
remember, any criterion of the worth of a religious folk-song. ‘Hebrew
Children,’ for example, the song from which I have just cited a
stanza, is at once extremely chary of words and rich in tonal beauty.
This becomes evident when one sees Annabal Morris Buchanan’s
arrangement of it for modern chorus.
It was the _spiritual songs_, rather than the _hymns_ or the
_ballads_, which appealed subsequently most deeply to the negroes and
have reappeared most often among the religious songs of that race. In
_White Spirituals_ I presented twenty different negro songs and traced
them, both tunes and texts, directly to as many early religious songs
of the white people. In the present collection upwards of 60 songs
have been found to be the legitimate tune-and-words forebears of the
same number of negro spirituals. (Incidentally, all of the songs just
used here to illustrate the steps in text simplification have been
borrowed by the black man and made over.) These negro offspring songs
are mentioned by title, and information as to where I found them is
given in the notes under each of the songs concerned.[5]
The _tunes_ of the secular folk-songs came into the religious
environment—into the folk-hymns and spiritual songs—with little
change. What _one_ could sing by himself to secular words _all_ could
sing in a gathering to religious words. The new surroundings made only
one added demand,—that the singers indulge in fewer vocal liberties
than they might have enjoyed when singing the same tunes in their
homes and alone. I refer to those liberties in personal
interpretation, a quaint characteristic of individual folk singing
which has given the collectors their numerous variants of one and the
same song. Group singers had now to agree on one version of a tune and
stick fairly closely to it. I say fairly closely, for the religious
singers allowed but few of their tunes to become completely
standardized. This will become clear when one studies the variants of
certain folk-hymn and spiritual-song tunes in this compilation.
Folk-Song Collectors of Yore
In the earlier years of the camp-meeting movement, few if any of the
songs produced in and for that environment appeared in print. The
whole body of revival song was therefore generally known as “unwritten
music.” The first recordings were of the texts only. They appeared in
the form of booklets and bore some such title as “Hymns and Spiritual
Songs / for the Pious of all Denominations / as Sung in Camp
Meetings.” They were prepared first by itinerant preachers or song
leaders who saw in the Great Revival a chance to serve the cause, and
perhaps to make money. That these books filled a great need is
attested by their ubiquity during the period which may be designated
roughly as from 1800 to 1840.
The musical notation of the tunes they sang was the least concern of
the revival folk. It is quite probable that the camp-meeting crowds of
those times never saw their tunes in musical notation. It is evident
that the first recordings of this unwritten music were not made by the
revivalists themselves, and that the first book collections of such
recordings were not made primarily for use in revivals. The books in
which these tunes first appeared were the country singing manuals of
which I have spoken above. The singing masters were quick to recognize
the value of the rousing revival songs and saw to it that their own
institution benefitted from their vogue. _The Christian Harmony_,
published in New Hampshire in 1805 was perhaps the first book to
record the revival tunes. _The Olive Leaf_, a Georgia book of 1878 was
the last.[6]
We sometimes have the compiler’s own story of his sources. In the
preface to William Caldwell’s _Union Harmony_ for example, the
compiler tells us that “many of the airs which the author has reduced
to system [notated] and harmonized have been selected from the
unwritten music in general use” among Baptists, Methodists and
Presbyterians. William Walker says, in the preface to his _Southern
Harmony_, “I have composed parts to a great many good airs, which I
could not find in any publication or in manuscript, and assigned my
name as the author.” William Hauser’s preface to his compendious
_Hesperian Harp_ is lacking in my copy of his work (the only copy in
existence, I believe); but the compiler’s method of finding songs
becomes clear when we peruse his pages of song. On the page with
‘Patton’, for example, he notes that he first heard the Rev. William
Patton, of Missouri, sing the song which bears his name “at a
camp-meeting, North Cove, Burk Country, North Carolina, in 1831 or
1832.” The song entitled ‘Houston’ was an “air I learned from my
mother when a small child.” As to ‘Land of Rest’ he states that the
“inspiration of this tune [was] caught from a female voice at a
distance, at Barbee’s Hotel, High Point, N. C., June 9th, 1868.” Under
the song entitled ‘Rev. James Axley’s Song,’ in the same compiler’s
_Olive Leaf_, he tells who the Rev. Axley was and how he, Hauser, came
to record the preacher’s favorite tune. John G. McCurry gives a song
called ‘Good-By’ in his _Social Harp_ and tells that he put it down
“as played on the accordion by Mrs. Martha Hodges of Hartwell,”
Georgia.
Instances like these cited above are numerous. They all go to convince
us of the great service rendered by the rural singing masters of yore
in the preservation of a body of song, in the collecting and
publishing of which no one else seems to have been interested.
The country singing books on which I have drawn for most of the songs
of this collection, are in the main those which were at my disposal
while I was preparing _White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands_. From
the Georgia-Carolina section were _The Southern Harmony_ in its 1835
and 1854 editions; _The Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist_ (1845);
_The Sacred Harp_ which first appeared in 1844 but whose oldest
edition at my disposal has been that of 1859; its three descendants,
_The Union Harp_ (1909), _The Sacred Harp_ (Cooper edition, 1902 and
four subsequent printings; I consulted the fifth reprint), and _The
Original Sacred Harp_ (1911);[7] _The Hesperian Harp_ (1848); _The
Social Harp_ (1855); _The Christian Harmony_ (1866); and _The Olive
Leaf_ (1878). Among the books originating in the eastern half of
Tennessee I searched _The Western Harmony_ (1824); _The Columbian
Harmony_ (1825); _The Union Harmony_ (1837); _The Knoxville Harmony_
(1838); _The Harp of Columbia_ (1848); and _The Western Psalmodist_
(1853). From the Valley of Virginia I used _The Kentucky Harmony_
(1814); the German _Choral-Music_ (1816); _The Supplement to the
Kentucky Harmony_ (1820); _The Virginia Harmony_ (1831); _Genuine
Church Music_ (1832); and _The Union Harmony_ (1848). From Saint Louis
I had _The Missouri Harmony_ (1820). I found also some material in two
publications which are still in use among the Primitive Baptists, _The
Primitive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book_ (1902) and _Good Old Songs_
(1913).[8] Two books, invaluable compendiums of the very sort of songs
I was seeking, came to my hand too late for consideration in _White
Spirituals_. They were _The Revivalist_, published in Troy, New York,
in 1868; and Jeremiah Ingalls’ _Christian Harmony_, published in New
Hampshire in 1805. The latter contains scores of religious
folk-songs—among them many _spiritual songs_—which duplicate, though
in variant forms, the songs which are found in abundance in the
southern country-song manuals. The _Revivalist_, more than 60 years
younger, is a veritable treasure trove of the same sorts of song.
Together the two books open new vistas as to the spread and active
life period of the song movement under observation. The New Hampshire
book, made by a Vermont compiler, proves beyond doubt that the
movement did not remain in the South—the section of its first
prevalence presumably and of its present persistence—but spread early
also into New England. The New York book points definitely to the
persistence of the tradition in the northeastern section far longer
than we would, without this evidence, have been warranted in assuming.
I went song hunting also among the authored hymn-and-tune-books of the
big denominations, but I found little, and that little was already
familiar to me from its appearance in the country-singing books.[9]
Further information as to the identity of the books mentioned above
may be found in the Bibliography at the end of this volume. The
abbreviations which will be used in the body of this song collection
when referring to the source song books are explained in the List of
Abbreviations of Titles.
_Features of American Folk-Tunes_
Even after recognizing the three types of religious folk-song as they
are described above, it was not always easy in particular instances,
to decide on acceptance into this collection or on rejection as
non-folk material.
There are literally thousands of songs in the books searched. In the
_Original Sacred Harp_ alone there are 609, and the _Hesperian Harp_
holds 677. And while other books are slimmer and duplications from
book to book are numerous, it must still be quite evident that it was
no easy task to identify just the songs I was after. At times I had to
apply a number of criteria. Often the folky nature of the text pointed
to an equally folky tune. There was another hint sometimes in the name
given as that of the composer of the song. When I met with the names
Moore, Walker, Chapin, Breedlove, White, Carrell, Davisson, Hauser,
McCurry and a number of others, in the upper right corner of the song
page, then I was practically certain that the song on that page was
usable. For the men in question were, in reality, not composers. They
were recorders and arrangers of unwritten music.[10]
When an example of the old unwritten music made its way into the
authorized church hymnals—as happened to a restricted degree from
fifty to seventy-five years ago—it was called a “Western Melody” or a
“Southern Melody.” Such designations became another reliable token of
folk source.
More important than any external indications in determining whether I
was dealing in a particular instance with a folk-tune, was the
character of the tune itself. The ability to recognize a folk-tune
comes to the student of such music gradually, somewhat as does the
recognition of a strange language or dialect. It came to me that way;
but after assembling my tunes I felt that their general folk character
might to some degree be reduced to a set of definite traits. I
therefore reexamined not only my own melodies but also those far more
numerous tunes in the secular collections of Sharp and others, for
such characteristics as tonal trend, rhythmic trend, tonality
|
Mrs. Weatherbee may turn out to be 'the grand villain.' Let's hope she
won't. Anyway, if things can't be adjusted, wherever you go to live I'll
go, too. I won't stay at the Hall without you."
"Thank you, Judy." Jane found Judith's hand and squeezed it hard. She
had inwardly determined, however, that her roommate should not make any
such sacrifice. It would be hard to find a room anywhere on the campus
to take the place of the one the two had occupied at Madison Hall during
their freshman year.
"I'm glad there's no one on the veranda," presently commented Jane.
Having dismissed the taxicab, the three girls were now ascending the
steps of the Hall.
"Better wait here for me, girls, I'd rather have it out with Mrs.
Weatherbee alone," she counseled. "I hope I sha'n't lose my temper," she
added ruefully.
Mentally bracing herself for the interview, Jane crossed the threshold
of the Hall and walked serenely past the living-room to the matron's
office just behind it. She was keeping a tight grip on herself and
intended to keep it, if possible. She knew from past experience how
greatly Mrs. Weatherbee's calm superiority of manner had been wont to
irritate her.
Jane loathed the idea of having a dispute with the matron the moment she
entered Madison Hall. She had begun the first day of her freshman year
in such fashion. Afterward it had seemed to her that most of the others
had been stormy, as a consequence of a wrong start.
She reflected as she walked slowly down the hall that this new trouble,
was, at least, not of her making. She had the comforting knowledge that
this time she was not at fault.
CHAPTER IV
THE REASON WHY
Primed for the momentous interview, Jane was doomed to disappointment.
The matron's office was empty of its usual occupant.
"Oh, bother!" was her impatient exclamation. "I'll either have to wait
for her or go and find her. I'll go back to the veranda and tell the
girls," she decided. "Then I'll come here again. Mrs. Weatherbee may not
be in the Hall for all I know."
"Back so soon. What did she say?"
Judith sprang eagerly from the wicker chair in which she had been
lounging.
"She is not there," returned Jane with a shadow of a frown. "I'm sorry.
I wanted to see her and get it over with. Where's Ethel?"
"Oh, she forgot that she had an appointment with Miss Howard. She
rushed off in a hurry."
"Mrs. Weatherbee has perhaps gone to make the call," suggested Adrienne.
"Why do you not ring the bell and thus summon the maid?"
"A good idea."
Standing near the door, Jane's fingers found the electric bell and
pressed it.
"Where is Mrs. Weatherbee?" she inquired of the maid who presently came
to answer the door. "Isn't Millie here any more?" she added, noting that
a stranger occupied the place of the good-natured girl who had been at
the Hall during Jane's freshman year.
"No, miss. She's gone and got married. Did you want Mrs. Weatherbee?
She's upstairs. I'll go and find her for you."
"Thank you. If you will be so kind. Please tell her Miss Allen wishes to
see her."
Disturbed in mind, though she was, Jane replied with a graciousness she
never forgot to employ in speaking to those in more humble circumstances
than herself. It was a part of the creed her democratic father had
taught her and she tried to live up to it.
"Wish me luck, girls, I'm going to my fate. Wait for me," she said
lightly and vanished into the house.
"She's taking it like a brick," Judith admiringly commented.
"Ah, yes. Jane is what _mon père_ would call 'the good sport,'" agreed
Adrienne. "She is the strange girl; sometimes fierce like the lion over
the small troubles. When come the great misfortunes she has calm
courage."
Re-entering Mrs. Weatherbee's office, Jane seated herself resignedly to
wait for the appearance of the matron. When fifteen minutes had passed
and she was still waiting, the stock of "calm courage" attributed to her
by Adrienne, began to dwindle into nettled impatience.
She now wished that she had not given her name to the maid. It looked as
if Mrs. Weatherbee were purposely keeping her waiting. This thought
stirred afresh in Jane the old antagonism that the matron had always
aroused.
After half an hour had dragged by Jane heard footsteps descending the
stairs to the accompaniment of the faint rustle of silken skirts. She
sat suddenly very straight in her chair, her mood anything but
lamb-like.
"Good afternoon, Miss Allen," greeted a cool voice.
Mrs. Weatherbee rustled into the little office, injured dignity written
on every feature of her austere face.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Weatherbee."
Courtesy to an older woman prompted Jane to rise. Her tone, however, was
one of strained politeness. There was no move made toward handshaking by
either.
"I was greatly surprised to learn that _you_ wished to see me, Miss
Allen," was the matron's first remark after seating herself in the chair
before her writing desk.
Mrs. Weatherbee's intonations were decidedly accusing. Jane colored at
the emphasis placed on the "you."
"Why should you be surprised?" she flashed back, an angry glint in her
gray eyes. Already her good resolutions were poised for flight.
"I am even more surprised at the boldness of your question. I consider
it as being in extremely bad taste."
"And I am surprised at the way I have been treated!" Jane cried out
passionately, her last remnant of patience exhausted. "I understand that
you have seen fit to ignore the arrangement I made with you last June
about my room. Miss Stearns has informed me that you have given it to an
entering freshman. It's the most unfair proceeding I've ever known, and
I shall not submit to such injustice."
This was not in the least what Jane had purposed to say. She had
intended to broach the subject on the diplomatic basis of a mistake
having been made. She realized that she had thrown down the gauntlet
with a vengeance, but she was now too angry to care.
"_Miss Allen!_" The older woman's expression was one of intense
severity. "Such insolence on your part is not only unbecoming but
entirely uncalled for. You appear to have forgotten that you gave up
your room of your own accord. I reserved it for you until I received
your letter of last week."
"Of my _own accord_!" gasped Jane, unable to believe she had heard
aright. "My letter of last week! I don't understand."
"I am at a loss to understand _you_," acidly retorted the matron. "I
know of only one possible explanation for your call upon me this
afternoon. I should prefer not to make it. It would hardly reflect to
your credit."
"I must ask you to explain," insisted Jane haughtily. "We have evidently
been talking at cross purposes. You say that I gave up my room of my own
accord. You mention a letter I wrote you. I have _not_ given up my
room. I have _never_ written you a letter. You owe me an explanation. No
matter how unpleasant it may be, I am not afraid to listen to it."
"Very well," was the icy response. "Since you insist I will say plainly
that it appears, even after writing me a most discourteous letter, you
must have decided, for reasons of your own, to ignore this fact and
return to Madison Hall. Not reckoning that your room would naturally be
assigned to another girl so soon, you were bold enough to come here and
attempt to carry your point with a high hand. I am quite sure you now
understand me."
"I do not," came the vehement denial. "I repeat that I never wrote you a
letter. If you received one signed by me, it was certainly not I who
wrote it. I am not surprised at your unfair opinion of me. You have
never liked me. Naturally you could not understand me. I will ask you to
let me see the letter."
Mrs. Weatherbee's reply was not made in words. Reaching into a
pigeon-hole of her desk she took from it a folded letter minus its
envelope and handed it to Jane.
Her head in a whirl, Jane unfolded it and read:
"MRS. ELLEN WEATHERBEE,
"Madison Hall,
"Wellington Campus.
"Dear Madam:
"Although I regret leaving Madison Hall, it would be highly
disagreeable to me to spend my sophomore year in it with you as
matron. Your treatment of me last year was such that I should not
like to court a second repetition of it. Therefore I am writing to
inform you that I shall not return to the Hall.
"Yours truly,
"JANE ALLEN."
CHAPTER V
THE UNKNOWN MISCHIEF MAKER
"This is too dreadful!"
Springing to her feet, Jane dashed the offending letter to the floor,
her cheeks scarlet with outraged innocence.
"That was precisely my opinion when I read it," Mrs. Weatherbee
sarcastically agreed.
"But I never wrote it," stormed Jane. "That's not my signature. Besides
the letter is typed. I would never have sent you a typed letter. Have
you the envelope? What postmark was stamped upon it?"
"It was postmarked 'New York.' No, I did not keep the envelope."
"New York? Why, I came straight from Montana!" cried Jane. "I haven't
been in New York since last Christmas."
"I could not possibly know that. A letter could be forwarded even from
Montana to New York for mailing," reminded the matron with satirical
significance.
"Then you still believe that I wrote _this_?"
Jane's voice was freighted with hurt pride. Something in the girl's
scornful, fearless, gray eyes, looking her through and through, brought
a faint flush to the matron's set face. The possibility that Jane's
protest was honest had reluctantly forced itself upon her. She was not
specially anxious to admit Jane's innocence, though she was now half
convinced of it.
"I hardly know what to believe," she said curtly. "Your denial of the
authorship of this letter seems sincere. I should naturally prefer to
believe that you did not write it."
"I give you my word of honor as a Wellington girl that I did _not_,"
Jane answered impressively. "I cannot blame you for resenting it. It is
most discourteous. I should be sorry to believe myself capable of such
rudeness."
"I will accept your statement," Mrs. Weatherbee stiffly conceded.
"However, the fact remains that _someone_ wrote and mailed this letter
to me. There is but one inference to be drawn from it."
She paused and stared hard at Jane.
Without replying, Jane again perused the fateful letter. As she
finished a second reading of it, a bitter smile dawned upon her mobile
lips.
"Yes," she said heavily. "There is just one inference to be drawn from
it--spite work. I had no idea that it would be carried to this length,
though."
"Then you suspect a particular person as having written it?" sharply
inquired the matron.
"I do," came the steady response. "I know of but one, perhaps two
persons, who might have done so. I am fairly sure that it lies between
the two."
"It naturally follows then that the person or persons you suspect are
students at Wellington," commented the matron. "This is a matter that
would scarcely concern outsiders. More, we may go further and narrow the
circle down to Madison Hall."
Jane received this pointed surmise in absolute silence.
"There is this much about it, Miss Allen," the older woman continued
after a brief pause, "I will not have under my charge a girl who would
stoop to such a contemptible act against a sister student. I must ask
you to tell me frankly if your suspicions point to anyone under this
roof."
"I can't answer that question, Mrs. Weatherbee. I mean I don't wish to
answer it. Even if I knew positively who had done this, I'd be silent
about it. It's my way of looking at it and I can't change. I'd rather
drop the whole matter. It's hard, of course, to give up my room here and
go somewhere else. I love Madison Hall and----"
Jane came to an abrupt stop. She was determined not to break down, yet
she was very near to it.
"My dear child, you need not leave Madison Hall unless you wish to do
so." Mrs. Weatherbee's frigidity had miraculously vanished. A gleam of
kindly purpose had appeared in her eyes.
For the first time since her acquaintance with Jane Allen she found
something to admire. For the sake of a principle, this complex,
self-willed girl, of whom she had ever disapproved, was willing to
suffer injury in silence. The fact that Jane had refused to answer her
question lost significance when compared with the motive which had
prompted refusal.
"You might easily accuse me of unfairness if I allowed matters to remain
as they are," pursued the matron energetically. "As the injured party
you have first right to your old room. Miss Noble, the young woman now
occupying it with Miss Stearns, applied for a room here by letter on the
very next day after I received this letter, supposedly from you.
"I wrote her that I had a vacancy here and asked for references. These
she forwarded immediately. As it happens I have another unexpected
vacancy here due to the failure of a new girl to pass her entrance
examinations. Miss Noble will no doubt be quite willing to take the
other room. At all events, you shall have your own again."
"I can't begin to tell you how much I thank you, Mrs. Weatherbee."
Jane's somber face had lightened into radiant gratitude. "But I _can_
tell you that I'm sorry for my part in any misunderstandings we've had
in the past. I don't feel about college now as I did last year."
Carried away by her warm appreciation of the matron's unlooked-for stand
in her behalf, Jane found herself telling Mrs. Weatherbee of her
pre-conceived hatred of college and of her gradual awakening to a
genuine love for Wellington.
Of the personal injuries done her by others she said nothing. Her little
outpouring had to do only with her own struggle for spiritual growth.
"It was Dorothy Martin who first showed me the way," she explained. "She
made me see myself as a pioneer, and college as a new country. She told
me that it depended entirely on me whether or not my freshman claim
turned out well. It took me a long time to see that. This year I want to
be a better pioneer than I was last. That's why I'd rather not start out
by getting someone else into trouble, no matter how much that person is
at fault."
During the earnest recital, the matron's stern features had perceptibly
softened. She was reflecting that, after all, one person was never free
to judge another. That human nature was in itself far too complex to be
lightly judged by outward appearances.
"You know the old saying, 'Out of evil some good is sure to come,'" she
said, when Jane ceased speaking. "This affair of the letter has already
produced one good result. I feel that I am beginning to know the real
Jane Allen. You were right in saying that I never understood you.
Perhaps I did not try. I don't know. You were rather different from any
other girl whom I ever had before under my charge here."
"I kept up the bars," confessed Jane ruefully. "I didn't wish to see
things from any standpoint except my own. I'm trying to break myself of
that. I can't honestly say that I have, as yet. I shall probably have a
good many fights with myself about it this year. It's not easy to make
one's self over in a day or a month or a year. It takes time. That's why
I like college so much now. It's helping me to find myself.
"But that's enough about myself." Jane made a little conclusive gesture.
"I hope there won't be any--well--any unpleasantness about my room, Mrs.
Weatherbee. I'd almost rather take that other vacancy than make trouble
for you."
"There will be no trouble," was the decisive assurance. "If Miss Noble
objects to the change there are other campus houses open to her. I see
no reason why she should. She only arrived this morning. She will not be
kept waiting for the room. The girl who failed in her examinations left
here at noon. I will see about it now."
Mrs. Weatherbee rose to put her promise into immediate effect.
"If you don't mind, I'll join Judith and Adrienne on the veranda. I am
anxious to tell them the good news," eagerly declared Jane, now on her
feet.
Glancing at the disturbing letter which she held she handed it to Mrs.
Weatherbee with: "What shall you do about this letter?"
"Since the star witness in the case refuses to give testimony, it is
hard to decide what to do," smiled the matron. "I might hand the letter
to Miss Rutledge, yet I prefer not to do so. It is purely a personal
matter. Suppose I were to prosecute an inquiry here at the Hall
regarding it. It would yield nothing but indignant protests of
innocence. If the writer were one of my girls she would perhaps be
loudest in her protests."
Though Jane did not say so, she was of the private opinion that the
person she suspected would undoubtedly do that very thing.
"A girl who would write such a letter would be the last to own to
writing it," she said dryly.
"Very true. Still things sometimes work out unexpectedly. If we have a
mischief maker here, we may eventually discover her. Girls of this type
often overreach themselves and thus establish their guilt. I shall not
forget this affair." The matron's voice grew stern. "If ever I do
discover the writer, she will not be allowed to remain at Madison
Hall."
CHAPTER VI
THE PLOT THICKENS
"And Mrs. Weatherbee's gone to oust the disturber of our peace! Oh,
joy!"
To emphasize further her satisfaction Judith gave Jane an ecstatic hug.
"You can't be any gladder than I am."
Jane returned the hug with interest.
"But how did it thus happen so beautifully?" questioned Adrienne
eagerly.
"It was a mistake----No, it wasn't either. It was----"
Jane paused. She wondered if she had the right to put her friends in
possession of what she had so lately learned. Mrs. Weatherbee had not
enjoined silence. Adrienne and Judith were absolutely trustworthy. They
had forewarned her of the situation. It was only fair that they should
be taken into her confidence.
"I've something to tell you girls," she went on slowly. "You must wait
to hear it until we are in our room. I'd rather not go into it out here
on the veranda."
"All right. We'll be good. I hope the noble Miss Noble will hurry up and
move out," wished Judith. "I can imagine how delighted she'll be."
"She may care but little," shrugged Adrienne. "Of a truth, she has not
been here so long. But a few hours! It is not much!"
"I don't believe she'll relish it a bit," prophesied Judith. "She looks
to me like one of those persons who get peeved over nothing. Isn't it
funny, though? Mrs. Weatherbee made a mistake last year about your room,
Jane. Do you remember how haughty you were when you found out you were
to room with little Judy?"
"Yes. I was a big goose, wasn't I?" Jane smiled reminiscently. "It
wasn't Mrs. Weatherbee's fault this time. That's all I'll say until we
three go upstairs."
"Wish she'd hurry," grumbled Judith, referring to the usurping freshman.
"This evacuation business isn't going along very speedily. I wonder if
she's unpacked. She hadn't touched her suitcase when I left her. Her
trunk hadn't come yet. Maybe it came while we were out. I hope not.
Then there'll be that much less to move."
"Had this Miss Noble examinations to take?" asked Jane.
"No, she told me she was graduated from a prep school last June.
Burleigh, I think she said. I really didn't listen much to her. I was so
upset over having her thrust upon me, I didn't want to talk to her."
"Poor Judy."
Jane bestowed a sympathizing pat upon Judith's arm.
"All the time I was thinking 'poor Jane,'" laughed Judith. "Oh, dear!
Why doesn't Mrs. Weatherbee come back. I'm crazy to hear the weird story
of your wrongs, Janie."
It was at least fifteen minutes afterward before the matron descended
the stairs, looking far from pleased.
Watching for her, Jane stepped inside the house and met her at the foot
of the stairs.
"You may move in as soon as you please, Miss Allen," she informed Jane,
her annoyed expression vanishing in a friendly smile.
"Thank you. I sha'n't lose any time in doing it."
Jane returned the smile, thinking in the same moment that it seemed
rather odd but decidedly nice to be on such pleasant terms with the
woman she had once thoroughly disliked.
"Did you notice how vexed Mrs. Weatherbee looked when she came
downstairs?" was Judith's remark as the door of her room closed behind
them. "I'll bet she had her own troubles with the usurper."
"First the disturber, then the usurper. You have, indeed, many names for
this one poor girl," giggled Adrienne.
"Oh, I can think of a lot more," grinned Judith. "But what's the use.
She has departed bag and baggage. To quote your own self, 'It is
sufficient.' Now go ahead, Jane, and spin your yarn."
"It's no yarn. It's sober truth. You understand. I'm speaking in strict
confidence."
With this foreword, Jane acquainted the two girls with what had taken
place in the matron's office.
"Hm!" sniffed Judith as Jane finished. "She's begun rather early in the
year, hasn't she?"
"I see we're of the same mind, Judy," Jane said quietly.
"I, too, am of that same mind," broke in Adrienne. "I will say to you
now most plainly that it was Marian Seaton who wrote the letter."
"Of course she wrote it," emphasized Judith fiercely. "It's the most
outrageous thing I ever heard of. You ought to have told Mrs.
Weatherbee, Jane. Why should you shield a girl who is trying to injure
you?"
"I could only have said that I _suspected_ her of writing the letter,"
Jane pointed out. "I have no proof that she wrote it. Besides, I didn't
care to start my sophomore year that way. When I have anything to say
about Marian Seaton, I'll say it to her. I'm going to steer clear of her
if I can. If I can't, then she and I will have to come to an
understanding one of these days. I'd rather ignore her, unless I find
that I can't."
"You're a queer girl," was Judith's half-vexed opinion. "I think, if I
were in your place, I'd begin at the beginning and tell Mrs. Weatherbee
every single thing about last year. I'd tell her I was _positive_ Marian
Seaton wrote that letter. She'd be angry enough to tax Marian with it,
even though she made quite a lot of Marian and Maizie Gilbert last year.
If Marian got scared and confessed--good night! She'd have to leave
Madison Hall. We'd all be better off on account of it."
"No, _ma chere_ Judy, you are in that quite wrong," disagreed Adrienne.
"This Marian would never make the confession. Instead she would make the
great fuss. She would, of a truth, say that Jane had made the plot to
injure her. She is most clever in such matters."
"I'm not afraid of anything she might say," frowned Jane. "I simply
don't care to bother any more about it. I have my half of this room back
and that's all that really matters. If Marian Seaton thinks----"
The sudden opening of the door cut Jane's speech in two. Three surprised
pairs of eyes rested on a sharp-chinned, black-eyed girl who had
unceremoniously marched into their midst. Face and bearing both
indicated signs of active hostility.
"Did I hear you mention Marian Seaton's name?" she sharply inquired of
Jane.
"You did."
Jane gazed levelly at the angry newcomer.
"Which of these two girls is Miss Allen?"
This question was rudely addressed to Judith, whose good-natured face
showed evident disgust of the interrogator.
"I am Jane Allen. Why do you ask?"
Jane spoke with curt directness.
"I supposed that you were." The girl smiled scornfully. "I only wished
to make sure before telling you my opinion of you. It did not surprise
me to learn that it was _you_ who turned me out of my room. I had
already been warned against you by my cousin, Marian Seaton. No doubt
you've been saying spiteful things about her. I know just how shabbily
you treated her last year. If she had been here to-day, you wouldn't
have been allowed to take my room away from me. She has more influence
at Wellington than you have. She will be here soon and then we'll see
what will happen. That's all except that you are a selfish, hateful
troublemaker."
With every word she uttered the black-eyed girl's voice had risen.
Overmastered by anger she fairly screamed the final sentence of her
arraignment. Then she turned and bolted from the room, leaving behind
her a dumbfounded trio of young women.
"Brr!" ejaculated Judith. "What do you think of that? I'm sure I could
have heard that last shriek, if I'd been away over on the campus. Marian
Seaton's cousin! Think what Judy escaped!"
"You are very funny, Judy," giggled Adrienne. "And that girl! How
little repose; what noise!"
"Yes, 'what noise,'" Judith echoed the giggle. "Really, girls, am I
awake or do I dream? First a strange and awful girl comes walking in on
me. Then I learn the pleasant news that Jane's deserted me. Along comes
Jane, who doesn't know she's lost her home. Enter Marian Seaton as a
letter writer. Result Jane and Mrs. Weatherbee become bosom friends.
Jane is vindicated and her rights restored. Right in the middle of a
happy reunion in bounces the tempestuous Miss Noble. Quite a little like
a nightmare, isn't it?"
"It has the likeness to the movie plot," asserted Adrienne mirthfully.
"Very thrilling and much mixed."
"I never dreamed coming back to Wellington would be like this."
Jane smiled. Nevertheless the words came with a touch of sadness.
"Don't let it worry you, Jane," counseled Judith. "I was only fooling
when I said this afternoon had been like a nightmare. You may not have
another like this the whole year. Things always happen in bunches, you
know. I move that we re-beautify our charming selves and go down to the
veranda. We'll be on hand if any of the girls arrive. There's a train
from the east at five-thirty. Dorothy may be on that."
"I hope she is," sighed Jane.
Mention of Dorothy Martin made Jane long for a sight of the gentle,
whole-souled girl whom she so greatly loved and admired.
"Go ahead, Jane, and change your gown. I'll unpack your bag for you,"
offered Judith. "Beloved Imp here may help, if she's very good."
"Thank you, Judy."
Jane began an absent unfastening of her pongee traveling gown,
preparatory to bathing her throat, face and hands, dusty from the
journey.
While her two friends laughed and chattered as they unpacked her bag,
she gave herself up to somber reflection. The events of the afternoon
had left her with a feeling of heavy depression. Why, when she desired
so earnestly to do well and be happy, must the ancient enmity of Marian
Seaton be dragged into her very first day at Wellington. Was this a
forerunner of what the rest of her sophomore days were destined to be?
CHAPTER VII
AN UNPLEASANT TABLEMATE
Despite the unpropitious events of the afternoon, evening saw a merry
little party in full swing in Judith's and Jane's room.
Barbara Temple and Christine Ellis came over from Argyle Hall. The
five-thirty train had brought not only Dorothy Martin but Mary Ashton as
well. Eight o'clock saw them calling on Judith and Jane, along
with Adrienne and Ethel. Of the old clan, Norma Bennett alone was
absent, a loss which was loudly lamented by all.
So swiftly did time fly that the party ended in a mad scurry to comply
with the inexorable half-past ten o'clock rule.
Jane went to bed that night considerably lighter of heart. Reunion with
the girls who were nearest to her had driven the afternoon's
unpleasantness from her thoughts, for the time being at least. The
friendly presence of those she loved had proved a powerful antidote.
A night's sound sleep served to separate her further from the
disagreeable incidents of the previous day. She had two things, at
least, to be glad of, she reflected, as she dressed next morning. She
was back in her own room. More, she now stood on an entirely different
footing with Mrs. Weatherbee than heretofore.
This last was brought home to her more strongly than ever when, in going
down to breakfast, she passed the matron on her way to the dining-room
and received a smiling "Good morning, Miss Allen."
It was at decided variance with the reserved manner in which Mrs.
Weatherbee had formerly been wont to greet her.
"Well, we are once again at the same table," remarked Adrienne as Jane
slipped into the place at table she had occupied during her freshman
year. "Until last night I ate the meals alone. It was _triste_."
Adrienne's profound air of melancholy made both Jane and Dorothy laugh.
"What made you come back to college so early, dear Imp?" questioned
Dorothy, smiling indulgently at the little girl.
"I had the longing to see the girls," Adrienne replied simply. "This
past summer I have greatly missed all of you."
"We've all missed one another, I guess," Jane said soberly. "Often out
on the ranch I've wished you could all be with me. Next summer you must
come. I'm going to give a house party."
"What rapture!" Adrienne clasped her small hands. "I, for one, will
accept the invitation, and now."
Somewhat to Jane's surprise Dorothy said not a word. She merely stared
at Jane, a curiously wistful expression in her gray eyes.
"Don't you want to come to my house party, Dorothy?"
Though the question was playfully asked it held a hint of pained
surprise.
"Of course I'd like to come. I will--if I can." This last was added with
a little sigh. "Did you bring Firefly East with you, this year, Jane?"
she inquired with abrupt irrelevance.
"Yes. Pedro started East ahead of me with Firefly. They haven't arrived
yet. Are you going to ride this year, Dorothy?"
Jane was wondering what had occasioned in Dorothy this new, wistful
mood. It was entirely unlike her usual blithe, care-free self.
"I'm afraid not." The shadow on Dorothy's fine face had deepened.
"Frankly, I can't afford to keep a riding horse here. I don't mind
telling just you two that it was a question with me as to whether I
ought to come back to college. We were never rich, you know, just in
comfortable circumstances. This summer Father met with financial losses
and we're almost poor. Both Father and Mother were determined that I
should come back to Wellington on account of it being my last year. So
I'm here. I've not brought any new clothes with me, though, and I shall
have to be very economical."
Dorothy smiled bravely as she made this frank confession.
"Who cares whether your clothes are new of old, Dorothy?" came
impulsively from Jane. "It's having you here that counts. Nothing else
matters. I'm ever so sorry that your father has met with such
misfortune."
"Ah, yes! I too, have the sorrow that such bad luck has come to your
father. _We_ are the lucky ones, because you have come back to us,"
Adrienne agreed impressively.
"You're dears, both of you. Shake hands."
Her eyes eloquent with affection, Dorothy's hand went out to Jane, then
to Adrienne.
"We try to be like you, _ma chere_," was Adrienne's graceful response.
"That's very pretty, Imp," acknowledged Dorothy, flushing. "I'll have to
watch my step to merit that compliment. Now that you've heard the sad
story of the poverty-stricken senior, I call for a change of subject.
Did you know that Edith Hammond isn't coming back?"
"She isn't!"
Jane looked her surprise at this unexpected bit of news.
"No. Edith is going to be married," Dorothy informed. "She was
heart-whole and fancy-free when she left here last June. Then she went
with her family to the Catskills for the summer. She met her fate there;
a young civil engineer. They're to be married in November. She wrote me
a long letter right after she became betrothed. Later I received a card
announcing her engagement."
"I hope she'll be very happy," Jane spoke with evident sincerity. "I'm
so glad we grew to be friendly before college closed last June. It was
awfully awkward and embarrassing for us when we had to sit opposite
each other at this table three times a day without speaking."
Tardy recollection of the fact that there had also been a time when the
wires of communication were down between herself and Dorothy, caused a
tide of red to mount upward to Jane's forehead.
The eyes of the two girls meeting, both smiled. Each read the other's
thoughts. Such a catastrophe would not occur again.
"I wonder how many new girls there will be at the Hall," Dorothy glanced
curiously about the partially filled dining-room. "Let me see. We had
four graduates from Madison. Edith isn't coming back. That makes five
vacancies to be filled. Do you know of any others?"
The approach of a maid with a heavily laden breakfast tray, left the
question unanswered for the moment.
"You forget, _la petite_," reminded Adrienne as she liberally sugared
her sliced peaches. "She will no longer live at the top of the house.
She has already made the arrangements to room with Mary Ashton. So there
are but four vacancies. I would greatly adore to be with my Norma, but
Ethel is the good little roommate. I am satisfied."
Adrienne dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand.
"Norma can have Edith's place at our table," suggested Dorothy. "That
will be nice. I'll speak to Mrs. Weatherbee about it right after
breakfast."
"Perhaps we should not wait until then."
Adrienne half rose from her chair. Noting that the matron's place at
another table was vacant she sat down again.
"Here she comes now!"
Jane followed her announcement with a muffled "Oh!" Mrs. Weatherbee was
advancing toward their table and not alone. Behind her walked the
aggressive Miss Noble.
"Miss Noble, this is Miss Martin." The matron placidly proceeded with
the introductions and rustled off, unconscious that she had precipitated
a difficult situation. Her mind occupied with other matters, she had
failed to note the stiff little bows exchanged by three of the
quartette.
It had not been lost upon Dorothy, however. Greeting the newcomer in her
usual gracious fashion, she wondered what ailed Jane and Adrienne.
"Have you examinations to try, Miss Noble?" she asked pleasantly, by way
of shattering the frigid silence that had settled down on three of the
group.
"No, indeed." The girl tossed her black head. "_I_ am from Burleigh."
"Oh! A prep school, I suppose?" Dorothy inquired politely. The name was
unfamiliar to her.
"One of the most exclusive in the Middle West," was the prompt answer,
given with a touch of arrogance. "I must say, Wellington doesn't compare
very favorably with it in _my_
|
ant people. He stepped forth awhile
from his drunken bouts and manifold mean adulteries, and set himself
at the head of the army in Flanders, and strutted it as conqueror.
Poor Châteauroux only got the hate of the people for reward, Louis the
honours; for the people resented the public dishonour of her state.
Power she found to be a dead-sea apple in her pretty mouth. The glory
of it all, the splendours, were not the easily won delights for which
she had looked. She had to fight a duel, that never ended, with the
king's witty, crafty, and scurrilous Prime Minister, the notorious
Maurepas--and Maurepas willed that no woman should ever come between
him and the king--Maurepas who knew no mercy, no decency, no chivalry,
no scruple. At Châteauroux's urging, Louis placed himself at the
head of the army; and France went near mad with joy that she had
again found a king. Crafty Maurepas urged on the business; the
Châteauroux suddenly realised his cunning glee--it separated her from
the king.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN
(In the Louvre)
Of the rare portraits painted by Boucher, it is strange that the
sitter to this finely painted canvas is now wholly forgotten.
But the picture remains to prove to us the wide range of
Boucher's genius.]
Out of the whirl of things Boucher's fortune was ripening, little as
he might suspect it.
He was painting masterpieces that make his name live. To his fortieth
year belong the famed "Birth of Venus," the "Venus leaving the Bath,"
the "Muse Clio," the "Muse Melpomene," and the three well-known
pastorals now at the Louvre--"The Sleeping Shepherdess," the "Nest,"
and the "Shepherd and Shepherdesses." Of the many famous Venus-pieces
that his hand painted during these years it is not easy to write the
list. But having signed the "Marriage of Love and Psyche" at
forty-one, he turned his experimental hand to the homely, realistic
Dutch style that was having a wide vogue, and painted the
"Dejeuner"--a family of the prosperous class of the day at
breakfast--showing with rare charm the surroundings and home life of
the well-to-do of his time.
All goes well with Boucher. He changes into better quarters in the Rue
de Grenelle-Saint-Honoré, where he lived for the next five years,
until 1749; but his eyes are fixed upon a studio and apartments at
the old palace of the Louvre, though the hard intriguing of his
powerful friends at Court on his behalf failed for some time. He had,
indeed, to make another move before he arrived at his longed-for goal.
Pensions Boucher, like others, had found to be somewhat empty affairs;
but rooms at the Louvre were a solid possession eagerly sought after
by the artists.
In this year of 1744 Boucher created a new fashion at the annual Salon
by sending studies and sketches instead of finished pictures; and it
set a value upon such things not before realised by artists, for
success was instant and loud.
Towards the end of the next, Boucher's forty-second year, the Swedish
Ambassador, Count de Tessin, who was to take his leave of Paris,
commissioned four pictures to represent the day of a woman of fashion,
and to be entitled "Morning," "Midday," "Evening," and "Night."
Boucher painted one of these for him, now known as the "Marchande de
Modes." The others were painted later, and all had a wide vogue as
engravings. The correspondence has interest since it reveals Boucher's
business habits; he was paid for a picture on its delivery, and for
each of these he was to receive 600 livres (double florins or
dollars)--about a hundred and twenty pounds.
In an official document of the Director of Buildings to the king (or
Minister of Fine Art, as we should say), written in this year of 1745,
Boucher being forty-two, is a "list of the best painters," in which
Boucher is singled out for distinction as "an historic painter, living
in the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honoré, opposite the Rue des Deux-Ecus,
pupil of Lemoyne, excelling also in landscape, grotesques, and
ornaments in the manner of Watteau; and equally skilled in painting
flowers, fruit, architecture, and subjects of gallantry and of
fashion."
Not so bad for dry officialdom; the critics could learn a lesson. For
he was nothing less. What indeed does he not do? and wondrous well!
this painter of the age.
And the mighty rush of events is about to sweep him into further
prominence; the very things which he probably passed by with a gay
shrug are to enrich him, to help him to his highest fulfilment.
Poor Châteauroux saw that she must lose the king's gadding favour in
the conflict with Maurepas unless she joined her lord, now with the
army. She realised full well that she had created the new Louis of
Ambition--that her going must bring the people's hate to her. But she
dared not lose the king. And she went. Maurepas had overdone his
jibings. The indiscretion at once rang through the land; became the
jest of the army--and Maurepas was not far from the bottom of the
business. The discreet indiscretion of covered ways between the king's
lodgings and hers only added to the mockeries, and increased the
people's hate against, of course, the Châteauroux. Then upon a day in
August the small-pox seized Louis at Metz; poor Châteauroux fought for
possession of the king in the sick room, until his fear of
death--Louis' sole piety--sent her packing--shrinking back in the
hired carriage at each halting-place for change of horses, lest she
should be seen and torn from her place and destroyed by the populace.
But Louis recovered; Paris rang with bells at joy on his recovery, and
he entered the city amidst mad enthusiasm, hailed as The Well-Beloved.
He sent for the Châteauroux to find her dying, Maurepas having to
deliver the message of recall. She died suddenly and in great agony,
swearing that Maurepas had poisoned her--died in the arms of her poor
discarded sister, the De Mailly.
But this year of 1745 Boucher hears a mightier scandal that is to mean
vast things to all France--and not least of all to François Boucher.
VI
THE POMPADOUR
A young bride had become the gossip of the rich merchant society of
Paris--that class that was ousting the old noblesse from power. She
was a beautiful, a remarkable woman; her wit was repeated in the
drawing-rooms, she had all the accomplishments; her charming
name--Madame Lenormant d'Etioles.
Draw aside the curtains of the past and we discover our little Jeanne
Poisson--grown into this exquisite creature. It has come about in
strange fashion enough. The father--a scandalous fellow--having
fingered the commissariat moneys in ugly ways to his own use, had been
banished for the ugly business. Nor is Jeanne's mother any better than
she should be; and the wags wink knowingly at the handsome and rich
man of fashion, Monsieur Lenormant de Tournehem, who has been the
favoured gallant during the absence of the light-fingered Poisson.
And, of a truth, Lenormant de Tournehem takes astonishing interest in
the little Jeanne--watching over her up-growing and giving her the
best of education at the convent, where she wins all hearts, and is
known as "the little queen." The truth spoken with wondrous prophecy,
if unthinkingly, as we shall see. Complacent Poisson came home, and
took the rich and fashionable, bland and smiling Lenormant de
Tournehem to his arms. Has he not wealth and estates? therefore as
excellent a friend for Poisson as for Madame Poisson. The girl Jeanne
leaves the convent to be taught the accomplishments by the supreme
masters of France, the wits foregather at Madame Poisson's, and the
brilliant Jeanne is soon mistress of the arts--coquetry not least of
all; has also the most exquisite taste in dress. Under all is a heart
cold as steel; calculating as the higher mathematics. She has but one
hindrance to ambition--her mean birth. Lenormant de Tournehem rids her
even of this slur by making his nephew, Lenormant d'Etioles, marry
her, giving the young couple half his fortune for dowry, and the
promise of the rest when he dies--also he grants him a splendid
town-house, as splendid a country seat. And consequential
self-respecting little Lenormant d'Etioles is lord of Etioles, amongst
other seignories. So Jane Fish appears as Madame Lenormant d'Etioles,
seductive, beautiful, accomplished, to whose house repair the new
philosophy, the wits, and artists. She has a certain sense of virtue;
indeed openly vows that no one but the king shall ever come between
her and her lord. But, deep in her heart, she has harboured a fierce
ambition--that the king shall help her to keep her bond. She puts
forth all her gifts, all her powers, to win to the strange goal;
confides it to her worldly mother and "uncle," Lenormant de Tournehem;
finds keen allies therein to the reaching of that strange goal. The
death of the Châteauroux clears the way. At a masked ball the king is
intrigued as to the personality of a beautiful woman who plagues him
with her art; he orders the unmasking. Madame Lenormant d'Etioles
stands revealed, drops her handkerchief as by accident; the whisper
runs through the Court that "the handkerchief has been thrown!" The
king stoops and picks it up. A few evenings later she is smuggled into
the "private apartments." She goes again a month later; in the morning
is seized with sudden terror--she daren't go back to her angry lord
lest he do her grievous harm; he will have missed her. The king is
touched; allows her to hide from henceforth in the secret apartments;
promises the beautiful creature a lodging, her husband's banishment,
and early acknowledgment as titular mistress--before the whole Court
at Easter, says the pious Great One. But he has to join the army to
play the Conqueror at Fontenoy; and it is later in the year
(September) before Madame d'Etioles is presented to the Court in a
vast company and proceeds to the queen's apartments to kiss hands on
appointment. Thus was Jeanne Poisson raised to the great aristocracy
of France in her twenty-third year as Marquise de Pompadour.
Boucher had been one of the brilliant group of artists of the
d'Etioles' circle. That the Pompadour's influence had much effect upon
his position at Court for a year or two is unlikely; for she had to
fight for possession of the king day and night, as the Châteauroux
had done, against the queen's party and the unscrupulous enmity of
Maurepas. To set down Boucher's favour at Court to her is ridiculous.
He was painting for the queen's apartments at thirty-one when the
Pompadour was a school-girl of twelve. But in the year following her
rise to power, Boucher painted four pictures for the large room of the
Dauphin, which were "placed elsewhere"; and, the year after that, he
was at work upon two pictures for the bedroom of the king at the
castle of Marly. It is likely enough that the Pompadour directed this
order. She had almost immediately secured the office of the
Director-General of Buildings, which covered the direction of the
royal art treasures, for "uncle" Lenormant de Tournehem, who was also
a friend of the artist. And from this year it is significant that
Boucher paints no more for the opposing camp of the Queen and Dauphin.
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--INTERIEUR DE FAMILLE
(In the Louvre)
Boucher had a quick ear for the vogue. Twice he found the Home
to be in the artistic fashion; and each time he painted Home
life in order to be in the mode. This interior, showing a
well-to-do French family of the times at the midday meal, is not
only rendered with glitter and atmosphere, but it is valuable as
a rich record of the manners and furnishments of his day.]
He was now giving all his strength to the "Rape of Europa" that he
painted for the competition ordered by the Academy at the command of
Lenormant de Tournehem in the king's name, in which ten chosen
Academicians were to paint subjects in their own style for six prizes
and a gold medal, to be awarded in secret vote by the competing
artists themselves. Boucher won, by his amiable nature, the good-will
of them all by proposing that they should so arrange as to share the
prizes equally, and thus prevent any sense of soreness inevitable in
the losers.
But greatly as he won the good-fellowship of his fellow-artists by it,
this picture caused a murmur to rise amongst the critics who,
aforetime loud in his praise, now began to complain of his "abuse of
rose tints" in the painting of the female nude. The fact was that
Diderot and the men of the New Philosophy were turning their eyes to
the whole foundations upon which France was built, art as well as
society, and were beginning to demand of art "grandeur and morality in
its subjects." They were soon to be clamouring for "the statement of a
great maxim, a lesson for the spectator." Diderot, with bull-like
courage, picked out the greatest, and turned upon Boucher, blaming him
for triviality.
The nations, weary of war, concluded the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in
the October of 1748. No sooner was peace concluded than Louis
relapsed into his old habit of dandified indolence and profligate
ease; and, putting from him his duties as the lord of a great people,
he gave himself up to shameless intrigues. He allowed the Pompadour to
usurp his magnificence and to rule over the land. He yielded himself
utterly, if sometimes sulkily, to her domination; and for sixteen
years she was the most powerful person at Court, the greatest force in
the state--making and unmaking ministers, disposing of office,
honours, titles, pensions. All political affairs were discussed and
arranged under her guidance; ministers, ambassadors, generals
transacted their business in her stately boudoirs; the whole patronage
of the sovereign was dispensed by her pretty hands; the prizes of the
Church, of the army, of the magistracy could be obtained solely
through her favour and good-will. Her energy must have been
prodigious. Possessed of extraordinary talents and exquisite tastes,
she gave full rein to them, and it was in the indulgence of her better
qualities that Destiny brought Boucher into the friendship of this
wonderful woman. She became not only his patron but his pupil,
engraving several of his designs.
But this, her sovereignty over the king, easy and light in its outward
seeming, was a haggard nightmare to the calculating woman who had so
longed for it. She knew no single hour's rest from the night she won
to the king's bed. She had to fight her enemies, secret and open, for
possession of the king's will, day and night; and she fought--with
rare courage. She won by consummate skill and unending pluck. She made
herself an essential part of the king's freedom from care. The Court
party fought her for power with constant vigilance. Maurepas brought
all his unscrupulous art, all his ironic mimicry, all his vile jibes
and unchivalrous hatred to bear against her. He had made himself a
necessity to the king; and he never slept away a chance of injuring
her. He knew no mercy, no nobility, no pity. He made her the detested
object of the people. With his own hands he penned the witty verses
and epigrams that were sung and flung about the streets of Paris.
But she had an enemy more subtle than any at the Court--hour by hour
she had to dispute the king with the king's boredom. And it was in the
effort to do so that she created her celebrated theatre in the
private apartments, calling Boucher and others to her aid in the doing
of it. Here the noblest of France vied with each other to obtain the
smallest part to play, an instrument in its orchestra, an invitation
to its performances.
Boucher left the Opera to become its decorator in 1748, and did not
return until her death. For her, he also decorated her beautiful rooms
at Bellevue. She bought at high prices many of his greatest
masterpieces.
The Pompadour's power so greatly increased that she openly took
command of the king's will; dared and succeeded in getting his
favourite Maurepas banished; and herself took to the use of the kingly
"we." Her rascally father was created Lord of Marigny; her brother,
whom the king liked well and called "little brother," was created
Marquis de Vandières; her only child, Alexandrine, signed her name as
a princess of the blood royal, and would have been married to the
blood royal had she not caught the small-pox and died. She amassed a
private fortune, castles, and estates such as no mistress had dreamed
of; and into them she poured art treasures that cost the nation
thirty-six millions of money. She created the porcelain factory of
Sèvres, kept keen watch over the Gobelins looms, and founded the great
Military School of St. Cyr amidst work that would have kept several
statesmen busy, and of deadly intrigues at Court that would have
broken the spirit of many a brilliant man.
It was in her hectic desire to keep the king from being bored that she
stooped, and made Boucher stoop, to the employment of his high
artistry in the painting of a series of indecent pictures wherewith to
tickle the jaded desires of Boredom, and thereby gave rise to the
widespread impression that Boucher's art was ever infected by base
design. But Boucher was, at his very worst, but a healthy animal; and
even in these secret works for the king he did not reach so low as did
many an artist of more pious memory who painted with no excuse but his
own pleasure.
As a matter of fact, the Pompadour has been blamed too much for this
evil act, and too much forgotten for her splendid patronage of the man
who, under it and during these great years of his forties, produced a
series of masterpieces that place him in the foremost rank of the
painters of his century. It is impossible to reckon the number of the
pastorals and Venus-pieces that his master-hand painted and loved to
paint, during these the supreme years of his genius. It is significant
that they were painted during the years that saw the Pompadour in
supreme power.
Boucher was so firmly established in 1750, his forty-seventh year,
that he moved into a new house in the Rue Richelieu, near the Palais
Royal. Disappointed in not receiving a studio and apartments at the
Louvre, he was allowed to use a studio in the king's library. He was
now making money so easily that he was able to collect pictures and
precious stones and the gaily coloured curiosities that appealed to
his tastes.
The critics were becoming more and more censorious; and one of them
hits true with the comment that in his pastorals his shepherdesses
look as if they had stepped over from the Opera and would soon be off
again thereto.
In his forty-eighth year Boucher's art was at its most luminous
stage--his atmosphere clear and subtle and exquisitely rendered; his
yellows golden; his whites satin-like and silvery; his flesh-tones
upon the nude bodies of his goddesses unsurpassed by previous art. The
beauty of it all was not to last much longer.
Lenormant de Tournehem died suddenly in the November of 1751; the
Pompadour's brother, Abel Poisson de Vandières, was appointed
Director-General in his stead at the age of twenty-five--and soon
afterwards, on the death of his father, created Marquis de Marigny--a
shy, handsome youth, a gentleman and an honourable fellow, whom the
king liked well, and against whom his sister's sole complaint was that
he lacked the brazen effrontery of the courtiers of the day. No man
did more for the advancement of the art of his time. A pension of a
thousand livres falling vacant, the young fellow secured it for
Boucher; and almost immediately afterwards, a studio becoming vacant
at the Louvre owing to the death of Coypel, first painter to the king,
Boucher came to his coveted home, eagerly moving in with his family as
soon as its wretched state could be put into repair.
The decoration of the new wing to the palace at Fontainebleau brought
the commission for the painting of the ceiling and the principal
picture in the Council Chamber to Boucher, who had already decorated
the Dining-Room. This was the period of his painting the "Rising" and
the "Setting of the Sun" for the Pompadour, now in the Watteau
collection, two canvases that were always favourites with the painter,
bitterly as they were assailed by the critic Grimm.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--LA MODISTE
(In the Wallace Collection)
The "Modiste" that now hangs at the Wallace is a slight
variation on the "Toilet" that went to Stockholm, commissioned
by the Swedish Ambassador as "Morning" (with three others, to
represent the Midday, Evening, and Night of a fashionable
woman's day, but which were never painted). The "Modiste" or
"Morning," was engraved by Gaillard as "La Marchande de Modes,"
which adds somewhat to the confusion of its title.]
He was turning out so much work that it was impossible to give as much
care to his pictures as he ought. For he refused sternly, his life
long, to raise his prices; by consequence he had to create a larger
amount of work in order to meet his expenditure. It was about this
time that Reynolds, passing through Paris, went to visit him and found
him painting on a huge canvas without models or sketches. "On
expressing my surprise," writes Reynolds, "he replied that he had
considered the model as necessary during his youth until he had
completed his study of art, but that he had not used one for a long
time past."
He soon had not the time, not only to paint from nature but even to
give his pictures the work necessary to complete them. The feverish
haste which took possession of him in his frantic endeavour to meet
the vast demand for his pictures, and the eager efforts of his
engravers to satisfy the public call for engravings after his works,
gave him less and less leisure to joy in their doing. And his eyesight
began to fail. His flesh-tints deepened to a reddish hue; and he
stands baffled before his work, suspecting his sight, since what every
one cries out upon as being bright vermilion, he only sees as a dull
earthy colour. Boucher has topped the height of his achievement; he
has to "descend the other side of the hill." Boucher begins to grow
old.
In Boucher's fifty-first year an ugly intrigue of the queen's party at
Court to sap the Pompadour's influence over the king by drawing away
the king's affections towards Madame de Choiseul-Romanet, a reckless
young beauty of the Court, brought about a strange alliance. The Count
de Stainville, one of the Pompadour's bitterest enemies, was shown the
king's letter of invitation to his young kinswoman; and he, deeply
wounded in his pride that his kinswoman should have been offered to
the king, went to the Pompadour and exposed the plot. A close
alliance followed; and De Stainville thenceforth became her chief
guide in affairs of state. It was at her instance that the king called
him to be his Prime Minister, raising him to the Duchy of Choiseul--a
name he made illustrious as one of the greatest Ministers of France.
In his fifty-second year Boucher was appointed to the directorship of
the Gobelins looms, to the huge delight of the weavers and all
concerned with the tapestry factory. This was the year of his painting
the famous portrait of the Pompadour, to whom he several times paid
this "tribute of immorality." For the Gobelins looms he produced many
handsome designs; and he was painting with astounding industry. But
his hand's skill began to falter. His art shows weariness in his
sixtieth year, and sickness fell upon him, and held him in servitude
now with rare moments of respite. The critics, notoriously Diderot,
were now attacking him with shameless virulence. Boucher passed it all
by; but he felt the change that was taking place in the public taste.
The ideas of the New Philosophy were infecting public opinion; the Man
of Feeling had arisen in the land; and France, humiliated in war, and
resenting the follies and the greed of her shameless privileged class,
was openly resenting it and all its works. Choiseul had planted his
strength deep in the people's party, and was come near to being its
god. His masterly mind had checked Frederick of Prussia to the North;
and the nations, exhausted by the struggle, signed the Peace of Paris
in 1763. Choiseul, with France at peace abroad, turned to the blotting
out of the turbulent order of the Jesuits at home. Their attempt to
end the Pompadour's relations with the king made this powerful woman
eager to complete his design; the chance was soon to come, and the
Order was abolished from France and its vast property seized by the
state.
The Pompadour lived but a short while to enjoy her triumph. Worn out
by her superhuman activities, assailed by debt, she fell ill of a
racking cough, dying on the 15th of April, 1764, in her forty-second
year, keeping her ascendancy over the king and the supreme power in
France to her last hour. Death found her transacting affairs of state.
Louis, weary of his servitude, had only a heartless epigram to cast
at the body of the dead woman as she passed to her last resting-place.
VII
THE END
The death of the Pompadour robbed Boucher of a friend; but her
brother, Marigny, remained faithfully attached to the old artist, and
seized every chance to honour him. On the death of Carle van Loo,
Boucher, at sixty-two, was made first painter to the king, with all
his pensions and privileges that were consistent with this the supreme
appointment in the art world.
There had been serious intention of making Boucher the head of the
Ecole des Elèves Protegés; he had the art of making himself liked and
of inspiring the love of the arts. He was very popular with the
students and artists, owing to his kindliness, his eagerness to render
service, his readiness to encourage the youngsters or to console them.
When the riot took place, provoked by the Academicians by their award
of the Prix de Rome in 1767, the students insulted the Academicians,
but hailed Boucher with enthusiastic applause. The reason was not far
to seek. When a student came to the old master for advice he did not
"play the pontiff," and, scorning the false dignity of big phrases, he
took the brush in his hand and showed the way out of all difficulties
by simplehearted example, despising rules, and putting himself out in
order to make things clear to a young artist.
However, the Academicians feared he would be an unorthodox master for
youth, and appointed another in his place.
A long and serious illness thwarted his keen energies. Diderot was
giving himself up to outrageous violence against him. If the old
painter exhibited at the Salon, Diderot fiercely assailed his art; if
he did not exhibit, Diderot as bitterly assailed him for his
negligences. Above all, he attacked Boucher in that he did not paint
what Diderot would have painted--but could not. "When he paints
infants," cries Diderot, "you will not find one employed in a real act
of life--studying his lesson, reading, writing, stripping hemp."
Poor unfortunate infants! for whom Philosophy could find no happier
joy in life than _stripping hemp_! Boucher was but an artist. He
painted his generation as far as he could see it, and, with all his
faults and weaknesses, he never debauched his art with foreign and
alien things that had no part in the nation's life; he painted fair
France into his landscapes, not a make-believe land he did not know
with preposterous Greek ruins; and best of all, to his eternal honour,
he painted infants glad in their gladness to be alive, with no desire
to send their happy little bodies to school, with no sickly ambition
to make them into budding philosophers, with no thought of making them
pose and lie as Men of Feeling. He had no joy in setting their little
bodies to toil--in making them "teach a lesson to the spectator," in
making them stoop their little shoulders to the "picking of hemp."
He continued to paint as he had always painted--except that he painted
less well. The wreath of roses was wilting on a grey head. The blood
jigged less warmly in the frail body. The features showed pallid--the
eyes haggard. The sight failed. The hand alone kept something of its
cunning.
He went to Holland with his friend Randon du Boisset, but health
shrank farther from him. Diderot had near spent his last jibe.
In 1768, Boucher's sixty-fifth year, the neglected queen went to her
grave. The king's grief and contrition and vows to amend his life came
too late, and lasted little longer than the drying of the floods of
tears over the body of his dead consort. A year later he was become
the creature of a pretty woman of the gutters, whom he caused to be
married to the Count du Barry--the infamously famous Madame du Barry.
But neither the remonstrances of Choiseul with the king against this
further degradation of the throne of France, nor his unconcealed scorn
of the upstart countess, nor the dangerous enemy he made for himself
thereby, signified now to Boucher, first painter to the king.
Boucher was failing. His son was a prig and a disappointment. His two
favourite pupils, Baudoin and Deshayes, who had married his two girls,
died.
To the Salon of 1769 he sent his "Caravan of Bohemians." It was his
last display. He had been going about for some time like a gaunt ghost
of his former self, afflicted with all the ills inevitable to a life
feverishly consumed in work and the pursuit of pleasure.
They went to his studio at five of the clock one May morning, and
found him seated at his easel, before a canvas of Venus, dead, with
the paint-filled brush fallen out of his fingers.
So passed he away on the 30th of May 1770, in his sixty-seventh year.
* * * * *
When Boucher died, the generation of which he was the limner was near
come to its violent end. The rosy carnivals and gay gallantries of his
age gave way to the blood-stained romance and fierce tempest of the
Revolution. The garrets of the old curiosity-shops received the
discarded canvases of the master. His shepherds and shepherdesses were
put to rout by the Romans of his pupil, citizen David. The old order
was brought into contempt and overthrown. And with it, Boucher's art,
like much that was gracious and charming and good in the evil thing,
went down also, and was overwhelmed for a while.
For a while only. For just as, out of the blood and terror of the
Revolution, a real France arose, ph[oe]nix-wise, from the ruin, and in
being born, whilst putting off the vilenesses of the thing from which
she sprang, took on also to herself the gracious and winsome qualities
that place her amongst the most fascinating peoples of the ages; so
Boucher has come into his kingdom again--the most gracious of painters
that the years have yielded.
The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London
The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOUCHER***
******* This file should be named 41947-8.txt or 41947-8.zip *******
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/1/9/4/41947
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help
|
to punch the boy's head for calling him for nothing.
"Can't you put back, and land us somewhere, or take us into smooth
water?" implored the petitioner; "we'd subscribe for a reward for you,
capting, sir."
"Oh, yes, yes," echoed a faint chorus of voices; "any reward."
"There's no danger whatever, I tell ye, ladies," repeated the
exasperated captain. "When we've got round this bit of headland, we
shall have the wind at our starn, and go ahead as if the dickens druv
us."
With this consolatory information, the rough head turned round and
vanished. The grinning boy came out of a corner where he had hid
himself, and appealed to the lady for his promised sixpence.
"I know we are going down!" she cried, as she fumbled in her bag for
one. "That capting ought to lose his place for saying there's no danger;
to me it's apparent to be seen. If he'd any humanity in him, he'd put
back and land us somewhere, if 'twas only on the naked shore. Good
mercy! what a lurch!--and now we're going to t'other side. No danger
indeed! And all my valuable luggage aboard: my silk gownds, and my
shawls, and my new lace mantle! Good gracious, ma'am, don't pitch out of
your berth! you'll fall atop of me. Can't you hold on? What were hands
made for?"
Some hours more yet, and then the steward, who had been whisking and
whirling like one possessed, now on deck, now in the cabins, and now in
his own especial sanctum, amid his tin jugs and his broken crockery,
came whirling in once more to the large cabin, and said they were at the
mouth of Boulogne harbour. "Just one pitch more, ladies and
gentlemen--there it is--and now we are in the port, safe and sound."
"Don't talk to me about being in," cried poor Mr. Dundyke, from his
place on the floor, not quite sure yet whether he was dead or alive, but
rather believing he'd prefer to be the former. "Please don't step upon
me, anybody. I couldn't stir yet."
All minor disasters of the journey overcome, the travellers reached
Paris in safety. So far, Mr. Dundyke had found no occasion to rub on
with his "we" and "no," for he encountered very few people who were not
able to speak, or at least understand, a little English. But when they
quitted Paris--and they remained in it but two days--then their
difficulties commenced; and many were the distresses, and furious the
fits of anger, of the common-councilman. It pleased Mr. Dundyke to
travel by diligence on cross-country roads, rather than take the rail to
Lyons--of which rail, and of all rails, he had a sort of superstitious
dread--but this he found easy to do, though it caused him to be somewhat
longer on the road. Here his tongue was at fault. He wanted to know the
names of the towns and villages they passed through, the meaning of any
puzzling object of wonder he saw on his way, and he could not ask; or,
rather, he did ask repeatedly, but the answers conveyed to his ears only
an unmeaning sound. It vexed him excessively.
"I don't think they understand you, David," Mrs. Dundyke said to him one
day.
"And how should they understand, speaking nothing but heathen
gibberish?" he returned. "It's enough to make a saint swear."
Another source of annoyance was the living. Those who have travelled by
diligence in the more remote parts of France, and sat down to the
tables-d'hôte at the road-side inns where the diligence halted, and
remember the scrambling haste observed, may imagine the distresses of
Mr. and Mrs. Dundyke. In common with their countrymen in general, they
partook strongly of the national horror of frog-eating, and also of the
national conviction that that delicate animal furnished the component
parts of at least every second dish served up in France: so that it was
little short of martyrdom to be planted down to a dinner, where half the
dishes, for all the information they gave to the eye, might be composed
of frogs, or something equally obnoxious. There would be the bouilli
first, but Mr. Dundyke, try as he would, could not swallow it, although
he had once dined on red-herrings; and there would be a couple of skinny
chickens, drying on a dish of watercress, but before _he_ could hope, in
his English deliberation, to get at them, they were snapped up and
devoured. Few men liked good living better than David Dundyke,--how
else would he have been fit to become one of the renowned metropolitan
body-corporate?--and when it was to be had at anybody else's cost, none
enjoyed it more. At these tables-d'hôte, eat or not eat, he had to pay,
and bitter and frequent were the heartburnings at throwing away his good
money, yet rising up with an empty stomach. Not a tenth part of the
cravings of hunger did he and his wife ever satisfy at these miserable
tables-d'hôte. The very idea of but the minutest portion of a frog's leg
going into their mouths, was more repulsive to their minds than that
shuddering reminiscence of the steam-packet; and, what with this dread,
and their inability to ask questions, Mr. and Mrs. Dundyke were nearly
starved.
One day in particular it was very sad. They had halted at an inn in a
good-sized town, not very far distant from Lyons. While the soup and
bouilli were being devoured, the two unfortunates ate a stray radish or
two, when up bustled the waiter with a funny-looking dish, its contents
wonderfully like what a roast-beef eater might suppose cooked frogs to
be, and presented it to Mr. Dundyke.
"What's this?" inquired Mr. Dundyke, delicately adventuring the tip of a
fork towards the suspicious-looking compound, by way of indicating the
nature of his question.
"Plait-il, monsieur?"
"This, _this_," rapping the edge of the dish with the fork; "what is it
made of? what do you call it?"
"Une fricassée de petits pigeons, à l'oseille, monsieur," replied the
discerning waiter.
Poor Mr. Dundyke pushed the dish away from him with a groan. "Une
fricassée de petits pigeons, à l'oseille" in French, might be "Stewed
frogs" in English.
"What was all that green mess in the dish?" asked his wife.
"The saints know," groaned the common-councilman. "Perhaps it's the
fashion here to cook frogs in their own rushes."
Up came the waiter with another dish, that attentive functionary
observing that the Monsieur Anglais ate nothing. A solid piece of meat,
with little white ends sticking out of it, rising out of another bed of
green. "Oseille" is much favoured in these parts of France.
"Whatever's this?" ejaculated the common-councilman, eyeing the dish
with wondering suspicion. "It's as much like a porkipine as anything I
ever saw. What d'ye call it?" rapping the edge of the dish as before.
"Foie-de-veau lardé, à l'oseille, monsieur."
The common-councilman was as wise as before, and sat staring at it.
"It can't be frogs, David, this can't," suggested Mrs. Dundyke, "it is
too large and solid; and I don't think it's any foreign animal. It looks
to me like veal. Veal, waiter?" she asked, appealingly.
"Oui, madame," was the answer, at a venture.
"And the green stuff round it is spinach, of course. Veal and spinach,
my dear."
"That's good, that is, veal and spinach. I'll try it," said Mr. Dundyke.
He helped himself plentifully, and, pushing the dish to his wife,
voraciously took the first mouthful, for he was fearfully hungry.
It was a rash proceeding. What in the world had he got hold of! Veal and
spinach!--Heaven protect him from poison! It was some horrible, soft
compound, sharp and sour; it turned him sick at once, and set his teeth
on edge. He became very pale, and called faintly for the waiter.
But the garçon had long ago whisked off to other parts of the room, and
there was Mr. Dundyke obliged to sit with that nauseous mystery
underneath his very nose.
"Waiter!" he roared out at length, with all the outraged dignity of a
common-councilman, "I say, waiter! For the love of goodness take this
away: it's only fit for pigs. There's a dish there, with two little
ducks upon it, and some carrots round 'em--French ducks I suppose they
are: an Englishman might shut up shop if _he_ placed such on his table.
Bring it here."
"Plait-il, monsieur?"
"Them ducks--there--at the top, by the pickled cowcumbers. I'll take
one."
The waiter ranged his perplexed eyes round and round the table. "Pardon,
monsieur, plait-il?"
"I think you are an idiot, I do!" roared out Mr. Dundyke, unable to keep
both his hunger and his temper. "That dish of ducks, I said, and it is
being seized upon! They are tearing them to pieces! they are gone! Good
Heavens! are we to famish like this?"
The waiter, in despair, laid hold of a slice of melon in one hand and
the salt and pepper in the other, and presented them.
"The man _is_ an idiot!" decided the exasperated Englishman. "What does
he mean by offering me melon for dinner, and salt and pepper to season
it?--that's like their putting sugar to their peas! I want something
that I can eat," he cried, piteously.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que je peux vous offrir, monsieur?" asked the
agonized garçon.
"Don't you see we want something to eat," retorted the gentleman; "this
lady and myself? We can't touch any of the trash on the table. Get us
some mutton chops cooked."
"Pardon, monsieur, plait-il?"
"Some--mut--ton--chops," repeated the common-councilman, very
deliberately, thinking that the slower he spoke, the better he should be
understood. "And let 'em look sharp about it."
The waiter sighed and shrugged, and, after pushing the bread and butter
and young onions within reach, moved away, giving up the matter as a
hopeless job.
"Let's peg away at this till the chops come," cried Mr. Dundyke. And in
the fallacious hope that the chops _were_ coming, did the unconscious
couple "peg" away till the driver clacked his long whip, and summoned
his passengers to resume their seats in the diligence.
"I have had nothing to eat," screamed Mr. Dundyke. "They are doing me
some mutton chops. I can't go yet."
"Deux diners, quatre francs, une bouteille de vin, trente sous," said
the waiter in Mr. Dundyke's ear. "Fait cinq francs, cinquante,
monsieur."
"Fetch my mutton chops," he implored; "we can't go without them: we can
eat them in the diligence."
"Allons! dépêchons-nous, messieurs et dames," interrupted the conductor,
looking in, impatiently. "Prenez vos places. Nous sommes en retard."
"They are swindlers, every soul of them, in this country," raved the
common-councilman, passionately throwing down the money, when he could
be made to comprehend its amount, and that there were no chops to come.
"How dare you be so dishonest as charge for dinners we don't eat."
"I am faint now for the want of something," bewailed poor Mrs. Dundyke.
"If ever I am caught out of Old England again," he sobbed, climbing to
his place in the diligence, "I'll give 'em leave to make a Frenchman of
me, that's all."
CHAPTER III.
A MEETING AT GRENOBLE.
They arrived at Lyons; but here Mr. Dundyke's total ignorance of the
language led him into innumerable misapprehensions and mishaps, not the
least of which was his going from Lyons to Grenoble, thinking all the
time that he was on the shortest and most direct road to Switzerland.
This was in consequence of his rubbing on with "we" and "no." They had
arrived at Lyons late in the evening, and after a night's rest, Mr.
Dundyke found his way to the coach-office, to take places on to
Switzerland. There happened to be standing before the office door a huge
diligence, with the word "Grenoble" painted on it.
"I want to engage a place in a diligence; two places; direct for
Switzerland," began Mr. Dundyke; "in a diligence like that," pointing to
the great machine.
"You spoke French, von littel, sare?" asked the clerk, who could himself
speak a very little imperfect English.
"We," cried Mr. Dundyke, eagerly, not choosing to betray his ignorance.
Accordingly, the official proceeded to jabber on in French, and Mr.
Dundyke answered at intervals of hazard "we" and "no."
"Vous désirez aller à Grenoble, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?" remarked the
clerk.
"We," cried out Mr. Dundyke at random.
"Combien de places, monsieur?"
"We," repeated the gentleman again.
"I do demande of the monsieur how few of place?" said the official,
suspecting his French was not understood quite so well as it might be.
"Two places for Switzerland," answered Mr. Dundyke. "I'm going on to
Geneva, in a diligence like that."
"C'est ça. The monsieur desire to go to Gren-haub; et encore jusqu'à
Genève--on to Geneva."
"We," rapturously responded the common-councilman.
"I do comprends. Two place in the Gren-haub diligence. Vill the monsieur
go by dat von?" pointing to the one at the door. "She do go in de half
hour."
"Not that one," retorted Mr. Dundyke, impatient at the clerk's obscure
English. "I said in one like that, later."
"Yes, sare, I comprends now. You would partir by anoder von like her,
the next one that parts. Vill you dat I retienne two place for
Gren-haub?"
"We, we," responded Mr. Dundyke. "Two places. My wife's with me, Mrs.
D.: I'm a common-councilman, sir, at home. Two places for Gren-haub.
Corner ones, mind: in the interior."
"C'est bien, monsieur. She goes à six of de hours."
"She! Who?"
"The diligence, I do say."
"Oh," said the common-councilman to himself, "they call coaches'she's'
in this country. I wonder what they call women. Six hours you say we
shall take going."
"Oui, monsieur," answered the clerk, without quite understanding the
question, "il faut venir à six heures."
"And when does it start?"
"What you ask, sare?"
"_She_--the diligence--at what o'clock does it start for Gren-haub?"
"I do tell de sare at de six of de hours dis evening."
"We'll be here a quarter afore it then: never was late for anything in
my life. Gren-haub's a little place, I suppose, sir, as it's not in my
guide-book?"
"Comme ça," said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders. "She's not von
Lyon."
"Who's she?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr. Dundyke; "who's not a lion?"
"Gren-haub, sare. I thought you did ask about her."
"The asses that these French make of themselves when they attempt to
converse in English!" ejaculated the common-councilman. "Who's to
understand him?"
He turned away, and went back to the hotel in glee, dreadfully
unconscious that he had booked himself for Grenoble, and imagining that
Gren-haub (as the word Grenoble in the Frenchman's mouth sounded to his
English ears) must be the first town on the Swiss frontiers. "It's an
awkward hour, though, to get in at," he deliberated: "six hours, that
fellow said we should be, going: that will make it twelve at night when
we get to the place. Things are absurdly managed in this country." This
was another mistake of his: the anticipated six hours necessary, as he
fancied, to convey him from Lyons to "Gren-haub," would prove at least
sixteen.
At the appointed hour Mr. and Mrs. Dundyke took their seats in the
diligence, which began its journey and went merrily on; at least as
merrily as a French diligence, of the average weight and size, can be
expected to go. Mr. Dundyke was merry, too, for him; for he had
fortified himself with a famous dinner before starting: none of your
frogs and rushes and "oseille," but rosbif saignant, and pommes de terre
au naturel, specially ordered. Both the travellers had done it ample
justice, and seasoned it with some hot brandy-and-water; Mr. Dundyke
taking two glasses and making his wife take one. Therefore it was not
surprising that both should sink, about nine o'clock, into a sound
sleep. They had that compartment of the coach, called the intérieur, to
themselves, and could recline almost at full length; and so comfortable
were they, that all the various changing of horses and clackings of the
whip failed to arouse them.
Not until six o'clock in the morning did Mr. Dundyke open his eyes, and
then only partially. He was in the midst of the most delicious
dream--riding in that coveted coach, all gilt and gingerbread, on a
certain 9th of November to come, moving in stately dignity through
Cheapside, amidst the plaudits of little boys, the crowding of windows,
and the arduous exertions of policemen to preserve order in the admiring
mob; sitting with the mace and sword-bearer beside him, _his_ mace and
sword-bearer! Mr. Dundyke had been pleased that his sleep, with such a
dream, had lasted for ever, and he unwillingly aroused himself to
reality.
It was broad daylight; the sun was shining with all the glorious beauty
of a summer morning, shining right into the diligence, and roasting the
face of the common-councilman. He rubbed his eyes and wondered where he
was. Recollection began to whisper that when he had gone to sleep the
previous evening it was dusk, and that ere that dusk had well subsided
into the darkness of midnight he had expected to be at his destination,
"Gren-haub;" whereas--was he asleep still, and dreaming it?--or was it
really morning, and he still in the diligence?--or had some unexampled
phenomenon of nature caused the sun to shine out at midnight? WHAT was
it? In the greatest perturbation he tore his watch from his pocket, and
found it was five minutes past six; but he knew that he was rather
slower than French time.
A fine hubbub ensued. Mr. Dundyke startled his wife up in such a fright,
that he nearly sent her into fits: he roared out to the coachman, he
called for the conductor: he shook the doors, he knocked at the windows:
he caused the utmost consternation amongst the quiet passengers in the
rotonde and banquette, and woke up a deaf old gentleman in the coupé,
who all thought he had gone suddenly mad. The diligence was stopped in
haste, and out of the door rushed Mr. Dundyke.
"Where were they taking him to? Why had they not left him at Gren-haub?
Did they know he was a common-councilman of the great city of London, a
brother of the Lord Mayor and aldermen? How dared they run away with him
and his wife in that style? _Where_ were they carrying him to? Were they
going to smuggle him off to Turkey or any of them heathen places to sell
him for a slave? They must turn round forthwith, and drive him back to
Gren-haub."
All this, and a great deal more of it, delivered in the English tongue
and interspersed with not a few English expletives, was as Greek to the
astonished lookers-on; and when they had sufficiently exercised their
curiosity and stared at the enraged speaker, standing there without his
hat, stamping his feet in the dust, and gesticulating more like a
Frenchman than a stout specimen of John Bull, they all let loose their
tongues together, in a jargon equally incomprehensible to the distressed
Englishman. In vain did Mr. Dundyke urge their return to "Gren-haub,"
now with angry fury, now with tears, now with promises of reward; in
vain the other side demanded to know what was the matter, and tried to
coax him into the diligence. Not a word could one party understand of
the other.
"Montez, monsieur; montez, mon pauvre monsieur. Dieu! qu'est-ce qu'il a?
Montez, donc!"
Not a bit of it. Mr. Dundyke would not have mounted till now, save by
main force. It took the conductor and three passengers to push and
condole him in; and indeed they never would have accomplished it, but
for the sudden dread that flashed over his mind of what would become of
him if he were left there in the road, hatless, hopeless, and
Frenchless, while his wife and his luggage and the diligence went on to
unknown regions. Some of those passengers, if you could come across them
now, would give you a dolorous history of the pauvre monsieur Anglais
who went raving mad one summer's morning in the diligence.
There was little haste or punctuality in those old days of French
posting--driver, conductor, passengers, and horses all liking to take
their own leisure; and it was not far off twelve o'clock at noon, six
hours after the morning's incomprehensible scene, and eighteen from the
time of departure from Lyons, that the lazy old diligence reached its
destination, and Mr. Dundyke discovered that he was in Grenoble. How he
would ever have found his way out of it, and on the road to Switzerland,
must be a question, had not an Englishman, a young man, apparently in
delicate health, who was sojourning in the town, fortunately chanced to
be in the diligence yard, and heard Mr. Dundyke's fruitless exclamations
and appeals, as he alighted.
"Can I do anything for you?" asked the stranger, stepping forward. "I
perceive we are countrymen."
Overjoyed at hearing once more his own language, the unhappy traveller
seized the Englishman's hand with a rush of delight, and explained the
prolonged torture he had gone through, and the doubt and dilemma he was
still in--at least as well as he could explain what was to him still a
mystery. "The savages cannot understand me," he concluded politely, "and
of course I cannot be expected to understand them."
Neither could the stranger understand just at first; but with the
conductor's tale on one side and Mr. Dundyke's on the other, he made out
the difficulty, and set things straight for him, and went with him to
the diligence office. No coach started for Chambéry, by which route they
must now proceed, till the next morning at nine, so the stranger took
two places for them in that.
"I'm under eternal obligations to you, sir," exclaimed the relieved
traveller, "and if ever I should have it in my power to repay you, be
sure you count on me. It's a common-councilman, sir, that you have
assisted; that's what I am at home, and I'm going on to be Lord Mayor.
You shall have a card for my inauguration dinner, sir, if you are within
fifty miles of me. You will tell me your name, and where you live?"
"My name is Robert Carr," said the stranger. "I am a clergyman. I am
from Holland."
The name struck on a chord of Mrs. Dundyke's memory. It took her back to
the time when she was Betsey Travice, and on a certain visit at
Westerbury. Though not in the habit of putting herself forward when in
her husband's company, she turned impulsively to the stranger now.
"Have you relations at Westerbury, sir? Was your mother's name Hughes?"
"Yes," he said, looking very much surprised. "Both my father and mother
were from Westerbury. I have a grandfather, I believe, living there
still. My mother is dead."
"How very strange!" she exclaimed. "Can you come in this evening to us
at the hotel for half-an-hour?"
"I would, with pleasure, but I leave Grenoble this afternoon," was the
young clergyman's answer. "Can I do anything for you in London?"
"Nothing," said Mrs. Dundyke. "But my husband has given you our address;
and if you will call and see us when we get home----"
"And you'll meet with a hearty welcome, sir," interrupted the
common-councilman, shaking his hand heartily. "I'm more indebted to you
this day than I care to speak."
Mrs. Dundyke watched him out of the yard. He might be about
four-and-twenty; and was of middle height and slightly made, and he
walked away coughing, with his hand upon his chest.
"David," she said to her husband, "I do think he must be a relative of
yours! The Hughes's of Westerbury were related in some way to your
mother."
"I'm sure I don't know," said David Dundyke. "I think I have heard her
talk about them, but I am not sure. Any way I'm obliged to _him_; and
mind, Betsey, if he does come to see us in London, I'll give him a right
good dinner."
Ah, how little! how little do we foresee even a week or two before us!
Never in this world would those two meet again.
And Mr. and Mrs. Dundyke proceeded under convoy to the Hôtel des Trois
Dauphins, and made themselves as comfortable for the night as
circumstances and the stinging gnats permitted.
Arriving at Geneva without further let or hindrance, David Dundyke,
Esquire, and his wife, put up at the Hôtel des Bergues. And on the
morning afterwards, when Mrs. Dundyke had dressed herself and looked
about her, she felt like a fish out of water. The size of the hotel, the
style pervading it, the inmates she caught chance glimpses of in the
corridors, were all so different from anything poor humble Betsey
Dundyke had been brought into contact with, that she began to feel her
inferiority. And yet she looked like a lady, in her good and neat dress,
and her simple cap half covering her fair and still luxuriant hair. Her
face was red, tanned with the journey; but it was a pleasing and a nice
face yet to look upon.
They descended to the great _salle_ a little before ten. Many groups
were breakfasting there at the long tables; most of them English, as
might be heard by their snatches of quiet conversation. Some of them
possessed an air of distinction and refinement that bespoke their
standing in society. An English servant came in once and accosted his
master as "my lord;" and a plain little body in a black silk gown and
white net cap, was once spoken to as "Lady Jane." Mr. Dundyke had never,
to the best of his knowledge, been in a room with a lord before; had
never but once set eyes on a Lady Jane; and that was King Henry the
Eighth's wife in waxwork; and, alive to his own importance though the
common-councilman was, he felt unpleasantly out of place amidst them. In
spite of his ambition his nature was a modest one.
Scarcely had he and his wife begun breakfast, when a lady and gentleman
came in and took the seats next to him. The stranger was a tall, dark,
rather handsome man; taller than Mr. Dundyke, who was by no means
undersized, and approaching within three or four years to the same age.
But while the common councilman was beginning to get rather round and
puffy, just as an embryo alderman is expected to be, the stranger's form
was remarkable for wiry strength and muscle: in a tussle for life or
death, mark you, reader, the one would be a very child in the handling
of the other.
Mr. Dundyke moved his chair a little to give more room, as they sat
down, and the gentleman acknowledged it with a slight bow of courtesy.
He spoke soon after.
"If you are not using that newspaper, sir," pointing to one that lay
near Mr. Dundyke, "may I trouble you for it?"
"No use to me, sir," said the common-councilman, passing the journal. "I
understand French pretty well when it's spoke, but am scarcely scholar
enough in the language to read it."
"Ah, indeed," replied the stranger. "This, however, is German," he
continued, as he opened the paper.
"Oh--well--they look sufficiently alike in print," observed the
common-councilman. "Slap-up hotel, this seems, sir."
"Comfortable," returned the stranger, carelessly. "You are a recent
arrival, I think."
"Got here last night, sir, by the diligence. We are travelling on
pleasure; taking a holiday."
"There's nothing like an occasional holiday, a temporary relaxation from
the cares of business," remarked the stranger, scanning covertly Mr.
Dundyke. "As I often say."
"I am delighted to hear you say it, sir," exclaimed the
common-councilman, hastily assuming a fact, from the words, which
probably the speaker never thought to convey. "I am in business myself,
sir, and this is the first holiday from it I have ever took: I gather
that you are the same. Nothing so respectable as commercial pursuits: a
London merchant, sir, stands as a prince of the world."
"Respectable and satisfactory both," joined in the stranger. "What
branch of commerce--if you don't deem me impertinent--may you happen to
pursue?"
"I'm a partner in a wholesale tea-house, sir," cried Mr. Dundyke,
flourishing his hand and his ring for the stranger's benefit. "Our
establishment is one of the oldest and wealthiest in Fenchurch-street;
known all over the world, sir, and across the seas from here to Chinar.
And as respected as it is known."
"Sir, allow me to shake hands with you," exclaimed the stranger, warmly.
"To be a member of such a house does you honour."
"And I am a common-councilman," continued Mr. Dundyke, his revelations
increasing with his satisfaction, "rising on fast to be a alderman and
Lord Mayor. No paltry dignity that, sir, to be chief magistrate of the
city of London, and ride to court in a gold and scarlet dress, and
broidered ruffles! I suspect we have got some lords round about us
here," dropping his voice to a still lower key, "but I'm blest, sir, if
I'd change my prospects with any of them. I'm to be put up for sheriff
in October."
"Ah," said the stranger, casting his deep black eyes around, "young
scions with more debts than brains, long pedigrees and short purses,
dealers in post obits and the like--_they_ can't be put in comparison
with a Lord Mayor of London."
"And what line are you in, sir?" resumed the gratified Lord Mayor in
prospective. "From our great city, of course?"
The stranger nodded, but, before he answered, he finished his second
_cotelette_, poured out some wine--for his breakfast disdained the more
effeminate luxuries of tea and coffee--popped a piece of ice in, and
drank it. "Have you heard of the house of Hardcastle and Co.?" he asked,
in a tone meant only for Mr. Dundyke's ear.
"The East India merchants?" exclaimed the latter.
The stranger nodded again.
"Of course I have heard of them: who has not? A firm of incalculable
influence, sir; could buy up half London. What of them?"
"Do you know the partners personally?"
"Never saw any of them in my life," replied Mr. Dundyke. "They are
top-sawyers, they are; a move or two above us city tea-folks. Perhaps
you have the honour of being a clerk in the house, sir?"
"I am Mr. Hardcastle," observed the stranger, smiling.
"Bless my soul, sir!" cried the startled Mr. Dundyke. "I'm sure I beg
pardon for my familiarity. But stop--eh--I thought----"
"Thought what?" asked the stranger, for Mr. Dundyke came to a pause.
"That Mr. Hardcastle was an old man. In fact, the impression on my mind
was, that he was something like seventy."
"Pooh, my dear sir! your thoughts are running on my uncle. He has been
virtually out of the firm these ten years, though his name is still
retained as its head. He is just seventy. A hale, hearty man he is too,
and trots about the grounds of his mansion at Kensington as briskly as
one of his own gardeners. But not a word here of who I am," continued
the gentleman, pointing slightly round the room: "I am travelling
quietly, you understand--_incog._, if one may say so--travelling
without form or expense, in search of a little peace and quietness. I
have not a single attendant with me, nor has my wife her maid. Mrs.
Hardcastle," he said, leaning back, the better to introduce his wife.
The lady bowed graciously to Mr. and Mrs. Dundyke, and the former, in
his flurry to acknowledge the condescension, managed to upset the
coffee-pot. Mrs. Dundyke saw a stylish woman of thirty--at least, if a
great deal of dress can constitute style. She had a handsome, but deadly
pale face, with bold eyes, black as her husband's.
"I feel really glad to make your acquaintance," resumed Mr. Hardcastle.
"Standing aloof, as I have purposely done, from the persons of condition
staying in the hotel, I had begun to find it slow."
"Sir, I am sure I'm greatly flattered," said Mr. Dundyke. "Have you been
long here, sir?"
"About three weeks or a month," replied the gentleman, carelessly. "We
shall soon be thinking of going."
Mr. Dundyke did indeed feel flattered, and with reason, for the firm in
question was of the very first consideration, and he was overwhelmed
with the honour vouchsafed him. "A Lord Mayor might be proud to know
him," he exclaimed to his wife, when they got upstairs from the
breakfast. "I hope he'll give me his friendship when I am in the Chair."
"I think they have the next room to ours," observed Mrs. Dundyke. "I saw
the lady standing at the door there this morning, when I was peeping
out, wondering which was the way down to breakfast. Is it not singular
they should be travelling in this quiet way, without any signs of their
wealth about them?"
"Not at all singular," said the shrewd common-councilman. "They are so
overdone with grandeur at home, these rich merchants, with their
servants, and state, and ceremony, that it must be a positive relief to
get rid of it altogether for a time, and live like ordinary people. I
can
|
mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the
soldiers, the piece of drift--all had distracted him. And now he became
conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear
ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp,
distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer
upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it
was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by--it seemed both. Its
recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He
awaited each stroke with impatience and--he knew not why--apprehension.
The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became
maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in
strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he
feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. "If I could free
my hands," he thought, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the
stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously,
reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God,
is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond
the invader's farthest advance."
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed
into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain
nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.
II
Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected
Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a
politician he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently
devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature,
which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking
service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns
ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious
restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of
the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt,
would come, as it comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what he
could. No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South,
no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the
character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good
faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of
the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.
One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench
near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the
gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to
serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her
husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from
the front.
"The Yanks are repairing the railroads," said the man, "and are getting
ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put
it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has
issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian
caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains
will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."
"How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?" Farquhar asked.
"About thirty miles."
"Is there no force on this side the creek?"
"Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single
sentinel at this end of the bridge."
"Suppose a man--a civilian and student of hanging--should elude the
picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar,
smiling, "what could he accomplish?"
The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I
observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of
driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now
dry and would burn like tow."
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked
her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later,
after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the
direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.
III
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost
consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was
awakened--ages later, it seemed to him--by the pain of a sharp pressure
upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant
agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fibre of
his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined
lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid
periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to
an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing
but a feeling of fulness--of congestion. These sensations were
unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was
already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He
was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he
was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung
through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all
at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with
the noise of a loud plash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all
was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the
rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no
additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already
suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at
the bottom of a river!--the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his
eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how
distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became
fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow
and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface--knew it
with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. "To be hanged and
drowned," he thought, "that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot.
No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist
apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle
his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without
interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!--what magnificent, what
superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell
away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each
side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first
one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it
away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a
water-snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted these
words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by
the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly;
his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly,
gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole
body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his
disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water
vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He
felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest
expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs
engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a
shriek!
He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed,
preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of
his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record
of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and
heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on
the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the
veining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the
brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig
to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a
million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the
eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, the
strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their
boat--all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes
and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the
visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point,
and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the
captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in
silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing
at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others
were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms
gigantic.
Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly
within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He
heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at
his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The
man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his
own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye
and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all
famous markmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was
again looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound
of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him
and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued
all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although
no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread
significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the
lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly
and pitilessly--with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and
enforcing tranquillity in the men--with what accurately measured
intervals fell those cruel words:
"Attention, company!... Shoulder arms!... Ready!... Aim!... Fire!"
Farquhar dived--dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his
ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the
volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal,
singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched
him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One
lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he
snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a
long time under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream--nearer to
safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods
flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels,
turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels
fired again, independently and ineffectually.
The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming
vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and
legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning.
"The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a
second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has
probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I
cannot dodge them all!"
An appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by a loud,
rushing sound, _diminuendo_, which seemed to travel back through the air
to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its
deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him,
blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As
he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard
the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it
was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time they will use
a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will
apprise me--the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile.
That is a good gun."
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round--spinning like a top.
The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men
--all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their
colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color--that was all he saw.
He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity
of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In a few moments
he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream
--the southern bank--and behind a projecting point which concealed him
from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one
of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He
dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and
audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could
think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the
bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their
arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate
light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in
their branches the music of æolian harps. He had no wish to perfect his
escape--was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head
roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random
farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged
into the forest.
All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The
forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not
even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a
region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his
wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in
what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a
city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no
dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human
habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both
sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson
in perspective. Over-head, as he looked up through this rift in the
wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange
constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a
secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of
singular noises, among which--once, twice, and again--he distinctly
heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it he found it horribly
swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had
bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His
tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it
forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf
had carpeted the untraveled avenue--he could no longer feel the roadway
beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking,
for now he sees another scene--perhaps he has merely recovered from a
delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it,
and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have
traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the
wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking
fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At
the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable
joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she
is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her
he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white
light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon--then
all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently
from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
CHICKAMAUGA
One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a
small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense
of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and
adventure; for this child's spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for
thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and
conquest--victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries,
whose victors' camps were cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its
race it had conquered its way through two continents and passing a great
sea had penetrated a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a
heritage.
The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor planter. In
his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against
naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a
civilized race to the far South. In the peaceful life of a planter the
warrior-fire survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man
loved military books and pictures and the boy had understood enough to
make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would
hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely,
as became the son of an heroic race, and pausing now and again in the
sunny space of the forest assumed, with some exaggeration, the postures
of aggression and defense that he had been taught by the engraver's art.
Made reckless by the ease with which he overcame invisible foes
attempting to stay his advance, he committed the common enough military
error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme, until he found
himself upon the margin of a wide but shallow brook, whose rapid waters
barred his direct advance against the flying foe that had crossed with
illogical ease. But the intrepid victor was not to be baffled; the
spirit of the race which had passed the great sea burned unconquerable
in that small breast and would not be denied. Finding a place where some
bowlders in the bed of the stream lay but a step or a leap apart, he
made his way across and fell again upon the rear-guard of his imaginary
foe, putting all to the sword.
Now that the battle had been won, prudence required that he withdraw to
his base of operations. Alas; like many a mightier conqueror, and like
one, the mightiest, he could not
curb the lust for war,
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself
confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was
following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before
it, a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not
in what direction, calling with inarticulate cries for his mother,
weeping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little
heart beating hard with terror--breathless, blind with tears--lost in
the forest! Then, for more than an hour, he wandered with erring feet
through the tangled undergrowth, till at last, overcome by fatigue, he
lay down in a narrow space between two rocks, within a few yards of the
stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a
companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above
his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking
from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away
was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in
celebration of nature's victory over the son of her immemorial
enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black
were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother's heart
was breaking for her missing child.
Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of
the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he
had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which
impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and
came to a more open ground--on his right the brook, to the left a
gentle acclivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering
gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It
frightened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction
whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward
the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving
object which he took to be some large animal--a dog, a pig--he could not
name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew
of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one. But
something in form or movement of this object--something in the
awkwardness of its approach--told him that it was not a bear, and
curiosity was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on
gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the
long, menacing ears of the rabbit. Possibly his impressionable mind was
half conscious of something familiar in its shambling, awkward gait.
Before it had approached near enough to resolve his doubts he saw that
it was followed by another and another. To right and to left were many
more; the whole open space about him was alive with them--all moving
toward the brook.
They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their
hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms
hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell
prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike,
save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in
pairs and in little groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting
now and again while others crept slowly past them, then resuming their
movement. They came by dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as
one could see in the deepening gloom they extended and the black wood
behind them appeared to be inexhaustible. The very ground seemed in
motion toward the creek. Occasionally one who had paused did not again
go on, but lay motionless. He was dead. Some, pausing, made strange
gestures with their hands, erected their arms and lowered them again,
clasped their heads; spread their palms upward, as men are sometimes
seen to do in public prayer.
Not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by
an elder observer; he saw little but that these were men, yet crept like
babes. Being men, they were not terrible, though unfamiliarly clad. He
moved among them freely, going from one to another and peering into
their faces with childish curiosity. All their faces were singularly
white and many were streaked and gouted with red. Something in this--
something too, perhaps, in their grotesque attitudes and movements--
reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last summer in the
circus, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on they
crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic
contrast between his laughter and their own ghastly gravity. To him it
was a merry spectacle. He had seen his father's negroes creep upon their
hands and knees for his amusement--had ridden them so, "making believe"
they were his horses. He now approached one of these crawling figures
from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride. The man sank
upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground
as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that
lacked a lower jaw--from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red
gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The
unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave
this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and
breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child
to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified
at last, ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther side of it and took
a more serious view of the situation. And so the clumsy multitude
dragged itself slowly and painfully along in hideous pantomime--moved
forward down the slope like a swarm of great black beetles, with never a
sound of going--in silence profound, absolute.
Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through
the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks
and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck
the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured
their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching
their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which
so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and
bits of metal in their clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward
the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible
companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng--not
much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the
lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march,
conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that
his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such
a following.
Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment
of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the
leader's mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional
blanket, tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together
with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle--such
things, in short, as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the
"spoor" of men flying from their hunters. Everywhere near the creek,
which here had a margin of lowland, the earth was trodden into mud by
the feet of men and horses. An observer of better experience in the use
of his eyes would have noticed that these footprints pointed in both
directions; the ground had been twice passed over--in advance and in
retreat. A few hours before, these desperate, stricken men, with their
more fortunate and now distant comrades, had penetrated the forest in
thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking into swarms and
re-forming in lines, had passed the child on every side--had almost
trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not
awakened him. Almost within a stone's throw of where he lay they had
fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry,
the shock of the cannon, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting."
He had slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with
perhaps a tighter clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial
environment, but as heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead
who had died to make the glory.
The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the creek,
reflected to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing
the whole landscape. It transformed the sinuous line of mist to the
vapor of gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were
many of the stones protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the
less desperately wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the
child now crossed with eager steps; he was going to the fire. As he
stood upon the farther bank he turned about to look at the companions of
his march. The advance was arriving at the creek. The stronger had
already drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into the
flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads.
At this the child's eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable
understanding could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as
that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had the strength to
back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it. They were
drowned. In rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed the
leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not
nearly so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement
and smilingly pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding
light--a pillar of fire to this strange exodus.
Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the belt of
woods, passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a
fence, ran across a field, turning now and again to coquet with his
responsive shadow, and so approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling.
Desolation everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was
visible. He cared nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced
with glee in imitation of the wavering flames. He ran about, collecting
fuel, but every object that he found was too heavy for him to cast in
from the distance to which the heat limited his approach. In despair he
flung in his sword--a surrender to the superior forces of nature. His
military career was at an end.
Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings which had an
oddly familiar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood
considering them with wonder, when suddenly the entire plantation, with
its inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little
world swung half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He
recognized the blazing building as his own home!
For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the revelation, then ran
with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin. There,
conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a
woman--the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched
full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and
full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away,
and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a
frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles--the work
of a shell.
The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He
uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries--something
between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey--a
startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child
was a deaf mute.
Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the
wreck.
A SON OF THE GODS
A STUDY IN THE PRESENT TENSE
A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and left
and forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this wood, facing the open
but not venturing into it, long lines of troops, halted. The wood is
alive with them, and full of confused noises--the occasional rattle of
wheels as a battery of artillery goes into position to cover the
advance; the hum and murmur of the soldiers talking; a sound of
innumerable feet in the dry leaves that strew the interspaces among the
trees; hoarse commands of officers. Detached groups of horsemen are well
in front--not altogether exposed--many of them intently regarding the
crest of a hill a mile away in the direction of the interrupted advance.
For this powerful army, moving in battle order through a forest, has met
with a formidable obstacle--the open country. The crest of that gentle
hill a mile away has a sinister look; it says, Beware! Along it runs a
stone wall extending to left and right a great distance. Behind the wall
is a hedge; behind the hedge are seen the tops of trees in rather
straggling order. Among the trees--what? It is necessary to know.
Yesterday, and for many days and nights previously, we were fighting
somewhere; always there was cannonading, with occasional keen rattlings
of musketry, mingled with cheers, our own or the enemy's, we seldom
knew, attesting some temporary advantage. This morning at daybreak the
enemy was gone. We have moved forward across his earthworks, across
which we have so often vainly attempted to move before, through the
debris of his abandoned camps, among the graves of his fallen, into the
woods beyond.
How curiously we had regarded everything! how odd it all had seemed!
Nothing had appeared quite familiar; the most commonplace objects--an
old saddle, a splintered wheel, a forgotten canteen--everything had
related something of the mysterious personality of those strange men who
had been killing us. The soldier never becomes wholly familiar with the
conception of his foes as men like himself; he cannot divest himself of
the feeling that they are another order of beings, differently
conditioned, in an environment not altogether of the earth. The smallest
vestiges of them rivet his attention and engage his interest. He thinks
of them as inaccessible; and, catching an unexpected glimpse of them,
they appear farther away, and therefore larger, than they really are--
like objects in a fog. He is somewhat in awe of them.
From the edge of the wood leading up the acclivity are the tracks of
horses and wheels--the wheels of cannon. The yellow grass is beaten down
by the feet of infantry. Clearly they have passed this way in thousands;
they have not withdrawn by the country roads. This is significant--it is
the difference between retiring and retreating.
That group of horsemen is our commander, his staff and escort. He is
facing the distant crest, holding his field-glass against his eyes with
both hands, his elbows needlessly elevated. It is a fashion; it seems to
dignify the act; we are all addicted to it. Suddenly he lowers the glass
and says a few words to those about him. Two or three aides detach
themselves from the group and canter away into the woods, along the
lines in each direction. We did not hear his words, but we know them:
"Tell General X. to send forward the skirmish line." Those of us who
have been out of place resume our positions; the men resting at ease
straighten themselves and the ranks are re-formed without a command.
Some of us staff officers dismount and look at our saddle girths; those
already on the ground remount.
Galloping rapidly along in the edge of the open ground comes a young
officer on a snow-white horse. His saddle blanket is scarlet. What a
fool! No one who has ever been in action but remembers how naturally
every rifle turns toward the man on a white horse; no one but has
observed how a
|
me, my son. I shall feel as if we were all in the dear old Jerusalem
itself, and my darling had gathered his palms on Olivet itself, and the
very eyes of the blessed Lord Himself were on thee, and His ears
listening to thee crying out thy Hosannas, and His dear voice speaking
of thee and through thee, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me.'"
But Gottlieb looked grave and rather troubled.
"So few seem thinking just of _His_ listening," he said doubtfully.
"There are the choir-master and the Dean and Chapter, and the other
choristers, and the Cistercians, and the mothers of the other
choristers, who wish them to sing best."
She took his hand. "So there were in that old Jerusalem," she said. "The
Pharisees, who wanted to stop the children's singing; and even the dear
disciples, who often thought they might be troublesome to the Master.
But the little ones sang for Him; and He knew, and was pleased. And that
is all we have to think of now."
He kissed her, and went away with a lightened brow.
Many of the neighbours came in that afternoon to congratulate Magdalis
on her boy--his face, his voice, his gentle ways.
"And then he sings with such feeling," said one. "One sees it is in his
heart."
But in the evening Gottlieb came home very sad and desponding. For some
time he said nothing, and then, with a brave effort to restrain his
tears, he murmured,--
"Oh, mother! I am afraid it will soon be over. I heard one of the
priests say he thought they had a new chorister at the Cistercians whose
voice is as good as mine. So that the archduchess may not like our choir
best, after all."
The mother said nothing for a moment, and then she said,--
"_Whose_ praise and love will the boy at the Cistercian convent sing,
Gottlieb, if he has such a lovely voice?"
"God's!--the dear Heavenly Father and the Saviour!" he said reverently.
"And you, my own? Will another little voice on earth prevent His hearing
you? Do the thousands of thousands always singing to Him above prevent
His hearing you? And what would the world do if the only voice worth
listening to were thine? It cannot be heard beyond one church, or one
street. And the good Lord has ten thousand churches, and cities full of
people who want to hear."
"But thou, mother! Thou and Lenichen, and the bread!"
"It was the raven that brought the bread," she said smiling; "and thou
art not even a raven,--only a little child to pick up the bread the
raven brought."
He sat silent a few minutes, and then the terrible cloud of self and
pride dropped off from his heart like a death-shroud, and he threw
himself into her arms.
"Oh, mother, I see it all!" he said. "I am free again. I have only to
sing to the blessed Lord of all, quite sure He listens, to Him alone,
and to all else as just a little one of the all He loves."
And after the evening meal, and a game with Lenichen, the boy crept out
to the Cathedral to say his prayers in one of the little chapels, and to
thank God.
He knelt in the Lady chapel before the image of the Infant Christ on the
mother's knees.
And as he knelt there, it came into his heart that all the next week was
Passion week, "the still week," and would be silent; and the tears
filled his eyes as he remembered how little he had enjoyed singing that
day.
"How glad the little children of Jerusalem must have been," he thought,
"that they sang to Jesus when they could. I suppose they never could
again; for the next Friday He was dead. Oh, suppose He never let me sing
to Him again!"
And tears and repressed sobs came fast at the thought, and he murmured
aloud, thinking no one was near,--
"Dear Saviour, only let me sing once more here in church to you, and I
will think of no one but you; not of the boys who laugh at me, nor the
people who praise me, nor the Cistercians, nor the archduchess, nor even
the dear choir-master, but only of you, of you, and perhaps of mother
and Lenichen. I could not help that, and you would not mind it. You and
they love me so much more than any one, and I love you really so much
more than all besides. Only believe it, and try me once more."
As he finished, in his earnestness the child spoke quite loud, and from
a dark corner in the shadow of a pillar suddenly arose a very old man in
a black monk's robe, with snow-white hair, and drew close to him, and
laid his hand on his shoulder, and said,--
"Fear not, my son. I have a message for thee."
At first, Gottlieb was much frightened; and then, when he heard the
kind, tremulous old voice, and saw the lovely, tender smile on the
wrinkled, pallid old face, he thought God must really have sent him an
angel at last, though certainly not because he was good.
"Look around on these lofty arches, and clustered columns, and the long
aisles, and the shrines of saints, and the carved wreaths of flowers and
fruits, and the glorious altar! Are these wonderful to thee? Couldst
thou have thought of them, or built them?"
"I could as easily have made the stars, or the forests!" said the child.
"Then look at me," the old man said, with a gentle smile on his
venerable face, "a poor worn-out old man, whom no one knows. This
beautiful house was in my heart before a stone of it was reared. God put
it in my heart. I planned it all. I remember this place a heap of poor
cottages as small as thine; and now it is a glorious house of God. And I
was what they called the master-builder. Yet no man knows me, or says,
'Look at him!' They look at the Cathedral, God's house; and that makes
me glad in my inmost soul. I prayed that I might be nothing, and all the
glory be His; and He has granted my prayer. And I am as little and as
free in this house which I built as in His own forests, or under His own
stars; for it is His only, as they are His. And I am nothing but His own
little child, as thou art. And He has my hand and thine in His, and will
not let us go."
The child looked up, nearly certain now that it must be an angel. To
have lived longer than the Cathedral seemed like living when the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
"Then God will let me sing here next Easter!" he said, looking
confidingly in the old man's face.
"Thou shalt sing, and I shall see, and I shall hear thee, but thou wilt
not hear or see me!" said the old man, taking both the dimpled hands in
one of his. "And the blessed Lord will listen, as to the little children
in Jerusalem of old. And we shall be His dear, happy children for
evermore."
Gottlieb went home and told his mother. And they both agreed, that if
not an angel, the old man was as good as an angel, and was certainly a
messenger of God.
To have been the master-builder of the Cathedral of which it was
Magdalis's glory and pride that her husband had carved a few of the
stones!
The master-builder of the Cathedral, yet finding his joy and glory in
being a little child of God!
VI.
The "silent week" that followed was a solemn time to the mother and the
boy.
Every day, whatever time could be spared from the practice with the
choir, and from helping in the little house and with his mother's
wood-carving, or from playing with Lenichen in the fields, Gottlieb
spent in the silent Cathedral, draped as it was in funereal black for
the Sacred Life given up to God for man.
"How glad," he thought again and again, "the little children of
Jerusalem must have been that they sang when they could to the blessed
Jesus! They little knew how soon the kind hands that blessed them would
be stretched on the cross, and the kind voice that would not let their
singing be stopped would be moaning 'I thirst.'"
But he felt that he, Gottlieb, ought to have known; and if ever he was
allowed to sing his Hosannas in the choir again, it would feel like the
face of the blessed Lord himself smiling on him, and His voice saying,
"Suffer this little one to come unto Me. I have forgiven him."
He hoped also to see the master-builder again; but nevermore did the
slight, aged form appear in the sunshine of the stained windows, or in
the shadows of the arches he had planned.
And so the still Passion week wore on.
Until once more the joy-bells pealed out on the blessed Easter morning.
The city was full of festivals. The rich were in their richest holiday
raiment, and few of the poor were so poor as not to have some sign of
festivity in their humble dress and on their frugal tables.
Mother Magdalis was surprised by finding at her bedside a new dress such
as befitted a good burgher's daughter, sent secretly the night before
from Ursula by Hans and Gottlieb, with a pair of enchanting new crimson
shoes for little Lenichen, which all but over-balanced the little maiden
altogether with the new sense of possessing something which must be a
wonder and a delight to all beholders.
The archduke and the beautiful Italian archduchess had arrived the night
before, and were to go in stately procession to the Cathedral. And
Gottlieb was to sing in the choir, and afterwards, on the Monday, to
sing an Easter greeting for the archduchess at the banquet in the great
town-hall.
The mother's heart trembled with some anxiety for the child.
But the boy's was only trembling with the great longing to be allowed to
sing once more his Hosannas to the blessed Saviour, among the children.
It was given him.
At first the eager voice trembled for joy, in the verse he had to sing
alone, and the choir-master's brows were knitted with anxiety. But it
cleared and steadied in a moment, and soared with a fulness and freedom
none had ever heard in it before, filling the arches of the Cathedral
and the hearts of all.
And the beautiful archduchess bent over to see the child, and her soft,
dark eyes were fixed on his face, as he sang, until they filled with
tears; and, afterwards, she asked who the mother of that little angel
was.
But the child's eyes were fixed on nothing earthly, and his heart was
listening for another voice--the Voice all who listen for it shall
surely hear.
And it said in the heart of the child, that day, "Suffer the little one
to come unto Me. Go in peace. Thy sins are forgiven."
A happy, sacred evening they spent that Easter in the hermit's cell, the
mother and the two children, the boy singing his best for the little
nest, as before for the King of kings.
Still, a little anxiety lingered in the mother's heart about the pomp of
the next day.
But she need not have feared.
When the archduchess had asked for the mother of the little chorister
with the heavenly voice, the choir-master had told her what touched her
much about the widowed Magdalis and her two children; and old Ursula and
the master between them contrived that Mother Magdalis should be at the
banquet, hidden behind the tapestry.
And when Gottlieb, robed in white, with blue feathery wings, to
represent a little angel, came close to the great lady, and sang her the
Easter greeting, she bent down and folded him in her arms, and kissed
him.
And then once more she asked for his mother, and, to Gottlieb's surprise
and her own, the mother was led forward, and knelt before the
archduchess.
Then the beautiful lady beamed on the mother and the child, and, taking
a chain and jewel from her neck, she clasped it round the boy's neck,
and said, in musical German with a foreign accent,--
"Remember, this is not so much a gift, as a token and sign that I will
not forget thee and thy mother, and that I look to see thee and hear
thee again, and to be thy friend."
And as she smiled on him, the whole banqueting-hall--indeed, the whole
world--seemed illuminated to the child.
And he said to his mother as they went home,--
"Mother, surely God has sent us an angel at last. But, even for the
angels, we will never forget His dear ravens. Won't old Hans be glad?"
And the mother was glad; for she knew that God who giveth grace to the
lowly had indeed blessed the lad, because all his gifts and honours were
transformed, as always in the lowly heart, not into pride, but into
love.
But when the boy ran eagerly to find old Hans, to show him the jewel
and tell him of the princely promises, Hans was nowhere to be found; not
in the hermit's house, where he was to have met them and shared their
little festive meal, nor at his own stall, nor in the hut in which he
slept.
Gottlieb's heart began to sink.
Never had his dear old friend failed to share in any joy of theirs
before.
At length, as he was lingering about the old man's little hut,
wondering, a sad, silent company came bearing slowly and tenderly a
heavy burden, which at last they laid on Hans's poor straw pallet.
It was poor Hans himself, bruised and crushed and wounded in his
struggles to press through the crowd to see his darling, his poor
crooked limbs broken and unable to move any more.
But the face was untouched; and when they had laid him on the couch, and
the languid eyes opened and rested on the beloved face of the child
bending over him bathed in tears, a light came over the poor rugged
features, and shone in the dark, hollow eyes, such as nothing on earth
can give--a wonderful light of great, unutterable love, as they gazed
into the eyes of the child, and then, looking upward, seemed to open on
a vision none else could see.
"Jesus! Saviour! I can do no more. Take care of him, Thou thyself,
Jesus, Lord!"
He said no more--no prayer for himself, only for the child.
Then the eyes grew dim, the head sank back, and with one sigh he
breathed his soul away to God.
And such an awe came over the boy that he ceased to weep.
He could only follow the happy soul up to God, and say voicelessly in
his heart,--
"Dear Lord Jesus! I understand at last! The raven was the angel. And
Thou hast let me see him for one moment as he is, as he is now with
Thee, as he will be evermore!"
_Ecce homo_
A STORY OF THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND.
I.
"_Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini._"[1] Again and again the words
of the old Latin hymn echoed through the aisles of the Minster.
It was the dusk of a short winter's day in the year of our Lord One
Thousand.
The shadowed spaces were filled with a vast crowd; all the city had
gathered together to hear the stranger monk. He had come into the city
yesterday, and was to leave to-morrow.
It was reported that he came from an island beyond the seas, of an
ancient race, rich in saints when the Teutons were still wild heathen
tribes; from the borders of the sea without a shore.
All was mystery about him. He flitted through the land like a wandering
voice, a voice crying in the wilderness. No man knew certainly whence he
came or whither he went. He came not so much to teach or to preach, as
to utter a great "cry," and be gone.
It was the old cry, that the generations of men are as the crops of
grass, mown down surely by the mower; and the glory of man as the flower
of the grass, scattered before the mowing-time by any passing wind.
But the old cry would scarcely have gathered the people together and
riveted them in breathless, awe-struck attention as this voice gathered
and fixed them.
To the old cry was added a new cry, "an exceeding great and bitter cry."
"The mowers are at hand, the harvest is come. It may not be to-day or
to-morrow. But _this year_ it will be.
"It is the Saturday night of the ages.
"The world is doomed.
"The thousand years have run their course at last. The long-suffering of
God has an end.
"You may sow your fields this spring.
"You may possibly reap the seed you sow this autumn.
"But you will never see another spring.
"You will never reap another harvest.
"'_Apparebit repentina._' Suddenly and so soon!
"You may keep one more Easter.
"But before the next the graves will have been opened. The resurrection
to endless woe or joy will have come.
"You may even possibly keep one more Christmas. But it will be the last.
It must be all but the last day of the world, for before its octave has
dawned '_apparebit repentina_.'
"He will have come. Not as a babe smiling on His mother's knee, not as
the lowly Saviour to the manger, to live, and teach, and heal, and
suffer, and die.
"As the Judge, to punish, to reward, to avenge.
"And before Him all the world will be gathered, all the ages, and all
the nations.
"But not in one band; in two bands. Divided for ever into two flocks.
Not Teuton and Latin, not rich and poor, not noble and slave, not clergy
and laity, not learned and ignorant; but wicked and good, just and
unjust, merciful and unmerciful, those who love God and men, and those
who love only themselves.
"And the division exists now.
"'_Apparebit repentina_,' His fan in His hand; the winnowing fan. What
does the fan do? It only stirs the air; it stirs the wind of God. It
does not make the wheat wheat, or the chaff chaff. It only divides them;
the wheat into the garner, the chaff _away_.
"Away _whither_?
"It does not make wheat wheat, or tares tares.
"The wheat to the barn; the tares whither? In bundles to be burned.
"This year, this year, in His heavens, or in His fires.
"And what will be burned in His fires? Your gold? your houses? your
harvests? Nay, earthly fires can do that.
"You, you yourselves: in His fires.
"'_Apparebit repentina_.'
"Suddenly, and this year.
"At early dawn, at dead of night, in the hush of the summer morn, in
twilight such as this? We know not. The day and the hour knoweth no man.
"But this year; suddenly, as the lightning which comes before the
thunder.
"As the thief on the slumbering household, as the tramp of the foe on
the slumbering army.
"If ye will, if ye can, sleep on still!
"But listen! already is there no rumble of the far-off storm? no faint
far-off murmur of His footsteps?
"When the thunder-peal comes, it will be too late to warn. The
_lightning will have come first_, shrivelling the earth like a heap of
dry grass, and heaven like a roll of old parchments, leaving you alone
with your Judge; all the world there, and each one as much alone with
Him as if no one else were there, seen through, searched through,
scorched through with one gleam of the eyes that are as a flame of fire.
"Before you the Judge, behind you the flames. The Judge so terrible
that the wicked will rush backward from Him into the fire rather than
meet those eyes again, those eyes which are as a flame of fire searching
and burning through and through.
"And what do they search? _You_, for sin. What will they burn? You,
_with_ your sin, if you will not give up the sin."
And then he laid bare sin after sin--avarice, evil-speaking, wrongs
wrought, wrongs unforgiven, injustice, envy, unmercifulness, pride,
selfishness in all its disguises--until heart after heart felt itself
seen through and laid bare.
Then turning and pointing to the great Crucifix above them he said,--
"Not one of you, not one of us but has helped to weave that crown, to
drive in those nails, to pierce that heart.
"Repent, for He is at hand.
"'_Apparebit repentina._' Suddenly and so soon."
And then suddenly the penetrating voice ceased, and there was a great
hush, broken now and then by a sob, as, high above them, catching the
last rays of the wintry sun, the sacred bowed Head, and the outstretched
hands, rose lifted up on high.
And when the hush began to break up again into separate movement, and
the voice which had bound the multitude into unity had ceased for some
minutes, and one and another turned their eyes again towards the pulpit,
it was empty.
And none in that city ever saw the face of the preacher or heard his
voice again.
Like a voice crying in the wilderness, he vanished again into the
wilderness, and was heard no more.
But from the voices of the choir, begun it was scarcely known how, broke
forth in a long wail the hymn--
"Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini."
When the last notes of the solemn chant had died away, and once more
left a silence in the vast church, the multitude still kept together. A
common instinct of unity seemed to have come on them, as on a besieged
city, or on a ship in a storm.
Not to one, here and there, uncertainly, as death came; but to all!
Suddenly, and this year, the one great event was to come, which was to
unite them all and to divide them all for ever!
Not that this message and this terror were altogether new to them. Long
it had been floating in the air that the distracted world was not to
last beyond the thousand years.
The probability had long loomed vaguely before them; and now this
stranger came and proclaimed, with assured conviction, the certainty.
They waited and waited on, as if listening for the first peal of the
Last Trump; but no sound broke the stillness. The dusk silently died
into the dark, the last rays faded from the Crucifix to which the monk
had pointed, and then slowly the congregation began to creep away to
their homes.
Out of the silent church under the solemn silent vault of stars; each
household again beneath its own roof, yet all still under that great
roof of heaven from which at any moment might burst the final fires.
The city roofs, great and little for the time had become the shadows,
and the upper light shone terribly through.
There was little talking on the way home through the streets, none of
that eager bubbling up of pent-up thoughts which marks the dispersing of
a great listening throng. The mighty common expectation which united
all, sent each back into his own life with great searchings of heart.
For the day at hand was to be a Judgment Day. The day of the great
gathering was also to be the day of the great dividing.
II.
Two fellow-students, Hermann and Gottfried, went back to the Abbey
School together.
And when they reached their cells, Hermann flung his books into a corner
and cried, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity; vain instruments of vain
learning, farewell! Of what use is it to climb a few steps higher than
our fellow-men, if all are to be levelled again at the bar of God so
soon?"
But Gottfried knelt at the little window of his cell, and looked up at
the stars and said, "O Thou Holy and Beautiful, it has been a joy to
brush off a few grains of the dust which hid Thy works. What will it be
to see Thee as Thou art?"
* * * * *
Old Gammer Trüdchen, whose stall was close to the Minster door, crept
silently into her chamber that night; for her stall of beads and cakes
was a wasp's nest of malicious gossip where all dark surmises and evil
reports naturally gathered, sure of something to feed on and something
to sting. And she felt somewhat pricked in conscience; for the preacher
had spoken of "the measure wherewith we mete being measured to us
again," and of evil-speaking _in itself_, whether false or true, being
sure to be severely judged in that day. She did not quite see the
justice of it: if people were to be punished for their evil deeds, why
was she to be punished for foreseeing and antedating the verdict?
Nevertheless, if that was, as the monk said, the rule of the Supreme
Court, it might be as well to take care. And, moreover, one might
sometimes make mistakes. She must admit to herself that possibly she had
been a little too hasty and hard about that poor orphan-girl whose
character had afterwards been cleared, but not soon enough to satisfy
her lover, who had believed the evil report, and gone and died in the
wars, and left her to die of a broken heart at home. She had only
repeated what others hinted, but no one was infallible, not even the
whole town, which might, perhaps, be one reason why the giving sentence
beforehand was objected to. And it certainly might be as well to be
careful, if one's words, even one's whispers, were to be brought up
against one in public on that day, and before another year.
* * * * *
Master Gregory, the exchanger, went home to his chests of treasure; and
on his way he passed the widowed daughter of his old master the
goldsmith, looking pinched and poor as usual, with a racking cough,
leading her two frail, half-starved children. They were neatly clothed,
as always, in their patched garments; and she greeted him with her
wonted gentle friendliness, expecting nothing from him.
But his heart smote him.
"Perhaps I did make rather a hard bargain when her husband died," he
said; "and her father certainly had been good to me. It is true she
should not have married as she did, and I have left her more than she
lost in my will. But if this monk is right, wills and testaments will
not henceforth count for much in the reckoning of that Day. I might as
well, perhaps, do something for her at once."
And that night, as he counted over his gold and parchments (for in those
days misers had more visual delight in their possessions than they have
now), the parchments seemed to shrivel in the light of the fire which
was to consume the very heavens as a scroll, and instead of the pleasant
ring of gold, the dry rustle of dead leaves was in his ears.
But the poor widowed mother he had passed went home lightened in heart,
with her children. And when she had given them their scanty supper, and
folded them to sleep, she knelt beside them, and her thankful tears fell
on the thin little hands over which she wept.
"Thank God!" she murmured, "at last I may long to go to my beloved; for
we shall go _together_, we three, his babes and I; and he will see his
prayers answered, and will know I did my best for them, and did not
hasten away to him too soon, for all the longing to go."
* * * * *
And even the prattling voice of little Hilda, the child of Blind Bruno,
the basketmaker, was hushed as she led her father through the streets,
instead of the faithful dog Keeper, who was growing old. She only clung
to her father's hand closer than usual.
Bruno also was very silent.
Margarethe, the mother, met them, as always, on the threshold; for Bruno
liked no other hands but those which had tended him so faithfully for
twenty years to welcome him, and unloose his cloak, and settle him at
the table or by the hearth. He could not see how thin the hands had
grown, and how worn the face was. The feeble fingers seemed to gather
strength always to do anything for him; and if sometimes he thought they
failed a little, the soft clear voice had always its old tones to cheer
him, and he had always words of tender greeting for her.
But to-night he scarcely seemed to heed even his wife. He leant his head
on his clasped hands for a long time, and said nothing until old Keeper
came, as was his wont, and rubbed his shaggy head against the master's
knees, and little Hilda's hands, for a welcome.
At this, Hilda's composure gave way altogether, and she burst into tears
and sobbed.
"Oh, Keeper, you don't know, and we can't tell you!"
Then Bruno roused himself, and the great cry of the preacher burst from
his lips.
"'_Apparebit repentina_,'" he said; "suddenly it will come, and this
year."
And slowly and solemnly he repeated what they had heard.
A strange joy came over the mother's face as he spoke.
She was lifting up her heart to God and saying,--
"I thank Thee. At last I can long with all my heart to come to Thee. For
we shall not be parted. And I shall not be leaving those Thou gavest me
to keep."
Bruno went on.
"The Judge!" he murmured, "the Avenger, to avenge all wrongs at last!"
And there was a flash of fierce joy on his face, such as might have
gleamed in the eyes of his heathen forefathers, dying in the slaughter
of their foes.
But as she saw it, the quiet delight faded from the mother's face, and
she said tenderly,--
"Our little wrongs, beloved, what will they seem when we see the
nail-prints on His hands and feet?"
"They will not seem little to Him!" replied Bruno sternly.
It was an old controversy between them, and the only one. She had long
ceased to carry on her side of it in any way but in silent prayer.
For the wrong was great, and the doing of it as fresh in her memory as
ever;--the day when her husband's kinsman, Baron Ivo, had entered their
castle and treacherously massacred all who would not acknowledge him to
be the rightful lord; had bound Baron Bruno to a pillar, and had him
blinded, and then had turned them out with their helpless babe into the
frost and snow of the winter night, to wander whither they would, or
die.
Many weary months they had roamed up and down through the land, seeking
redress, until the babe had died. But the enemy was strong, and it was
an age when right could only be held by might. And though many pitied,
none ventured to take up the blinded Baron's cause. And so at last they
crept back to the old city, and found a dwelling beside a brook in the
forest, not far from the city gate, yet in a secret place, where no one
need see them. And Bruno made baskets from the osiers, and she sold
them.
And the poor sightless eyes were healed, but not the heart.
Again and again she had begun to hope the bitter yearning for vengeance
would be softened. Sometimes when his voice faltered as they said the
Lord's Prayer; sometimes when his hand quivered in hers as they knelt
together by the great cross before the hermit's cave; and especially
when, their little Hilda was born, the child of their poverty, the
sunbeam of their dark days.
But always, when she had dared to speak of forgiveness, the old wound
seemed to bleed afresh. And now she felt the old fever was burning in
his heart as fiercely as ever.
Once more that night she pleaded voicelessly with the compassionate
Lord.
"Thou knowest, O merciful One," she said in the depths of her heart, "it
is not his blindness he cannot forgive; it is our poverty and the
child's. It is not his wrong he would have avenged; it is ours. If there
is hatred in his heart, love is beneath the hate, Thou knowest. Forgive,
oh, forgive him! even if he cannot quite forgive."
And then, in her tearful prayers, she pleaded the day when Baron Ivo
himself had come to their hut, pursued by some of the many who had been
turned into beggars, or robbers, by his high-handed tyranny; when, not
seeing Bruno, Bruno had recognized him by his voice, and, nevertheless,
had spared him, and suffered her to hide him from his pursuers, and
suffered the child Hilda to quench his thirst with fresh water from the
spring.
"He could have, avenged himself then," she pleaded. "And, instead, he
saved. Is not that forgiving? Will not that cup of cold water be
remembered by Thee?"
Yet her heart was tossed by anxiety and doubt. Could it be forgiving to
wish evil? And could the unforgiving be forgiven?
That night Bruno also lay awake, and he answered her thoughts, and said
reproachfully to her,--
"Wilt thou, even thou, be hard on me? Forgiveness is Divine; but
vengeance also is Divine. The Judge is just, or we could not trust Him.
If it were a slave, if it were a dog that had been so wronged, must I
not rejoice the wrong-doer should be punished?"
"Thou art wiser than I, my beloved," she said. "I have no wisdom but His
face and His words. '_Father, forgive them_,' He said; and with Him
forgiveness meant Paradise to the forgiven. Else where were we?"
And they said no more.
* * * * *
And that night, in the castle of Baron Ivo, the hall was lighted and the
tables were spread for a great feast. The lights flashed from the castle
steep, from many windows, over the forest and the city.
And a feast in Baron Ivo's castle meant a revel; cowed slaves hurrying
about at the master's bidding; guests, many of them scarcely less cowed,
making forced mirth at his pleasure.
To ears that could hear there was always heaviness in the laughter at
Ivo's feasts. The moans from the dungeons below rose across it all.
But on this night the mirth jarred like a cracked bell; and ere they
rose, the seneschal ventured timidly to ask the Baron if he might accept
the ransom offered by the young wife of the latest captive. "Otherwise,"
he said, "death might be beforehand. And if--if, indeed, the Great Day
was so near, and the reckoning was to come so soon!"
Baron Ivo rose with a curse, and strode off to his chamber in the tower
which looked over the forest, with the dungeons at its base.
But no sleep came to him that night. He seemed to hear a long
procession of heavy steps slowly tramping up the turret-stair from the
dungeons to his chamber. Too often, indeed, had the wails of tortured
captives come up that way.
But as he lay tossing on his bed, all the rest seemed to grow faint and
far-off in comparison with one face which had haunted him often
before;--a kinsman's face, with sightless eyes, which riveted his own on
them, and with groping, imploring hands, which he had once ruthlessly
bound. He would have given the world for one glance of those eyes, and
one forgiving clasp of those blindly groping hands.
"So long ago!" he moaned; "so long ago! And never further off! And now
perhaps I shall soon see him close, too late to atone. There to face the
horror which has stung me to crime after crime! For, having committed
this, I had to do the rest, to ward off vengeance, to secure what had
been so hardly won.
|
. Metrical notation 374
528-535. Rhyme 374-377
536. Blank verse 377
537, 538. Last syllable indifferent 378
539, 540. Names of common English metres 379-384
PART VII.
DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
541. Saxons and Angles 385
542-544. Dialects not coincident 385, 386
545, 546. Traces of the Danes 386, 387
547 Mercian origin of the written English 387
NOTES 393
* * * * *
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE STUDY OF
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
* * * * *
PART I.
GENERAL ETHNOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--DATE.
§ 1. The first point to be remembered in the history of the English
language, is that it was not the primitive and original tongue of any of
the British Islands, nor yet of any portion of them. Indeed, of the _whole_
of Great Britain it is not the language at the present moment. Welsh is
spoken in Wales, Manks in the Isle of Man, and Scotch Gaelic in the
Highlands of Scotland; besides which there is the Irish Gaelic in Ireland.
§ 2. The next point to be considered is the real origin and the real
affinities of the English language.
Its _real_ origin is on the continent of Europe, and its _real_ affinities
are with certain languages there spoken. To speak more specifically, the
native country of the English language is _Germany_; and the _Germanic_
languages are those that are the most closely connected with our own. In
Germany, languages and dialects allied to each other and allied to the
mother-tongue of the English have been spoken from times anterior to
history; and these, for most purposes of philology, may be considered as
the aboriginal languages and dialects of that country.
§ 3. _Accredited details of the different immigrations from Germany into
Britain._--Until lately the details of the different Germanic invasions of
England, both in respect to the particular tribes by which they were made,
and the order in which they succeeded each other, were received with but
little doubt, and as little criticism.
Respecting the tribes by which they were made, the current opinion was,
that they were chiefly, if not exclusively, those of the Jutes, the Saxons,
and the Angles.
The particular chieftains that headed each descent were also supposed to be
known, as well as the different localities upon which they descended.[1]
These were as follows:--
_First settlement of invaders from Germany._--The account of this gives us
A.D. 449 for the first permanent Germanic tribes settled in Britain.
Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, was the spot where they landed; and the
particular name that these tribes gave themselves was that of _Jutes_.
Their leaders were Hengist and Horsa. Six years after their landing they
had established the kingdom of Kent; so that the county of Kent was the
first district where the original British was superseded by the
mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Germany.
_Second settlement of invaders from Germany._--A.D. 477 invaders from
Northern Germany made the second permanent settlement in Britain. The coast
of Sussex was the spot whereon they landed. The particular name that these
tribes gave themselves was that of _Saxons_. Their leader was Ella. They
established the kingdom of the South Saxons (Sussex or Suð-Seaxe); so that
the county of Sussex was the second district where the original British was
superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from
Germany.
_Third settlement of invaders from Germany._--A.D. 495 invaders from
Northern Germany made the third permanent settlement in Britain. The coast
of Hampshire was the spot whereon they landed. Like the invaders last
mentioned, these tribes were Saxons. Their leader was Cerdic. They
established the kingdom of the West Saxons (Wessex or West-Seaxe); so that
the county of Hants was the third district where the original British was
superseded by the mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from
Germany.
_Fourth settlement of invaders from Germany._--A.D. 530, certain Saxons
landed in Essex, so that the county of Essex [East-Seaxe] was the fourth
district where the original British was superseded by the mother-tongue of
the present English, introduced from Northern Germany.
_Fifth settlement of invaders from Germany._--These were _Angles_ in
Norfolk and Suffolk. The precise date of this settlement is not known. The
fifth district where the original British was superseded by the
mother-tongue of the present English was the counties of Norfolk and
Suffolk; the particular dialect introduced being that of the _Angles_.
_Sixth settlement of invaders from Germany._--A.D. 547 invaders from
Northern Germany made the sixth permanent settlement in Britain. The
southeastern counties of Scotland, between the rivers Tweed and Forth, were
the districts where they landed. They were of the tribe of the Angles, and
their leader was Ida. The south-eastern parts of Scotland constituted the
sixth district where the original British was superseded by the
mother-tongue of the present English, introduced from Northern Germany,
§ 4. It would be satisfactory if these details rested upon contemporary
evidence. This, however, is far from being the case.
1. _The evidence to the details just given, is not historical, but
traditional._--a. Beda,[2] from whom it is chiefly taken, wrote nearly 300
years after the supposed event, i.e., the landing of Hengist and Horsa, in
A.D. 449.
b. The nearest approach to a contemporary author is Gildas,[3] and _he_
wrote full 100 years after it.
2. _The account of Hengist's and Horsa's landing, has elements which are
fictional rather than historical_--a. Thus "when we find Hengist and Horsa
approaching the coasts of Kent in three keels, and Ælli effecting a landing
in Sussex with the same number, we are reminded of the Gothic tradition
which carries a migration of Ostrogoths,[4] Visigoths, and Gepidæ, also in
three vessels, to the mouth of the Vistula."--Kemble, "Saxons in England."
b. The murder of the British chieftains by Hengist is told _totidem
verbis_, by Widukind[5] and others, of the Old Saxons in Thuringia.
c. Geoffry of Monmouth[6] relates also, how "Hengist obtained from the
Britons as much land as could be enclosed by an ox-hide; then, cutting the
hide into thongs, enclosed a much larger space than the granters intended,
on which he erected Thong Castle--a tale too familiar to need illustration,
and which runs throughout the mythus of many nations. Among the Old Saxons,
the tradition is in reality the same, though recorded with a slight variety
of detail. In their story, a lapfull of earth is purchased at a dear rate
from a Thuringian; the companions of the Saxon jeer him for his imprudent
bargain; but he sows the purchased earth upon a large space of ground,
which he claims, and, by the aid of his comrades, ultimately wrests it from
the Thuringians."--Kemble, "Saxons in England."
3. _There is direct evidence in favour of their having been German tribes
in England anterior to_ A.D. 447.--a. At the close of the Marcomannic
war,[7] Marcus Antoninus transplanted a number of Germans into Britain.
b. Alemannic auxiliaries served along with Roman legions under
Valentinian.[8]
c. _The Notitia utriusque Imperii_,[9] of which the latest date is half a
century earlier than the epoch of Hengist, mentions, as an officer of
state, the _Comes littoris Saxonici per Britannias_; his government
extending along the coast from Portsmouth to the Wash.
§ 5. _Inference._--As it is nearly certain, that 449 A.D. is _not_ the date
of the first introduction of German tribes into Britain, we must consider
that the displacement of the original British began at an _earlier_ period
than the one usually admitted, and, consequently, that it was more
_gradual_ than is usually supposed.
Perhaps, if we substitute the middle of the _fourth_, instead of the middle
of the _fifth_ century, as the epoch of the Germanic immigrations into
Britain, we shall not be far from the truth.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--THE GERMANIC AREA OF THE
PARTICULAR GERMANS WHO INTRODUCED IT.--EXTRACT FROM BEDA.
§ 6. Out of the numerous tribes and nations of Germany, _three_ have been
more especially mentioned as the chief, if not the exclusive, sources of
the present English population of Great Britain. These are the _Jutes_, the
_Saxons_, and the _Angles_.
§ 7. Now, it is by no means certain that this was the case. On the
contrary, good reasons can be given for believing that the Angles and
Saxons were the same people, and that no such nation as the _Jutes_ ever
left Germany to settle in Great Britain.
§ 8. The chief authority for the division of the German invaders into the
three nations just mentioned is Beda; and the chief text is the following
extract from his "Ecclesiastical History." It requires particular
attention, and will form the basis of much criticism, and frequently be
referred to.
"Advenerunt autem de tribus Germaniæ populis fortioribus, id est Saxonibus,
Anglis, Jutis. De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuarii, et Victuarii, hoc est ea
gens quæ Vectam tenet insulam et ea quæ usque hodie in provincia
Occidentalium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam
Vectam. De Saxonibus, id est, ea regione quæ nunc Antiquorum Saxonum
cognominatur, venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui
Saxones. Porro de Anglis hoc est de illa patria quæ Angulus dicitur, et ab
illo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et
Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Merci, tota
Northanhymbrorum progenies, id est illarum gentium quæ ad Boream Humbri
fluminis inhabitant, cæterique Anglorum populi sunt orti"--"Historia
Ecclesiastica," i. 15.
§ 9. This was written about A.D. 731, 131 years after the introduction of
Christianity, and nearly 300 after the supposed landing of Hengist and
Horsa in A.D. 449.
It is the first passage which contains the names of either the _Angles_ or
the _Jutes_. Gildas, who wrote more than 150 years earlier, mentions only
the _Saxons_--"ferocissimi illi nefandi nominis _Saxones_."
It is, also, the passage which all subsequent writers have either
translated or adopted. Thus it re-appears in Alfred, and again in the Saxon
Chronicle.[10]
"Of Jotum comon Cantware and Wihtware, þæt is seo mæiað þe nú eardaþ on
Wiht, and þæt cynn on West-Sexum ðe man gyt hæt Iútnacyun. Of
Eald-Seaxum comon Eást-Seaxan, and Suð-Seaxan and West-Seaxan. Of Angle
comon (se á siððan stód westig betwix Iútum and Seaxum) Eást-Engle,
Middel-Angle, Mearce, and ealle Norðymbra."
From the Jutes came the inhabitants of Kent and of Wight, that is, the
race that now dwells in Wight, and that tribe amongst the West-Saxons
which is yet called the Jute tribe. From the Old-Saxons came the
East-Saxons, and South-Saxons, and West-Saxons. From the Angles, land
(which has since always stood waste betwixt the Jutes and Saxons) came
the East-Angles, Middle-Angles, Mercians, and all the Northumbrians.
§ 10. A portion of these extracts will now be submitted to criticism; that
portion being the statement concerning the _Jutes_.
The words _usque hodie--Jutarum natio nominatur_ constitute contemporary
and unexceptionable evidence to the existence of a people with a name like
that of the _Jutes_ in the time of Beda--or A.D. 731.
The exact name is not so certain. The term _Jutnacyn_ from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle is in favour of the notion that it began with the sounds of j and
u, in other words that it was _Jut_.
But the term _Geatum_, which we find in Alfred, favours the form in g
followed by ea.
Thirdly, the forms _Wihtware_, and _Wihttan_, suggest the likelihood of the
name being _Wiht_.
Lastly, there is a passage in Asserius[11] which gives us the form
_Gwith_--"Mater" (of Alfred the Great) "quoque ejusdem Osburgh nominabatur,
religiosa nimium fœmina, nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere; quæ erat filia
Oslac famosi pincernæ Æthelwulf regis; qui Oslac Gothus erat natione, ortus
enim erat de Gothis et Jutis; de semine scilicet Stuf et Wihtgur, duorum
fratrum et etiam comitum, qui acceptâ potestate Vectis insulæ ab avunculo
suo Cerdic rege et Cynric filio suo, consobrino eorum, paucos Britones
ejusdem insulæ accolas, quos in eâ invenire potuerant, in loco qui dicitur,
_Gwithgaraburgh_ occiderunt, cæteri enim accolæ ejusdem insulæ ante sunt
occisi aut exules aufugerant."--Asserius, "De Gestis Alfredi Regis."
Now, _Gwith-gara-burgh_ means the _burg_ or _town of_ the _With-ware_;[12]
these being, undoubtedly, no Germans at all, but the native Britons of the
Isle of Wight (Vectis), whose designation in Latin would be _Vecticolæ_ or
_Vectienses_.
This being the case, how can they be descended from German or Danish
_Jutes_? and how can we reconcile the statement of Beda with that of Asser?
§ 11. The answer to this will be given after another fact has been
considered.
Precisely the same confusion between the sounds of w, j, g, io, eæ, u, and
i, which occurs with the so-called _Jutes_ of the Isle of Wight, occurs
with the Jutlanders of the peninsula of Jutland. The common forms are
_Jutland_, _Jute_, _Jutones_, and _Jutenses_, but they are not the only
ones. In A.D. 952, we find "Dania cismarina quam _Vitland_ incolæ
appellant."--"Annales Saxonici."[13]
§ 12. Putting these facts together I adopt the evidence of Asser as to the
_Gwithware_ being British, and consider them as simple _Vecti-colæ_, or
inhabitants of the Isle of _Wight_. They are also the _Vectuarii_ of Beda,
the _Wihtware_ of the Saxon Chronicle, and the _Wihtsætan_ of Alfred.
The Jutes of Hampshire--i.e., the "Jutarum natio--posita contra ipsam
insulam Vectam," and the _Jutnacyn_, I consider to have been the same;
except that they had left the Isle of Wight to settle on the opposite
coast; probably flying before their German conquerors, in which case they
would be the _exules_ of Asser.
The statement of Beda, so opposed to that of Asser, I explain by supposing
that it arose out of an inaccurate inference drawn from the similarity of
the names of the Isle of Wight and the peninsula of Jutland, since we have
seen that in both cases, there was a similar confusion between the
syllables Jut- and Vit-. This is an error into which even a careful writer
might fall. That Beda had no authentic historical accounts of the conquest
of Britain, we know from his own statements in the Preface to his
Ecclesiastical History,[14] and that he partially tried to make up for the
want of them by inference is exceedingly likely. If so, what would be more
natural than for him to conclude that Jutes as well as Angles helped to
subdue the country. The fact itself was probable; besides which he saw at
one and the same time, in England _Vitæ_ (called also _Jutæ_), in immediate
contact with _Saxons_,[26] and on the continent _Jutæ_ (called also _Vitæ_)
in the neighborhood of Angles[27] and Saxons. Is it surprising that he
should connect them?
§ 13. If the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were really _Jutes_ from
_Jutland_, it is strange that there should be no traces of the difference
which existed, then as now, between them and the proper Anglo-Saxons--a
difference which was neither inconsiderable nor of a fleeting nature.
The present Jutlanders are not Germans but Danes, and the Jutes of the time
of Beda were most probably the same. Those of the 11th century were
_certainly_ so, "Primi ad ostium Baltici Sinus in australi ripa versus nos
_Dani, quos Juthas appellant_, usque ad Sliam lacum habitant." Adamus
Bremensis,[15] "De Situ Daniæ" c. 221. Also, "Et prima pars Daniæ, quæ
Jutland dicitur, ad Egdoram[28] in Boream longitudine pretenditur... in
eum angulum qui Windila dicitur, ubi Jutland finem habet," c. 208.
At the time of Beda they must, according to the received traditions, have
been nearly 300 years in possession of the Isle of Wight, a locality as
favourable for the preservation of their peculiar manners and customs as
any in Great Britain, and a locality wherein we have no evidence of their
ever having been disturbed. Nevertheless, neither trace nor shadow of a
trace, either in early or modern times, has ever been discovered of their
separate nationality and language; a fact which stands in remarkable
contrast with the very numerous traces which the Danes of the 9th and 10th
century left behind them as evidence of their occupancy.
§ 14. The words _England_ and _English_ are derived from the _Angles_ of
Beda. The words _Sussex_, _Essex_, _Middlesex_ and _Wessex_, from his
_Saxons_. No objection lies against this; indeed to deny that populations
called _Angle_ and _Saxon_ occupied _England_ and spoke the _Anglo-Saxon_
language would display an unnecessary and unhealthy scepticism. The real
question concerning these two words consists in the relation which the
populations to which they were applied bore to each other. And this
question is a difficult one. Did the Angles speak one language, whilst the
Saxons spoke another? or did they both speak dialects of the same tongue?
Were these dialects slightly or widely different? Can we find traces of the
difference in any of the present provincial dialects? Are the idioms of one
country of Angle, whilst those of another are of Saxon origin? Was the
Angle more like the Danish language, whilst the Saxon approached the Dutch?
None of these questions can be answered at present. They have, however,
been asked for the sake of exhibiting the nature of the subject.
§ 15. The extract from Beda requires further remarks.
_The Angles of Beda._--The statement of Beda respecting the Angles, like
his statement concerning the Jutes, reappears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
and in Alfred.
Ethelweard[16] also adopts it:--"_Anglia vetus_ sita est inter Saxones et
Giotos, habens oppidum capitale quod sermone Saxonico _Sleswic_ nuncupatur,
secundum vero Danos _Hathaby_."
Nevertheless, it is exceptionable and unsatisfactory; and like the previous
one, in all probability, an incorrect inference founded upon the
misinterpretation of a name.
In the eighth century there _was_, and at the present moment there _is_, a
portion of the duchy of Sleswick called _Anglen_ or _the corner_. It is
really what its name denotes, a triangle of irregular shape, formed by the
Slie, the firth of Flensborg, and a line drawn from Flensborg to Sleswick.
It is just as Danish as the rest of the peninsula, and cannot be shown to
have been occupied by a Germanic population at all. Its area is less than
that of the county of Rutland, and by no means likely to have supplied such
a population as that of the Angles of England. The fact of its being a
desert at the time of Beda is credible; since it formed a sort of _March_
or _Debatable Ground_ between the Saxons and Slavonians of Holstein, and
the Danes of Jutland.
Now if we suppose that the real Angles of Germany were either so reduced in
numbers as to have become an obscure tribe, or so incorporated with other
populations as to have lost their independent existence, we can easily see
how the similarity of name, combined with the geographical contiguity of
Anglen to the Saxon frontier, might mislead even so good a writer as Beda,
into the notion that he had found the country of the _Angles_ in the
_Angulus_ (Anglen) of Sleswick.
The true _Angles_ were the descendants of the _Angli_ of Tacitus. Who these
were will be investigated in §§ 47-54.
§ 16. _The Saxons of Beda._--The Saxons of Beda reached from the country of
the Old Saxons[29] on the Lippe, in Westphalia, to that of the
Nordalbingian[30] Saxons between the Elbe and Eyder; and nearly, but not
quite, coincided with the present countries of Hanover, Oldenburg,
Westphalia, and part of Holstein. This we may call the _Saxon_, or (as
reasons will be given for considering that it nearly coincided with the
country of the Angles) the _Anglo-Saxon_ area.
§ 17. _River-system and sea-board of the Anglo-Saxon area._--As the
invasion of England took place by sea, we must expect to find in the
invaders a maritime population. This leads to the consideration of the
physical character of that part of Germany which they occupied. And here
comes a remarkable and unexpected fact. The line of coast between the Rhine
and Elbe, the line which in reasoning _a priori_, we should fix upon as the
most likely tract for the bold seamen who wrested so large an island as
Great Britain from its original occupants (changing it from _Britain_ to
_England_), to have proceeded from, is _not_ the country of the
Anglo-Saxons. On the contrary, it is the country of a similar but different
section of the Germanic population, a section which has not received the
attention from the English historian which it deserves. The country in
question is the area of--
§ 18. _The Frisians._--At the present moment the language of the Dutch
province of Friesland is materially different from that of the other parts
of the kingdom of Holland. In other words it is not Dutch. Neither is it
German--although, of course, it resembles both languages. On the other
hand, it is more like the English than any other language or dialect in
Germany is.
It is a language of considerable antiquity, and although at present it is
spoken by the country-people only, it possesses a considerable literature.
There is the _Middle_ Frisian of Gysbert Japicx,[17] and the _Old_ Frisian
of the Frisian Laws.[18] The older the specimen of the Frisian language
the more closely does it show its affinity to the English; hence the
earliest Frisian and the Anglo-Saxon are exceedingly alike. Nevertheless
they differ.
§ 19. The Frisian was once spoken over a far greater area than at present.
It was the original language of almost all Holland. It was the language of
East Friesland to a late period. It was, probably, the language of the
ancient Chauci. At the present time (besides Friesland) it survives in
Heligoland, in the islands between the Ems and Weser, in part of Sleswick,
and in a few localities in Oldenburg and Westphalia.
Hence it is probable that the original Frisian, extending to an uncertain
and irregular distance inland, lay between the Saxons and the sea, and
stretched from the Zuyder Zee to the Elbe; a fact which would leave to the
latter nation the lower Elbe and the Weser as their water-system: the
extent to which they were in direct contact with the ocean being less than
we are prepared to expect from their subsequent history.
On the other hand the _a priori_ probabilities of there being Frisians as
well as Anglo-Saxons amongst the conquerors of Great Britain are
considerable.--See §§ 55, 56.
§ 20. The Anglo-Saxon area coincided--
1. _Politically._--With the kingdom of Hanover, the duchy of Oldenburg, and
parts of Westphalia and Holstein.
2. _Physically._--With the basin of the Weser.
It was _certainly_ from the Anglo-Saxon, and _probably_ from a part of the
Frisian area that Great Britain was first invaded.
This is as much as it is safe to say at present. The preceding chapter
investigated the _date_ of the Germanic migration into Britain; the present
has determined the _area_ from which it went forth.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
OF THE DIALECTS OF THE SAXON AREA, AND OF THE SO-CALLED OLD SAXON.
§ 21. The area occupied by the Saxons of Germany has been investigated; and
it now remains to ask, how far the language of the occupants was absolutely
identical throughout, or how far it fell into dialects or sub-dialects.
There were at least _two_ divisions of the Saxon; (1st) the Saxon of which
the extant specimens are of English origin, and (2nd), the Saxon of which
the extant specimens are of Continental origin. We will call these at
present the Saxon of England, and the Saxon of the Continent.
§ 22. Respecting the Saxon of England and the Saxon of the Continent, there
is good reason for believing that the _first_ was spoken in the _northern_,
the _second_ in the _southern_ portion of the Saxon area, i.e., the one in
Hanover and the other in Westphalia, the probable boundaries between them
being the line of highlands between Osnaburg and Paderborn.
§ 23. Respecting the Saxon of England and the Saxon of the Continent, there
is good reason for believing that, whilst the _former_ was the
mother-tongue of the Angles and the conquerors of England, the _latter_ was
that of the Cherusci of Arminius, the conquerors and the annihilators of
the legions of Varus.[19]
§ 24. Respecting the Saxon of England and the Saxon of the Continent, it is
a fact that, whilst we have a full literature in the former, we have but
fragmentary specimens of the latter--these being chiefly the following: (1)
the Heliand,[20] (2) Hildubrand and Hathubrant,[21] (3) the Carolinian
Psalms.[22]
§ 25. The preceding points have been predicated respecting the difference
between the two ascertained Saxon dialects, for the sake of preparing the
reader for the names by which they are known.
THE SAXON OF THE CONTINENT THE SAXON OF ENGLAND
MAY BE CALLED MAY BE CALLED
1. Continental Saxon. Insular Saxon.
2. German Saxon. English Saxon.
3. Westphalian Saxon. Hanoverian Saxon.
4. South Saxon. North Saxon.
5. Cheruscan Saxon. Angle Saxon.
6. Saxon of the Heliand. Saxon of Beowulf.[23]
§ 26. The Saxon of England _is_ called Anglo-Saxon; a term against which no
exception can be raised.
§ 27. The Saxon of the Continent _used_ to be called _Dano_-Saxon, and _is_
called _Old_ Saxon.
§ 28. _Why called Dano-Saxon._--When the poem called _Heliand_ was first
discovered in an English library, the difference in language between it and
the common Anglo-Saxon composition was accounted for by the assumption of a
_Danish_ intermixture.
§ 29. _Why called _Old_ Saxon._ When the Continental origin of the
_Heliand_ was recognised, the language was called _Old_ Saxon, because it
represented the Saxon of the mother-country, the natives of which were
called _Old_ Saxons by the _Anglo_-Saxons themselves. Still the term is
exceptionable; as the Saxon of the Heliand is probably a _sister_-dialect
of the _Anglo_-Saxon, rather than the _Anglo_-Saxon itself in a Continental
locality. Exceptionable, however, as it is, it will be employed.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV.
AFFINITIES OF THE ENGLISH WITH THE LANGUAGES OF GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA.
§ 30. Over and above those languages of Germany and Holland which were akin
to the dialects of the Anglo-Saxons, cognate languages were spoken in
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and the Feroe isles, i.e., in
Scandinavia.
§ 31. The general collective designation for the Germanic tongues of
Germany and Holland, and for the Scandinavian languages of Denmark, Sweden,
Norway, Iceland, and the Feroe Isles, is taken from the name of those
German tribes who, during the decline of the Roman Empire, were best known
to the Romans as the _Goths_; the term _Gothic_ for the Scandinavian and
Germanic languages, collectively, being both current and convenient.
§ 32. Of this great _stock_ of languages the Scandinavian is one _branch_;
the Germanic, called also Teutonic, another.
§ 33. The Scandinavian branch of the Gothic stock comprehends, 1. The
dialects of Scandinavia Proper, i.e., of Norway and Sweden; 2. of the
Danish isles and Jutland; 3. of Iceland; 4. of the Feroe Isles.
§ 34. The Teutonic branch falls into three divisions:--
1. The Mœso-Gothic.
2. The High Germanic.
3. The Low Germanic.
§ 35. It is in the Mœso-Gothic that the most ancient specimen of any Gothic
tongue has been preserved. It is also the Mœso-Gothic that was spoken by
the conquerors of ancient Rome; by the subjects of Hermanric, Alaric,
Theodoric, Euric, Athanaric, and Totila.
In the reign of Valens, when pressed by intestine wars, and by the
movements of the Huns, the Goths were assisted by that emperor, and settled
in the Roman province of Mœsia.
Furthermore, they were converted to Christianity; and the Bible was
translated into their language by their Bishop Ulphilas.
Fragments of this translation, chiefly from the Gospels, have come down to
the present time; and the Bible translation of the Arian Bishop Ulphilas,
in the language of the Goths of Mœsia, during the reign of Valens, exhibits
the earliest sample of any Gothic tongue.
§ 36. The Old High German, called also Francic[24] and Alemannic,[25] was
spoken in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, in Suabia, Bavaria, and
Franconia.
The Middle High German ranges from the thirteenth century to the
Reformation.
§ 37. The low Germanic division, to which the Anglo-Saxon belongs, is
currently said to comprise six languages, or rather four languages in
different stages.
I. II.--The Anglo-Saxon and Modern English.
III. The Old Saxon.
IV. V.--The Old Frisian and Modern Dutch.
VI.--The Platt-Deutsch, or Low German.
§ 38. _The Frisian and Dutch._--It is a current statement that the Old
Frisian bears the same relation to the Modern Dutch of Holland that the
Anglo-Saxon does to the English.
The truer view of the question is as follows:--
1. That a single language, spoken in two dialects, was originally common to
both Holland and Friesland.
2. That from the northern of these dialects we have the Modern Frisian of
Friesland.
3. From the southern, the Modern Dutch of Holland.
The reason of this refinement is as follows:--
The Modern Dutch has certain grammatical forms _older_ than those of the
old Frisian; e.g., the Dutch infinitives and the Dutch weak substantives,
in their oblique cases, end in -en; those of the Old Frisian in -a: the
form in -en being the older.
The true Frisian is spoken in few and isolated localities. There is--
1. The Frisian of the Dutch state called Friesland.
2. The Frisian of the parish of Saterland, in Westphalia.
3. The Frisian of Heligoland.
4. The North Frisian, spoken in a few villages of Sleswick. One of the
characters of the North Frisian is the possession of a dual number.
In respect to its stages, we have the Old Frisian of the Asega-bog, the
Middle Frisian of Gysbert Japicx,[31] and the Modern Frisian of the present
Frieslanders, Westphalians, and Heligolanders.
§ 39. _The Low German and Platt-Deutsch._--The words _Low-German_ are not
only lax in their application, but they are _equivocal_; since the term has
two meanings, a _general_ meaning when it signifies a division of the
Germanic languages, comprising English, Dutch, Anglo-S
|
trial; but he was liberated on promising
that he would no longer issue the work. Mr. Charles Bradlaugh and
Mrs. Annie Besant thereupon undertook the task of defending the right
of publication. They reprinted and published the pamphlet, formally
inviting the authorities to prosecute them. "It was for the sake of
free discussion that we published the assailed pamphlet when its
former seller yielded to the pressure put upon him by the police;
it was not so much in defence of this pamphlet, as to make the way
possible for others dealing with the same topic that we risked the
penalty which has fallen upon us." [2]
The police authorities accepted the challenge, and a prosecution was
immediately commenced. The trial, which lasted four days, took place
in the Court of Queen's Bench, before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn
and a special jury. Sir Hardinge Gifford (then Solicitor-General),
Mr. Douglas Straight and Mr. Mead appeared for the prosecution;
Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant appeared in person.
The indictment charged the defendants with having published and
sold an obscene book, with intent to contaminate and corrupt
public morals. The author of The Fruits of Philosophy advocated
early marriage with limitation of families, and referred in the
course of his work to such preventive checks as were known at that
time. The Solicitor-General, in opening the case, sought to persuade
the jury that Dr. Knowlton speciously used that line of argument as
a disguise and pretext for suggesting illicit intercourse without
risk of pregnancy ensuing. An indignant rebuke from Sir Alexander
Cockburn caused the Solicitor-General to abandon that line of false
suggestion, and to fall back upon the contention that it was illegal
to issue a work containing "a chapter on restriction, not written
in any learned language, but in plain English, in a facile form,
and sold... at sixpence." He therefore asked the jury to declare
that the book was an "obscene publication."
The speech of the Solicitor-General and his general conduct of the case
are matters of trivial importance; the notable features of the trial
were the addresses of the two defendants and the summing-up by the Lord
Chief Justice. Mrs. Besant's speech to the jury was a remarkable and
memorable effort. She examined and discussed the population question
in every aspect, contending that, in view of the evils arising from
excessive increase, the advocacy of prudential methods was a sacred
duty to humanity. In the opening passages of her speech she pointed
out, in the most impressive manner, that she pleaded for the welfare
of others:
It is not as defendant that I plead to you to-day--not simply
as defending myself do I stand here--but I speak as counsel
for hundreds of the poor, and it is they for whom I defend this
case. My clients are scattered up and down through the length
and breadth of the land; I find them amongst the poor, amongst
whom I have been so much; I find my clients amongst the fathers,
who see their wage ever reducing, and prices ever rising; I
find my clients amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent
child-bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young
to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them. It
is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the clothing,
the training of a large family of young children to look to;
but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who should
be at home with her little ones, has to go out and work in the
fields for wage to feed them when her presence is needed in the
house. I find my clients among the little children. Gentlemen,
do you know the fate of so many of these children?--the little
ones half-starved because there is food enough for two but not
enough for twelve; half-clothed because the mother, no matter what
her skill and care, cannot clothe them with the money brought
home by the breadwinner of the family; brought up in ignorance,
and ignorance means pauperism and crime--gentlemen, your happier
circumstances have raised you above this suffering, but on you
also this question presses; for these over-large families mean
also increased poor-rates, which are growing heavier year by
year. These poor are my clients, and if I weary you by length
of speech, as I fear I may, I do so because I must think of them
more even than I think of your time or trouble.
With righteous indignation Mrs. Besant repelled the accusation that
The Fruits of Philosophy was an "obscene" publication. She showed
by a quotation from Lord Campbell's Act (upon which the prosecution
was based) that the statutory definition of obscenity could not
possibly be applied to a book containing "dry physiological details
put forward in dry, technical language." She next proceeded to urge
that the right of free discussion upon matters of public welfare was
really attacked by the prosecution:
Do you, gentlemen, think for one moment that myself and my
co-defendant are fighting the simple question of the sale or
publication of this sixpenny volume of Dr. Knowlton's? Do you
think that we would have placed ourselves in the position in
which we are at the present moment for the mere profit to be
derived from a sixpenny pamphlet of forty-seven pages? No, it
is nothing of the sort; we have a much larger interest at stake,
and one of vital interest to the public, one which we shall spend
our whole lives in trying to uphold. The question really is one of
the right to public discussion by means of publication, and that
question is bound up in the right to sell this sixpenny pamphlet
which the Solicitor-General despises on account of its price.
It would, however, be impossible to give, by extracts of reasonable
length, an adequate idea of the striking and eloquent speech which
Mrs. Besant addressed to the jury in her defence. The whole question
of over-population and its consequences was examined with the greatest
care and completeness. Profoundly convinced of the justice of her
cause, Mrs. Besant pleaded that the teachings of New-Malthusianism,
by making early marriage possible, promoted happiness and morality. She
said:
I think, therefore, I may fairly put it that every young man
naturally desires to make a home and enter upon married life
when first he comes out into the world. I do not believe that
any young man sets out with the intention of rushing into fast
life and dissipation, but men are frequently drawn into habits
of that kind because they fear the results that follow from
early marriage. Since I am told that our object is to increase
immorality, and that we only use the word "marriage" to conceal
the foulest designs upon the purity of society, I may say freely
that I hold early marriages to be the very salvation of young men,
and especially of young men in our large cities. I hold the belief
with a depth of conviction which I cannot put to you in words,
that for one man and one woman to help, comfort, and support
one another, which they are by nature adapted to do, is a state
which is to be reached, which is to be perpetuated, by marriage
and in no other way. It is only by companionship, and the union
between a man and a woman, that this is possible. Shut a man out
from the loving influence of home, the golden institutions of
the fireside, his wife's society, and the happiness of becoming
a father, and you induce a life of profligacy. Gentlemen, do not
be deceived. There is no talk in this book of preventing men and
women from becoming parents; all that is sought here is to limit
the number of their family. And we do not aim at that because
we do not love children, but, on the contrary, because we do
love them, and because we wish to prevent them from coming into
the world in greater numbers than there is the means of properly
providing for. Children, I believe, have an influence upon parents
purifying in the highest degree, because they teach the parents
self-restraint, self-denial, thoughtfulness, and tenderness to an
extent that cannot possibly be over-estimated; and it is because
I wish to have it made possible for young men and for young women
to have these influences brought to bear upon them in their youth,
that I advocate the circulation of a book that will put within
their reach the knowledge of how to limit the extent of their
families within their capabilities of providing for them; for
no man can look with pride and happiness upon his home if he has
more children than he can clothe and educate. It is because I wish
them to marry in the springtime of their youth that I ask you by
your verdict in this action to make discussion on these subjects
possible, and that men should not be driven to find a substitute
for true and pure womanhood and wifehood in other directions. If
you render this possible you will make your streets purer and
your families happier than they are at present.
Having in the course of a prolonged speech explained and vindicated the
New-Malthusian doctrine from misrepresentations inspired by ignorance,
prejudice, and bigotry, Mrs. Besant concluded her memorable address
in the following words:
I fairly put it that unless you honestly believe that my whole
speech to you has been one mass of falsehoods; unless you
believe my intent to be a bad intent; unless you believe I have
been deliberately deceiving you throughout, and stand here before
you in the very worst character a woman could take upon herself,
namely, that of striving to corrupt the morals of the young under
the false pretence of purity here put forward, and unless you think
that, for the after-part of my life, I deserve to pass through it
with the brand upon me that twelve gentlemen, after all patience,
thought not only that the book was a mistake, the opinions wrong,
and the arguments unconvincing, but, in the terrible language
of the indictment, that I am guilty of "wickedly devising and
contriving as much as in me lay to vitiate and corrupt the morals
of youth" as well as of others,--unless, I say, you believe that
that has been my object and purpose, on this indictment, I shall
call upon you, gentlemen, to return a verdict of "Not Guilty,"
and to send me home free, believing from my heart and conscience
that I have been guilty only of doing that which I ought to do in
grappling honestly with a matter I consider myself justified in
grappling with--that terrible poverty and misery which is around
us on every hand. Unless you are prepared, gentlemen, to brand
me with malicious meaning, I ask you, as an English woman, for
that justice which it is not impossible to expect at the hands
of Englishmen--I ask you to give me a verdict of "Not Guilty,"
and to send me home unstained.
Mr. Bradlaugh, in his speech, dealt more fully than his co-defendant
had been able to do with the legal and physiological aspects of
the case. In the clearest fashion he maintained the lawfulness of
disseminating the knowledge of innocent prudential checks:
I submit to you, gentlemen of the jury, that it is moral to teach
poor people to marry early, and that this teaching avoids and will
diminish illicit intercourse. I will not weary you with reading
the whole of the report on the "Employment of Women and Children
in Agriculture," from which my co-defendant quoted that terrible
extract from the report of Bishop Fraser. You will there find
that the illicit intercourse which we are charged with trying to
produce is an illicit intercourse which is going on and bringing
with it the birth of the child, and bringing with it the murder of
the child by the mother, because there is the pang of starvation
and misery and shame to contend with. I say that it is amongst the
poor married people that the evils of over-population are chiefly
felt, and that it cannot tend to deprave their morals to teach
them how to intelligently check this over-population.... I submit
that the advocacy of all checks is lawful except such as advocate
the destruction of the foetus after conception or of the child
after birth. I say that the advocacy of every birth-restricting
check is lawful which is not the advocacy of the destruction of
human life in any form after that life has been created.
Assuming the legality of such advocacy, it is useless unless conveyed
in plain and simple language:
I say that the advocacy of any check amongst the masses to be
useful must of necessity be put in the plainest language and in
the cheapest form, and be widely spread; and I press that upon
you because I understand that the learned Solicitor-General in
his argument put it that one of the faults of this pamphlet was
that it was not obscured in learned language. If we possessed the
facility of expressing ourselves in French, or Italian, or Greek,
or Latin, or Hebrew, or Arabic, what earthly use would that be
to the poor unfortunate wretches whose misery we want to address?
After traversing with his accustomed skill and acumen the charges
formulated by the prosecution, Mr. Bradlaugh concluded his address
with a peroration full of passionate eloquence:
We want (he said) to make the poor more comfortable; and you
tell us we are immoral. We want to prevent them bringing into
the world little children to suck death, instead of life, at
the breasts of their mother; and you tell us we are immoral. I
should not say that, perhaps, for you, gentlemen, may judge things
differently from myself; but I know the poor. I belong to them. I
was born amongst them. Among them are the early associations of my
life. Such little ability as I possess to-day has come to me in
the hard struggle of life. I have had no University to polish my
tongue; no Alma Mater to give to me any eloquence by which to move
you. I plead here simply for the class to which I belong, and for
the right to tell them what may redeem their poverty and alleviate
their misery. And I ask you to believe in your heart of hearts,
even if you deliver a verdict against us here--I ask you, at least,
to try and believe both for myself and the lady who sits besides
me (I hope it for myself, and I earnestly wish it for her), that
all through we have meant to do right, even if you think that we
have done wrong.... My co-defendant referred, in earnest language,
to the letters which she had received from women, and clergymen,
and others throughout the country. I, too, have received many warm
words of sympathy from those who think that I am right. It is true
many of them may be ignorant people, and therefore may be wrong;
but they have written to encourage me with their kindly sympathy
in my pleading before you. If we are branded with the offence of
circulating an obscene book, many of these poor people will still
think "No." They think such knowledge would prevent misery in
their families, would check hunger in their families, and would
hinder disease in their families. Do you know what poverty means
in a poor man's house? It means that when you are reproaching a
poor and ignorant man with brutality, you forget that he is merely
struggling against that hardship of life which drives all chivalry
and courtesy out of his existence. Do not blame poor men too much
that they are rough and brutal. Think mercifully of a man such as
a brick-maker, who, going home after his day's toil, finds six
or seven little ones crying for bread, and clinging around his
wife for the food which they cannot get. Think you such a scene
as that is not sufficient to make both himself and her hungry and
angry too? Gentlemen, it is for you, in your deliverance of guilty
or not guilty, to say how we are to go from this court--whether,
when we leave this place, if you mark us guilty, his lordship
may feel it to be his duty to sentence us, and put upon us the
brand of a doom such as your verdict may warrant; or whether, by
your verdict of not guilty--which I hope for myself and desire
for my co-defendant--we may go out of this court absolved from
that shame which this indictment has sought to put upon us.
We must pass over the evidence given by Dr. Alice Vickery,
Dr. C. R. Drysdale, Mr. Bohn and others for the defence; and refer
briefly to the summing-up of the Lord Chief Justice (Sir Alexander
Cockburn). His lordship dwelt upon "the mischievous character and
effect" of the prosecution, and declared that "a more ill-advised and
more injudicious proceeding" had probably never been brought into a
court of justice. He adverted in terms of severity to the secrecy that
had been maintained as to the real originators of the prosecution. In
discussing the questions involved, his lordship referred to the
theory of Malthus as "a theory which astonished the world, though
it is now accepted as an irrefragable truth, and has since been
adopted by economist after economist. That the evils arising from
over-population," he continued, "are evils which, if they could be
prevented, it would be the first business of human charity to prevent,
there cannot be any doubt. That the evils of population are real,
and not imaginary, no one acquainted with the state of society in
the present day can possibly deny." Upon the question whether or not
the advocacy of prudential checks tended to corrupt public morals,
his lordship said to the jury: "You must decide that with a due
regard and reference to the law, and with an honest and determined
desire to maintain the morals of mankind. But, on the other hand, you
must carefully consider what is due to public discussion, and with
an anxious desire not, from any prejudiced view of this subject, to
stifle what may be a subject of legitimate enquiry." The concluding
passages of the charge to the jury are so significant that they are
here reproduced entire:
If you are of opinion that this work of Knowlton's, although well
intended, and although the publication of it by the defendants
may be intended for the benefit of mankind, if you think they
have taken an erroneous view as to the effect of the work, and
that its entire scope is subversive of the morals of society,
if that is your opinion, it is then your bounden duty to find
the defendants liable. But whilst that is the case, it is for
the prosecution to make out the charge they have undertaken to
establish. If you think they have failed--if you think these are
matters which may fairly be discussed--that the proper answer to
them is by refuting them by argument and not by prosecution, the
defendants are entitled to your verdict. Or if you have any doubt
as to the effect of this work you are bound to bring them in not
guilty. I would only say in conclusion, that whatever outrages
decency, whatever tends to corrupt the morals of society, and
especially the morals and purity of women--whatever tends to have
that result is, when published, an offence against the law. But
that offence like every other must be made out. If you think it
is made out, if there is a conviction in your minds that though
they have acted from a desire to do good, yet in your opinion
they have done wrong, they have then brought themselves within
the definition of the statute.
Despite the powerful speeches of the defendants and the obviously
sympathetic charge of the judge, the jury were not equal to their
opportunity to make a clear stand for freedom of discussion. They
returned a halting "special" verdict, declaring that the book was
"calculated to deprave public morals," but at the same time they
entirely exonerated the defendants from any corrupt motives in
publishing it. Upon this the judge reluctantly directed the jury to
return a verdict of guilty.
The remainder of the story is most concisely told in Mrs. Besant's
own words: "Obviously annoyed at the verdict, the Lord Chief Justice
refused to give judgment, and let us go on our own recognisances. When
we came up later for judgment, he urged us to surrender the pamphlet as
the jury had condemned it; said our whole course with regard to it had
been right, but that we ought to yield to the judgment of the jury. We
were obstinate, and I shall never forget the pathetic way in which the
great judge urged us to submit, and how at last when we persisted that
we would continue to sell it till the right to sell it was gained, he
said that he would have let us go free if we would have yielded to the
court, but our persistence compelled him to sentence us. We gave notice
of appeal, promising not to sell till the appeal was decided, and he
let us go on our own recognisances. On appeal we quashed the verdict,
and went free; we recovered all the pamphlets seized, and publicly
sold them; we continued the sale till we received an intimation that
no further prosecution would be attempted against us, and then we
dropped the sale of the pamphlet and never took it up again." [3]
Having given an account of this memorable trial, we proceed to trace
some of its far-reaching effects. In the first place, Dr. Knowlton's
pamphlet gained immediately an enormous circulation. Before the
prosecution the annual sales were very small; within three months from
the time when proceedings were instituted against the publishers,
125,000 copies were sold. But this result, startling as it appears,
was by no means the most important phase of the impetus given to the
public mind upon the question of population by the cause célèbre of
"The Queen versus Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant." During the
trial the newspapers of this country contained lengthy reports of
the proceedings, and the remarkable speeches of the defendants
were thus carried far and wide. Their popular statements of the
Malthusian position, their description of the evils arising from
over-population and the remedies that they proposed were sent
forth into many thousands of homes into which no hint of the truth
would otherwise have penetrated. The press, with its myriad voices,
became, for the time, a mighty organ of New-Malthusian propaganda,
repeating, in tones that echoed round the world, the eloquent words
of two social reformers to whom the miseries of the poor were known,
and who had faced the danger of imprisonment and of social obloquy
in order to proclaim that which they felt to be the only efficient
remedy for poverty.
Amidst the public excitement caused by this famous trial, The
Malthusian League was called into existence, and has since carried
forward the work of propaganda in an organised and systematic
fashion. It was founded to promote the following objects:
I. To agitate for the abolition of all penalties on the public
discussion of the Population Question, and to obtain such a statutory
definition as shall render it impossible, in the future, to bring
such discussions within the scope of the common law as a misdemeanor.
II. To spread among the people, by all practicable means, a knowledge
of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its bearing
upon human conduct and morals.
Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, M.D., F.R.C.S., Eng., has from the first
been the President of the League, and has devoted himself to the
work of explaining and advocating the New-Malthusian principle. The
list of Vice-Presidents has included the names of the late M. Yves
Guyot, a distinguished French deputé and Minister of State, and of
Mr. J. Bryson, President of the Northumberland Miners' Association. A
reference to its present composition will show the reader that the
efforts of the League to spread enlightened views on the population
question have the approval and sympathy of influential persons in
this and in other countries. [4]
The work of the League is chiefly carried on by public lectures and
meetings, the dissemination of literature, and letters addressed
to the editors of newspapers. By these means the public mind is
constantly being influenced in the direction of rational views upon
the population question.
The annual meetings of members and friends of the League have afforded
valuable opportunities of obtaining expressions of opinion upon
the subject of Malthusianism from many influential persons. Letters
expressing hearty approval of the movement have been received from
Mrs. Mona Caird, Lord Derby, Lord Pembroke, the late Lord Bramwell,
Mr. Leonard Courtney, M.P., Mr. W. B. Maclaren, M.P., Professor Bain,
Mr. Arnold White, Mr. G. H. Darwin and others.
Four years after the formation of the League, a "Medical Branch"
was established for the following purposes:
I. To aid the Malthusian League in its crusade against poverty and
the accompanying evils by obtaining the co-operation of qualified
medical practitioners, both British and foreign.
II. To obtain a body of scientific opinion on points of sexual
physiology and pathology involved in the "Population Question," and
which can only be discussed by those possessed of scientific knowledge.
III. To agitate for a free and open discussion of the Population
Question in all its aspects in the medical press, and thus to obtain
a recognition of the scientific oasis and the absolute necessity
of Neo-Malthusianism.
It will be seen that the work of this section is of a special and
scientific character. The names of the officers and members (given
in the appendix) will show that the advocacy of prudential checks
to population is sanctioned by a body of physicians of unquestioned
eminence.
Having given an outline of the permanent organisation of Malthusian
propaganda which grew out of the events of 1877, we proceed to trace
briefly the history of the movement from that period. It is in the main
a story of petty persecutions on the one side, and, upon the other,
of steady persistence in the work of informing the public mind. The
principal obstacle to the progress of the movement, and one which it
is slowly but surely surmounting, is the prejudice born of ignorance
and bigotry. Journalists, statesmen and other leaders of opinion do not
hesitate to avow their adhesion to the principle formulated by Malthus;
but they are, almost without exception, dominated by the fear of
Mrs. Grundy, and shrink from incurring the odium which, they imagine,
would result from a frank recognition of the only logical outcome
of that principle. They join loudly in the chorus on the evils of
over-population; but, as a rule, they will lend no public countenance
to the distinct advocacy of prudential checks. Hence the task of the
pioneers of the movement is rendered excessively difficult; but from
the very inception of the Malthusian League, the work of propaganda has
been carried forward with unfailing devotion and singleness of purpose.
In its earliest days, the League was called upon to support one of
its most respected members under stress of persecution. In February,
1878, Mr. Edward Truelove was prosecuted and tried before Lord Chief
Justice Cockburn for publishing the Hon. Robert Dale Owen's pamphlet
entitled Moral Physiology, and an essay on Individual, Family,
and National Poverty, by an anonymous author. Mr. W. A. Hunter, in
defending the case, made a most powerful speech in support of the
Malthusian position. The jury were unable to agree upon a verdict,
and the proceedings came to an abortive termination. Three months
later, however, Mr. Truelove was a second time placed upon his trial,
the venue meanwhile being changed from the Court of Queen's Bench
to the Old Bailey. A common jury found no difficulty in returning a
verdict of guilty, and Mr. Truelove (then in his sixty-eighth year)
was sentenced to pay a fine of £50 and to be imprisoned for four
months. A great public meeting was held at St. James's Hall on June
6th, when Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, Dr. Drysdale and other friends
of the movement protested against the action of the authorities in
thus interfering with the right of free discussion, and expressed
their admiration of Mr. Truelove's courage and consistency.
Mr. Truelove endured the privations of imprisonment with fortitude and
dignity, sustained by the knowledge that his cause was righteous. He
was taken to Coldbath Fields in a prison-van, handcuffed like a
dangerous criminal; compelled to lie on the "plank-bed," and subjected
to all the rigors of gaol discipline. During the first three months
he was allowed no meat; after that time he was permitted to have six
ounces of Australian tinned meat per week. Happily the confinement
and hardships did not prejudicially affect his health.
On September 12th he was welcomed back to liberty by a large and
enthusiastic gathering of friends at the Hall of Science, London. The
leading members of the Malthusian League were present, and Mr. Moncure
D. Conway, and the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam attended to do honor to
one who had suffered for conscience sake. A purse containing £200
was presented to Mr. Truelove, together with the following testimonial:
To Edward Truelove, on his release from four months' imprisonment
in Coldbath Fields Prison--suffered in defence of the Liberty of
the Press.
The undersigned, on behalf of the National Secular Society and
of the Malthusian League, desire to welcome you on your return to
liberty, and to offer you their heartiest thanks for the courage
and endurance you have displayed, in defending the right of free
publication of opinion.
The battle for the liberty of the press has been steadily waged
ever since the invention of printing, and a long muster-roll of
names might be given of those who, first at the stake, and since in
prison, have in turn paid their share of the penalty-purchase for
the victories already achieved. You have worthily entitled yourself
to an honorable place in this muster-roll, the more so that you
have stood firm in a day when too many temporise and flinch. From
almost every part of England, and from remote districts, as well as
from the great centres of Scotland, many thousands of your fellow
countrymen and countrywomen have pleaded for your release, and from
all parts of the civilised world expressions have been received,
of sympathy with you, and of indignation against your persecutors.
As some slight mark of our gratitude and affectionate esteem,
and in recognition of the honor with which you have crowned a long
life of unwavering courage, we present you this address, and the
accompanying purse of gold, begging you to accept with them our
sincerest wishes for your future welfare. Signed on behalf of
The National Secular Society.
Chas. Bradlaugh, President.
Robert Forder, Secretary.
The Malthusian League.
C. Drysdale, M.D., President.
Annie Besant, Hon. Sec.
Hall of Science, 12th September, 1878.
The case of Mr. Truelove was the last prosecution of importance in
this country for the publication of works dealing with the population
question. The proceedings against Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant,
after being quashed in the Court of Appeal upon a writ of error, were
never renewed. Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet, The Fruits of Philosophy,
was withdrawn from circulation, and Mrs. Besant wrote a small book,
The Law of Population: its consequences and its bearing upon human
conduct and morals, to take its place. Of this work nearly 200,000
copies were circulated in Great Britain; many pirated editions were
published in America and Australia; and it was translated into several
European languages. It formed the basis of a remarkable judgment by
Mr. Justice Windeyer (delivered in the Supreme Court of New South
Wales), to which further reference will presently be made.
In June, 1887, Dr. H. A. Allbutt, of Leeds, published a sixpenny
pamphlet entitled The Wife's Handbook. The following paragraph,
taken from the introduction to the book, will explain its object:
"To save the lives and preserve the health of thousands of women, to
rescue from death and disease children who may be born, to teach the
young wife how to order her health during the most important period
of her life, to remove from her mind the popular ignorance in which
she may have been reared, and to enable her to learn truths concerning
her duties as wife and mother, I have thought fit to write this little
work." Shortly after its appearance, the spirit of persecution was
again manifested, this time in an obscure and technical aspect. As a
member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Dr. Allbutt
was professionally amenable to the Council of that body; and he
was summoned to appear and show cause why he should not be removed
from the rolls for the offence of writing and publishing The Wife's
Handbook. The matter was warmly taken up by the Malthusian League, and
protests were addressed to the College from all parts of Great Britain
and from France, Germany, Holland, Italy, India and Jamaica. Nothing
more was heard of the affair until November, when Dr. Allbutt received
a notice to appear before the General Medical Council, in London,
to show cause why his name should not be struck off the register.
On November 23rd the complaint against Dr. Allbutt was considered
by the General Medical Council, a body composed of twenty-seven
physicians. Dr. Allbutt was represented by Mr. Wallace (barrister),
and the "prosecution" was conducted by Mr. Muir Mackenzie, the
legal adviser of the Council. The following were the points which
the Council proceeded to consider: "(1) Was The Wife's Handbook a
fair medical treatise, or was it an indecent advertisement? (2)
Was it practically an injury to the public and an insult to the
profession?" Mr. Wallace, in a very able speech, traversed the
suggestions made by the Council's solicitor, and challenged the right
of an irresponsible body to determine whether any line of advocacy
was "subversive of public morality." If Dr. Allbutt had violated the
law, he was amenable to legal proceedings, and it was not for the
Medical Council to sit in judgment upon him. Mr. Wallace justified
the course that Dr. Allbutt had taken in publishing his work at a
low price in order that it might be placed within the reach of the
poorest classes. He called the attention of the members to a list of
the petitions which had been presented to the Council on the subject
from all parts of Europe. They amounted to over seventy; many of them
came from medical, scientific, and political societies. He assured
the Council that the members of the medical profession were by no
means unanimous in condemning Mr. Allbutt, and it would run against
the feelings of a very considerable minority if they decided adversely
to his client. The book was written with the express object of saving
poor people from the misery, poverty, and starvation which resulted
from the over-production of children; and he asked the Council, in
conclusion, to arrive at a decision which would relieve his client
from the imputation which had been cast upon him, and which would
restore him to his proper position.
The Council having deliberated in private, the President delivered
the following judgment:
"In the opinion of the Council, Mr. Allbutt has committed the offence
charged against him, that is to say, of having published and publicly
caused to be sold a work entitled The Wife's Handbook, in London and
elsewhere, at so low a price as to bring the work within the reach of
the youth of both sexes, to the detriment of public morals. Secondly,
the offence is, in the opinion of the Council, 'infamous conduct in
a professional respect.' Thirdly, the Registrar is hereby ordered to
erase the name of Mr. H. A. Allbutt from the Medical Register."
Thus ended the futile attempt of the General Medical Council to
put a stop to the publication of Malthusian works "at so low a
price." Nobody was a penny the worse for the ponderous proceedings
of this archaic tribunal.
|
. On
his tomb in St. Philip's western graveyard, it is chiseled that "he was
a person that on all occasions promoted the public good of this colony
and several times generously and successfully ventured in defense of the
same.... A kind husband, a tender father, a faithful friend, a
charitable neighbour."
QUAKER GRAVEYARD, _138 King Street_: Graves among the oldest in Carolina
are in the yard of the old Quaker Meeting House property. The first
Quaker house of worship was built on this site in 1694. John Archdale,
Quaker, Proprietor and Governor, came to Charles Town in 1695, and
attended services with his fellow Friends. The property is a parcel of
the old Archdale Square, nowadays bounded by King, Queen, Meeting and
Broad Streets. It was just outside the town in those early years. This
building was blown up in July, 1837, to stop a fire. The rebuilt Meeting
House was destroyed in the conflagration of 1861. Quakers came to
Charles Town while it was across the Ashley River. A letter from
Shaftesbury, dated June 9, 1675, said: "There come now in my dogger
Jacob Waite and two or three other familys of those who are called
Quakers. These are but the Harbingers of a greater number that intend to
follow. 'Tis theire purpose to take up a whole colony for themselves and
theire Friends here, they promised me to build a Town of 30 Houses. I
have writ to the Gov'r and Council about them and directed them to set
them out 12,000 acres." The Society of Friends owns this property, but
there is now no meeting house in Charleston. The name of Governor
Archdale is preserved in the street of that name, on which are the
Unitarian and St. John's Lutheran Churches.
THE GATEWAY WALK, _from Church to Archdale_: No visitors to Charleston
should forego the pleasure of using the Gateway Walk of the Garden Club.
A bronze plate on a gate at the Charleston Library says:
_Through hand-wrought gates alluring paths
Lead on to pleasant places,
Where ghosts of long-forgotten things
Have left elusive traces._
This verse speaks eloquently for it. East to west, the walk is through
St. Philip's graveyard, through the yard of the Circular Congregational
Church, thence across Meeting Street, through the yard of the Gibbes
Memorial Art Gallery, through that of the Charleston Library Society,
across King Street, through the yards of the Unitarian and St. John's
Lutheran Churches. There are two graceful wrought-iron gateways between
the Gallery and the Library which formerly had place at the home of
William Aiken, King and Ann Streets, used nowadays by the Southern
Railway System for offices. Mr. Aiken was president of the South
Carolina Canal and Railroad Company from 1828 to 1831. Aiken, near
Augusta, popular winter resort, was named in his honor. The railroad
company a hundred years ago built the world's longest steam railroad. In
the large yard behind the Gibbes Gallery is an attractive pool with
growing water plants. To describe the Gateway Walk at length would
operate to rob a visitor of the tranquil pleasure of moving through it
leisurely. In the yards of St. Philip's and the Circular Church are
graves of early citizens of Charles Town. It is enough to say that the
Garden Club has achieved a unique and worthwhile project. Elsewhere in
this book is found information of the six properties traversed by the
walk.
ST. ANDREWS HALL SITE, _118 Broad Street_: The St. Andrew's Society of
Charleston was organized by Scots in 1729. It is Charleston's oldest
benevolent society, active and flourishing into this season. Its hall
was built in 1814 and here the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in
March, 1825. The distinguished Frenchman was the guest of the city and
was showered with attentions. Here he met his friend, Colonel Francis K.
Huger, who some years before had engaged in the frustrated scheme of
aiding Lafayette to escape from an Austrian prison. Here on Tuesday,
March 15, 1825, he "received the salutations of the reverend clergy, the
officers of the militia, judges and gentlemen of the Bar, and many
citizens, after which he visited Generals Charles C. and Thomas
Pinckney, Mrs. Shaw, the daughter of General Greene, and Mrs.
Washington, relict of the late General William Washington." In this hall
was passed the _Ordinance of Secession_ December 20, 1860 (it was signed
in the Institute Hall, however). It was among the many buildings razed
by the flames in 1861. The St. Andrew's Society is housed in these
seasons with the South Carolina Society, certain of the chairs and
tables used in the Secession convention being preserved. In the years
before the War for Southern Independence St. Andrew's Hall was the scene
of many brilliant social entertainments, including balls of that eminent
Charleston order, the Saint Cecilia Society, which had its beginning as
a musical society, presenting concerts.
[Illustration: _Looking North on Meeting Street
Right Middleground, Portico of South Carolina Hall; Background, St.
Michael's Church_]
JOHN STUART'S HOUSE, _104 Tradd Street_: John Stuart, born in England in
1700, came through Charlestown with General James Oglethorpe, founder of
Georgia, in 1733. Thirty years later he was appointed the British
general agent for Indian affairs in the South. Captured by the
Cherokees, he was saved by Attakullakulla (the Little Carpenter). With
the breaking of the Revolution he engaged to incite Cherokees,
Chickasaws and Creeks (Muscogees) to war against the whites. The Indian
outbreak was to coincide with Sir Peter Parker's attack on Charlestown
in the spring of 1776. It was foiled by alert Kentucky settlers. His
plot being exposed Colonel Stuart fled to Florida, thence to England
where he died in 1779. His property was confiscated by the independent
government. To escape the British, it is related that General Francis
Marion leaped from a window. His coattails caught and his liberty was in
peril. (That's the story, but the house from which Marion fled is at the
northeast corner of Legare and Tradd.) Certain of the interior of this
house has been reset up in Minneapolis which has broadcast its pride in
the accession.
SITE OF FORT JOHNSON, _James Island_: The first fortification erected
for the defense of old Charles Town was at the northeast end of James
Island, within the present-day Quarantine reservation. It was devised to
meet the threatened invasion by the French under Le Feboure and was
named Fort Johnson in honor of the then Governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson.
In 1759 a second fort of tabby (or tapia) was built on the site and this
was the Fort Johnson of the Revolution--"in plan triangular, with
salients bastioned and priestcapped, the gorge closed, the gate
protected by an earthwork, a defensible sea wall of tapia extended the
fortification to the west and southwest." In 1765 stamped paper was
transferred from a British sloop-of-war and stored in Fort Johnson while
in Charlestown excitement prevailed, resulting in seizure of the stamped
paper by three companies of volunteers under Captains Marion, Pinckney
and Elliott. The British garrison was placed under guard and
preparations made to resist any attack from the sloop-of-war. At this
time was displayed the first form of the South Carolina State flag--a
blue field with three white crescents. The naval commander agreed to
carry the stamped paper from Charlestown and the incident passed off
without clash at arms. This was ten years before the Battle of Concord.
In 1775, the spirit of liberty gaining strength, Fort Johnson was again
seized by order of the Council of Safety, as a precaution against the
last of the Royal Governors, Lord William Campbell, British troops being
expected. In November of this year (1775) three shots were fired from
Fort Johnson on the British sloops-of-war _Tamar_ and _Cherokee_, which
were engaged in blocking Hog Island Channel. June 28, 1776, Fort Johnson
was commanded by Colonel Christopher Gadsden, but had no opportunity of
engaging Sir Peter Parker's fleet, which was repulsed by soldiers under
Colonel William Moultrie at Fort Sullivan, known afterward and now as
Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. In 1780 Sir Henry Clinton reported
Fort Johnson "destroyed." In 1793 the third work at this site was built,
but in 1800 a tropical storm so damaged it that it was abandoned, being
restored in the War of 1812. At the site of Fort Johnson the Confederate
forces defending Charleston located a mortar battery from which to
bombard Fort Sumter. It now became "an extensive entrenched camp of
considerable strength and capacity." The Confederates evacuated this
fort February 17, 1865, and the works were allowed to fall into decay.
Latterly there has been an earnest effort at restoration.
FORT MOULTRIE, _Sullivan's Island_: A glorious day in the annals of
South Carolina was the twenty-eighth of June, 1776. A partially built
fort of palmetto logs repulsed the proud British fleet under Sir Peter
Parker. Above this rude fort floated a South Carolina flag with a blue
field in which was one crescent and the word LIBERTY. It was this flag
that Sergeant Jasper rescued, his gallant deed commemorating his name.
The first government of any of the thirteen American colonies was
established at Charlestown, March, 1776, with John Rutledge as
president, Henry Laurens as vice-president and William Henry Drayton as
chief justice. Against Colonel William Moultrie's rude fort on that June
day in 1776 was pitted a trained fleet of eleven armed vessels carrying
270 guns. Moultrie's garrison comprised 435 men. While Moultrie was
engaged with Sir Peter Parker, Colonel William Thomson with 800 men and
two cannons prevented Sir Henry Clinton from landing his soldiery. In
the Battle of Fort Moultrie the defenders suffered only thirty-seven
casualties while the fleet suffered more than 200, and the loss of a
frigate. It was from Fort Moultrie that Major Robert Anderson on the
night of December 26, 1860, removed his Union garrison into Fort Sumter.
The Confederates used Fort Moultrie against the invading Union forces
until Fort Sumter was abandoned by the South's defenders. Before
Anderson left Moultrie, he had spiked the guns and burned their
carriages. Fort Moultrie helped make Morris Island an unhappy place for
Union troops under General Gilmore. At the entrance to the old fort is
the grave of Osceola, chief of the Seminoles, who was brought a captive
after the war in Florida a hundred years ago. In these years the fort
gives name to a reservation which is the headquarters of the Eighth
Infantry, a small detail of Coast Artillerymen being on duty with the
coast defense guns.
FORT SUMTER, _at the Entrance to the Harbor_: Facing the open sea stands
gallant Fort Sumter. No fortress in all America awakens greater
memories. It is a shining emblem of Secession, enduring monument to the
incomparable defense of Charleston by the Confederates. The bravest of
the brave served within this shell-torn fortress, withstanding the siege
of Union land and sea forces. Sumter is not alone a proud fortress, but
a landmark invested with a wealth of patriotic sentiment. It is stirring
American drama. "In the annals of the Federal army and navy, there is no
exploit comparable to the defense of Charleston harbor. It would not be
easy to match it in the records of European warfare"--the Rev. John
Johnson, D.D., quoted an English historian. In skeleton, Fort Sumter's
great story includes: April 7, 1863, it had part in the repulse of the
United States armored squadron after a severe engagement. In August it
"suffered its first great bombardment of sixteen days, ending in the
demolition and silencing of the fort, chiefly by land batteries of
Morris Island." Confederates effected immediate repairs. While these
were making, the defenders of Sumter beat off a night attack by small
boats. Then came the "second and third great bombardments, one of
forty-one days, and the other, and last, of sixty days and nights
continuously, both being borne without any thought of failure or
surrender." The quotations are from an article by Dr. Johnson in _The
News and Courier_. In all, the siege lasted until Charleston was
evacuated February 17-18, 1865, "after 567 days of continuous military
and naval operations." The famous fortress of Sumter, named for the
Revolutionary hero, General Thomas Sumter, the "Game Cock," was built
upon a shoal, the Secretary of War approving the plans in December,
1828. It is about a mile southwest of Fort Moultrie, Sullivan's Island,
and the same distance northeast of Fort Johnson, James Island. It was
nearing completion when on the night of December 26, 1860, Major Robert
Anderson removed the Union garrison of Fort Moultrie to it. On the
twelfth and thirteenth of April, 1861, it was bombarded by the
Confederates for about thirty hours, Major Anderson surrendering. He
evacuated the following day, embarking his men for the north. The
Confederates at once put the fortress in order for defense. There had
been no casualties on either side. Lieutenant Colonel R. S. Ripley was
the first Confederate commander of Fort Sumter and Major Thomas A.
Huguenin the last, the Confederate occupation extending from April 14,
1861, to February 17, 1865. Fort Sumter nowadays is without a garrison.
It is part of the defenses of Charleston. A military caretaker lives
within the battle-scarred walls. Modern coast defense guns are mounted.
As a grim sentinel, Sumter still faces the open seas.
SITE OF FIRST THEATER, _43 Queen Street_: Plays were performed in
Charles Town in 1703, according to Sonneck. However, the first regular
theater was the Play House in Dock (now Queen) Street. Here in the
winter of 1735, a company, "direct from England," presented its
repertory. Members of Solomon's Lodge of the Ancient Free Masons, the
oldest Masonic lodge in the United States, attended, in a body, the
performance of "The Recruiting Officer" May 28, 1737. The Federal
government has reproduced this theater; it was reopened officially
November 26, 1937.
ST. PHILIP'S CHURCH, _144 Church Street_: St. Philip's is the oldest
Protestant Episcopal congregation south of Virginia. The first edifice
was built on the site now occupied by St. Michael's (southeast corner of
Meeting and Broad Streets). The second and third were built at the
present site. The first St. Philip's was erected in 1681-82. It was of
wood, but little is known of it. Early maps designate it as the English
Church. The second St. Philip's was opened for divine worship Easter
Sunday, 1723. It faced the west and its steeple was eighty feet high.
John Wesley, founder of Methodism, preached in this church two hundred
years ago. The first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina
was the Right Reverend Robert Smith, rector of St. Philip's. This
edifice was known far and wide for its great beauty. It was burned
February 15, 1835. The third St. Philip's was used for service May 3,
1838. Its chimes, cast into Confederate cannon, have never been
replaced. During twenty-two years an important mariners' light glowed in
the steeple, the other light of this range having been on historic Fort
Sumter. The light above St. Philip's was discontinued when the main
channel was changed about twenty years ago. St. Philip's is known as the
Westminster of the South as so many distinguished men of early years are
in its graveyards, including Edward Rutledge, Signer of the _Declaration
of Independence_; John C. Calhoun, often appraised South Carolina's
greatest statesman; William Rhett, captor of Stede Bonnet and his
associate pirates. During the War for Southern Independence Calhoun's
body was removed for safekeeping, but it was later reinterred. The story
of St. Philip's is coeval with the story of Charleston on this
peninsula. Its communion plate is of uncommon interest and value,
including pieces presented by William Rhett and a paten of unquestioned
antiquity. The present edifice faces the east. The curve in Church
Street passes through the site of the body of the edifice that was
burned in 1835. President George Washington attended services in the
second St. Philip's May 8, 1791, and President James Monroe May 2, 1819.
The present St. Philip's is accounted one of the beautiful churches of
America.
[Illustration: _St. Philip's Episcopal Church_]
CRADLE OF PRESBYTERIANISM, _138 Meeting Street_: The congregation of the
Circular Church dates to 1681. The small wooden building in the erection
of which Landgrave Joseph Blake was influential was known as the White
Meeting House and was replaced in 1804 by a brick edifice circular in
form, that was burned in 1861. It was this church that gave name to
Meeting Street. From this congregation sprang two other congregations,
the First (Scotch) Presbyterian and the Unitarian. Some of the earliest
graves in Charles Town are in the Circular Churchyard. David Ramsay,
physician, statesman and historian, is buried in it. Some of the early
Huguenots (French Protestants) are also buried in it. The chapel in the
rear of the yard was built after the fire of 1861. The present edifice
is without a great portico over the street.
HUGUENOT CHURCH, _136 Church Street_: The only Huguenot Church in
America! This is the proud and unique distinction of the French
Protestant Church in Charleston. Its congregation holds to the old
Huguenot litany. It dates to 1681. The first recognized and regular
pastor of the French Church was the Reverend Elias Prioleau, who came
with the "great Huguenot immigration" about 1687; he died in 1699.
Alluding to the Huguenots of Charles Town Bancroft said: "Their Church
was in Charles Town and thither every Lord's Day, gathering from their
plantations upon the banks of the Cooper, and taking advantage of the
ebb and flow of the tide, they might all regularly be seen, the parents
with their children, whom no bigot could now wrest from them, making
their way in light skiffs through scenes so tranquil, that silence was
broken only by the rippling of oars and the hum of the flourishing
village at the confluence of the rivers." The first Huguenot Church was
burned in 1740. The second church was also burned, in 1797. It was at
once rebuilt and in 1845 it was remodeled to the form it now presents.
"The church edifice is of great architectural beauty, being of pure
Gothic, and its walls are adorned with mural tablets, commemorating the
names and memories of the first Huguenot emigrants to Carolina." It is
the boast of this congregation that it has had a church on the same site
for more years than has any other Charleston congregation. For more than
one hundred and fifty years the services were in the French language.
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, _61 Church Street_: When Charles Town on the
peninsula was about three years old the first congregation of Baptists
was formed. Some of these Baptists came from New England, with the
Reverend William Screven, their pastor, and others came from England.
Old records show that for several years the Baptists worshipped in the
home of Mrs. William Chapman. Lady Blake, and her mother, Lady Axtell,
were both Baptists and members of this congregation; their official rank
lent strength to the church. William Elliott, a member, gave the site of
the First Baptist Church in 1699. A wooden building was erected. The
present building was on the site before 1826 and of it Mills says it
showed "the best specimen of correct taste in architecture of the modern
buildings in the city." There are many old graves in its yard.
SCOTCH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, _53 Meeting Street_: Sprung from the White
Meeting House, the First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church dates to 1731. The
Reverend Hugh Stewart, a native Scot, was its first pastor. The present
edifice was dedicated in 1814. It was severely damaged in the earthquake
of August 31, 1886, but fully restored. It has one of the finest
auditoriums in the country. When the Marquis of Lorne (later the Duke of
Argyle) and his wife, the Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria,
were in Charleston in January, 1883, they visited the Scotch Church to
inspect a memorial tablet to their cousin, Lady Anne Murray. The Duke of
Sutherland also made a trip to Charleston expressly to see it. May 2,
1819, President James Monroe attended service in the Scotch Church,
hearing a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Reid, the pastor. This church
celebrated its bicentennial in March, 1931. During 100 years it has had
three pastors--the Reverend John Forrest, D.D., forty-seven years, the
Reverend W. Taliaferro Thompson, D.D., twenty years and the Reverend
Alexander Sprunt, D.D., thirty-three years. Prominent Charlestonians
sleep the sleep eternal in its yard.
TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH, _273 Meeting Street_: As its congregation
springs from the old Cumberland Church, the first Methodist group in
Charleston (1786), Trinity may be called Charleston's oldest Methodist
congregation, but the building it now occupies was recently acquired
from the Westminster Presbyterian Church (which combined the abandoned
Third Presbyterian in Archdale Street and the Glebe Street Presbyterian
Church). Through years Trinity Church was at 57 Hasell Street. Here the
first church was erected before 1813. For a short time the church was
used by an Episcopal congregation. The story goes that some of the
congregation were not agreeable to occupancy by Episcopalians and sought
legal counsel. They were informed that possession was "nine points in
the law." So, after an Episcopalian service, the Methodist brothers and
sisters, when the congregation was dismissed, locked the doors from the
inside, fastened the windows and mounted guard within the edifice, women
assisting, until the case was returned in their favor. During this
peaceful siege, a lad was born in the building; he years later became a
bishop of the church. The Methodist church was planted in Charleston
when Bishop Asbury and his associates came here in 1785. The first
church building was erected in Cumberland Street in 1787, and within it
the first Methodist Conference in South Carolina was held the same year.
This building was destroyed in the fire of 1861. John and Charles Wesley
had visited Charlestown in 1736. John Wesley preached in St. Philip's
Episcopal Church in 1737. The Wesleys came with General James
Oglethorpe's Georgia colonists. Charles Wesley was the general's
secretary and John Wesley was to be a missionary among the Indians.
ST. JOHN'S LUTHERAN CHURCH, _10 Archdale Street_: The Lutheran
congregation of St. John's was organized in 1757 with the Reverend John
George Fredichs as pastor. Lacking a building of their own the Lutherans
used the French Huguenot Church. June 24, 1764, the first St. John's was
dedicated. The present brick building was dedicated January 18, 1818,
the Reverend Dr. John Bachman, friend and associate of J. J. Audubon,
the celebrated naturalist, being the pastor. This congregation was
influential in the organization of Newberry College and the Lutheran
Theological Seminary in South Carolina. Prominent persons of German
origin or descent are buried in the yard. But the Lutheran story goes
back to March, 1734. In his _Sketch of St. John's_, the Reverend E. T.
Horn says: "In March, 1734, while the ship containing the exiled
Salzburgers lay off the harbor of Charleston, Governor Oglethorpe
brought their Commissary, the Baron von Reck, and their pastor, the
Reverend John Martin Bolzius, with him to the city. Here they found a
few Germans, firm in their attachment to the Lutheran faith, and
hungering and thirsting for the Holy Supper. In May, therefore, Bolzius
was glad to accompany von Reck as far as Charleston, that he might
minister to this little company, and on Sunday, May 26th, 1754, at five
o'clock in the morning, most probably in the inn where Bolzius was
stopping, he administered the Holy Communion to those whom on the day
before he had examined and absolved according to the usages of the
Lutheran Church."
[Illustration: _William Rhett House, 58 Hasell Street_]
[Illustration: _The Izard Houses; Nearer, Home of Bishop of
Charleston; Other is the Older--110 and 114 Brand Street_]
UNITARIAN CHURCH, _6 Archdale Street_: Just before the American
Revolution, the Circular Church on Meeting Street, cradle of
Presbyterianism in Charles Town, found it necessary to use an additional
building. Thus another church with another pastor was established in
Archdale Street. One of the pastors espoused Unitarianism and by
amicable agreement the part of the congregation following his teachings
took over the Archdale Street church. While the British occupied
Charlestown during the Revolution, they stabled horses in this edifice.
The present church building was dedicated in April of 1854, and is much
praised for its architecture. The ceiling of the nave is peculiarly
attractive. The pastor of this Unitarian congregation, the only one in
Charleston, was the Reverend Samuel Gilman, author of the famous college
song, "Fair Harvard," and in his memory Harvard alumni arranged the
Samuel Gilman Memorial Room in the church tower; the ceremony was
performed April 16, 1916.
ST. MARY'S CATHOLIC CHURCH, _79 Hasell Street_: Mother parish of the
Roman Catholic Church in North and South Carolina and Georgia, St.
Mary's congregation was organized in 1794, and in 1798 bought a frame
building from a Protestant congregation. In 1836 this was burned and on
the site the present fine brick edifice was erected being completed in
1838. In the late 1890's the interior was improved. Memorial
stained-glass windows were emplaced. Of its interesting graveyard Bishop
John M. England who came to Charleston in 1820 (finding two Catholic
churches occupied and two priests doing duty) wrote: "The cemetery of
this church which is now in the center of the city affords in the
inscriptions of its monuments the evidence of the Catholicity of those
whose ashes it contains. You may find the American and the European side
by side.... The family of the Count de Grasse, who commanded the fleets
of France near the Commodore of the United States and his partner, sleep
in the hope of being resuscitated by the same trumpet." According to
David Ramsay, "prior to the American Revolution in 1776, there were very
few Roman Catholics in Charleston, and these had no ministry, but of all
other countries none has furnished the Province with so many inhabitants
as Ireland." About 1786 a vessel bound for South America, having an
Italian priest aboard, put into Charleston. This priest celebrated mass
for a congregation of about twelve persons. It was "the first Mass
celebrated in Charleston and may be regarded as the introduction of the
Catholic religion to the States of North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia which afterward constituted the See of Charleston." The history
of St. Mary's is coeval with the history of the Roman Catholic religion
in the Southeast, excluding the Florida possessions of the Spanish.
ST. JAMES, GOOSE CREEK, _off the Coastal Highway_: The British Royal
Arms still stand in South Carolina! The British yoke was thrown off one
hundred and sixty years ago, but in St. James Church, Goose Creek,
sixteen miles from the city hall of Charleston the Royal Arms have never
come down! The ancient edifice stands in a tranquil woodland, quite near
The Oaks, home of Arthur Middleton in early years. At the foot of the
altar is a tomb with this inscription: "Here lyeth the body of the
Reverend Francis Le Jau, Doctor in Divinity, of Trinity College, Dublin,
who came to this Province October, 1706, and was one of the first
missionaries sent by the honourable society to this Province, and was
the first Rector of St. James, Goose Creek, Obijt. 15th September, 1717,
ætat 52, to whose memory this stone is fixed by his only Son, Francis Le
Jau." In the records left by Dr. Le Jau is mentioned that he christened
Indians. Four acres for the old parsonage were the gift of Arthur
Middleton, and another pioneer gave the Glebe of one hundred acres. The
cherubs in stucco over each of the keystones are famous and so is the
pelican feeding her young, over the west door. Interesting memorial
tablets have places. In the present day this picturesque and historic
church is easily reached by automobile. Each year at Easter divine
services are held in the church, the congregation invariably overflowing
the building. The original church was built soon after Dr. Le Jau's
arrival.
ST. ANDREW'S, BERKELEY, _on the Ashley River Road_: The parish of St.
Andrew's, Berkeley (the district about Charles Town was Berkeley in
olden times), was founded in 1706 and a simple brick building erected.
Seventeen years later this was enlarged, taking the form of a cross. The
gallery was intended for non-pewholders and was later set aside for
negroes. Destroyed by fire it was rebuilt in 1764 and is one of the few
rural churches that has survived the Revolution and the War for Southern
Independence. St. Andrew's was one of ten parishes authorized by act of
the Assembly in 1706 regulating religious worship in accordance with the
forms of the Church of England. In quite recent years a question
relative to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London was raised! St.
Andrew's had its genesis when the colony had a population of 9,000, "of
whom 5,000 were Negro and Indian slaves."
ASHLEY RIVER ROAD, _Leading to Famous Gardens_: St. Andrew's Church is
but one of many interesting and historic places on the Ashley River
Road. Two miles from the Ashley River Bridge the road passes near the
site of the original Charles Town in South Carolina and three miles
farther is the Ashley Hall plantation of the Bull family, distinguished
in provincial and colonial periods. It was on the Bull place that
Attakullakulla, a chief of the Cherokee Indians, signed a treaty of
peace in the 1760's after his tribe had been severely humbled by the
whites. Just across the highway were the lovely Magwood Gardens, now the
property of a granddaughter of President Abraham Lincoln. Here the
highway passes through a grove of majestic live oaks festooned with
Spanish moss. Seven miles from the bridge one passes St. Andrew's Church
and a short distance farther through old Fort Bull, the moat about which
has been filled. Next, on the right, is the entrance to Drayton Hall,
then Magnolia Gardens, Runnymede, home of John Julius Pringle, Speaker
of the House of the Assembly in 1787, and later the property of Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney, of the famous Pinckney family; Middleton Place
(gardens) where is buried Arthur Middleton, Signer of the _Declaration
of Independence_; the seat of the old Wragg barony; the Ashley River is
crossed at Bacon's Bridge near which stands an ancient oak beneath the
spreading boughs of which General Francis Marion is alleged to have
entertained a British officer (it is a pretty legend, but its site is
severally located). Half a mile beyond the bridge is the road leading
down to the ruins of old Dorchester, established in 1696 by colonists
from Dorchester, Massachusetts, led by the Reverend Joseph Lord. In this
year ruins of fort and churches are mute reminders of a brave village in
a primeval wilderness infested with savage Indians. From Bacon's Bridge
the distance to Summerville is five miles. It is a drive every visitor
to this section should follow. In the season, the Middleton Place and
Magnolia Gardens are open to visitors.
[Illustration: _Foreground, Unitarian Church; Background, St. John's
Lutheran Church_]
[Illustration: _Huguenot Church. Only One in America_]
CASTLE PINCKNEY, _in Charleston Harbor_: Stand on the incomparable
Battery and look seaward. Fort Sumter is in plain view, of course, but
nearer the gaze is Castle Pinckney, holding the status nowadays of a
government monument. It is to be reached only by boat. The fort at the
edge of the sand bank known as Shute's Folly was built after the
Revolution, in 1797-1804. Later, it was enlarged. In the War for
Southern Independence, it lacked opportunity to contribute materially to
the defense of Charleston. Really there is more legend than history
about Castle Pinckney, but long it has been a well-known landmark. The
government used it as a depot for aids for navigation until the depot
was established at the foot of Tradd Street, on the Ashley River, site
of the old Chisolm's rice mill. An excuse for including it among
_Landmarks of Charleston_ is that many strangers promenading on the High
Battery wish to know what Castle Pinckney is.
ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, _78 Meeting Street_: Five times have the bells of
St. Michael's crossed the Atlantic ocean. They came from England in 1764
and returned there after the British evacuated the town in 1784.
Repurchased for Charleston, they came back to their steeple. During the
War for Southern Independence they were taken for safekeeping to
Columbia and in the burning of that town charged to General William
Tecumseh Sherman (who had been a social favorite in Charleston before
the war) they were so damaged that they were shipped to England. There
they were recast in the original molds. Brought back they are still in
the steeple, pealing on occasions. When Charles Town on the peninsula
was laid out, a lot was designed for the English church, St. Philip's. A
wooden building was erected. This being outgrown a brick church was
built on Church Street, on the present site of St. Philip's. By act of
the Assembly, June, 1751, Charlestown was divided into two parishes; the
lower, St. Michael's, and the upper, St. Philip's. February 17, 1752,
the corner stone was laid with much ceremony, the _South Carolina
Gazette_ carrying an account. The reputed successor of Sir Christopher
Wrenn was the architect and the edifice is declared to resemble St.
Martin's-in-the-Field, London, near Trafalgar Square. From the pavement
to the ball of the steeple is 182 feet. During the War for Southern
Independence, the steeple, and that of St. Philip's, offered shining
marks for the Union artillerists. Cannon balls struck the church, but
not with serious results. Heavy damage was done by the earthquake of
August 31, 1886. The old clock in the steeple, with four dials, began
the keeping of Charlestown time in 1764. President George Washington and
|
ghosts "seeking what they might devour," completed the novel
and picturesque _ensemble_ of the scene.
On the opposite side of the way was another of a different character,
but not less interesting. Seated in a circle around their bread and
cheese, were half a dozen as rough, rude, honest-looking countrymen from
the back part of the state, as you could find in the nursery of
New-England's yeomanry. They are small farmers--own a few
negroes--cultivate a small tract of land, and raise a few bales of
cotton, which they bring to market themselves. Their carts are drawn
around them forming a barricade to their camp, for here, as is customary
among them, instead of putting up at taverns, they have encamped since
their arrival. Between them and their carts are their negroes, who
assume a "cheek by jowl" familiarity with their masters, while jokes, to
season their homely fare, accompanied by astounding horse-laughs, from
ivory-lined mouths that might convey a very tolerable idea of the crater
of Etna, pass from one group to the other, with perfect good will and a
mutual contempt for the nicer distinctions of colour.
Crossing the narrow bridge, I entered at once into the body of the city,
which is built as compactly within itself and aloof from the suburbs as
though it were separated from them by a wall; and in a few moments,
after traversing two sides of a well-built square on fine side walks, I
arrived at the "Mansion house," an extensive and commodious brick
edifice said to be one of the best hotels in the south west--except
Bishop's--agreeably impressed with this, my first _coup d'oeil_ of a
city, so extensively celebrated for the opulence, taste and hospitality
of its inhabitants.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The banks of the Mississippi are termed "_the coast_," as far up the
river as Baton Rouge. It is usual to say one lives on the _coast_, if he
lives on the river shore.
XXVI.
A northerner's idea of the south-west--Natchez and health
--"Broadway" of Natchez--Street scenes--Private carriages
--Auction store--Sale of a slave--Manner in which slaves
view slavery--Shopping--Fashion--Southern gentlemen--
Merchants--Planters--Whip bearers--Planters' families.
To the northerner, to whom every verdant hill is a magazine of health,
every mountain torrent and limpid river are leaping and flowing with
life, who receives a new existence as the rays of the summer's sun fall
upon his brow, and whose lungs expand more freely and whose pulse beats
more strongly under the influence of every breeze, Natchez has been,
till within a very short period, associated with miasma and marshes over
which the yellow fever, like a demon king, held undisputed sway. This
idea is not without foundation. Like New-Orleans, this city has been
the grave of many young and ambitious adventurers. Pestilence has here
literally "walked at noonday." The sun, the source and preserver of life
and health, in its path over this devoted city, has "become black as
sackcloth," and "the moon that walketh in brightness," shedding her calm
and gentle light upon the earth, has been "turned into blood," poisoning
the atmosphere with exhalations of death, and converting the green earth
into a sepulchre. But this is a record of the past. The angel of
vengeance has gone by, leaving health and peace to exercise their gentle
dominion over this late theatre of his terrible power. No city in our
happy country is more blessed with health than is now, this so often
depopulated place. For several years past its catalogue of mortality has
been very much smaller than that of many towns in Vermont and Maine,
containing the same number of inhabitants. Even that insatiable
destroyer, the Asiatic cholera, which has strewn both hemispheres with
the bones of its victims, has passed over this city without leaving a
trace of his progress, except among the blacks and a few imprudent
strangers. Not a citizen fell a victim to it. If any place demanded a
dispensation of mercy it was this--if past misfortunes can challenge an
exemption from farther infliction.
Main-street is the "Broadway" of Natchez. It extends from the river to
the eastern extremity of the city, about half a mile in length, dividing
the town into nearly equal portions, north and south. This street is to
Natchez what Chartres-street is to New-Orleans, though on a much smaller
scale. Here are all the banks and most of the dry goods and fancy stores.
Here, consequently, is the centre of business, and, to the ladies, that
of attraction; although the stores are not turned inside out every
morning, to adorn their fronts and create zigzags on the side-walks, to
the great edification of the shopmen, who are the operators, and the
little comfort of gouty or hurrying pedestrians. In passing up this
street, which is compactly built with handsome brick blocks, generally
but two stories in height, the stranger is struck with the extraordinary
number of private carriages, clustered before the doors of the most
fashionable stores, or millineries, rolling through the street, or
crossing and recrossing it from those by which it is intersected, nearly
every moment, from eleven till two on each fair day. But few of these
equipages are of the city: they are from the plantations in the
neighbourhood, which spread out from the town over richly cultivated
"hill and dale,"--a pleasant and fertile landscape--far into the
interior. Walk with me into this street about noon on a pleasant day in
December. It is the only one nearly destitute of shade trees; but the
few it boasts are shedding their yellow leaves, which sprinkle the
broad, regular, and well-constructed side-walks, and the warm sun shines
down cheerily and pleasantly upon the promenaders.--Here, at the corner,
surrounded by a crowd, is an auction store. Upon a box by the door
stands a tall, fine-looking man. But he is _black_; ebony cannot be
blacker. Of the congregation of human beings there, he is the most
unconcerned. Yet he has a deeper interest in the transactions of the
moment than all the rest--for a brief space will determine whom, among
the multitude, he is to call master! The auctioneer descants at large
upon his merits and capabilities.--"Acclimated, gentlemen! a first-rate
carriage-driver--raised by Col. ----. Six hundred dollars is bid.
Examine him, gentlemen--a strong and athletic fellow--but twenty-seven
years of age." He is knocked off at seven hundred dollars; and with
"There's your master," by the seller, who points to the purchaser,
springs from his elevation to follow his new owner; while his place is
supplied by another subject. These scenes are every-day matters here,
and attract no attention after beholding them a few times; so powerful
is habit, even in subduing our strongest prejudices. But the following
dialogue, overheard by me, between two well-dressed, smart-looking
blacks near by, one seated listlessly upon his coach-box, the other
holding the bridle of his master's horse--though brief, contains a
volume of meaning, in illustrating the opinions and views of the blacks
upon the state of their degraded race.
"You know dat nigger, they gwine to sell, George?"
"No, he field nigger; I nebber has no 'quaintance wid dat class."
"Well, nor no oder gentlemens would. But he's a likely chap. How much
you tink he go for?"--"I a'n't much 'quainted wid de price of such kind
o' peoples. My master paid seven hundred dollar for me, when I come out
from ole Wirginney--dat nigger fetch five hun'red dollar I reckon."
"You sell for only seben hun'red dollars!" exclaimed the gentleman upon
the coach-seat, drawing himself up with pride, and casting a
contemptuous glance down upon his companion: "my massa give eight
hundred and fifty silver dollars for me. Gom! I tink dat you was more
'spectable nigger nor dat." At this turn of the conversation the negro
was struck off at seven hundred, at which the colloquist of the same
price became highly chagrined; but, stepping upon the stirrup, and
raising himself above the crowd, that he might see "the fool massa what
give so much for a miserable good-for-nothing nigger, not wort' his
corn," consoled himself with the reflection that the buyer was "a man
what made no more dan tirty bale cotton; while my master make tree
hun'red, and one of de firs' gemmans too!"
Thus, though denied the privileges of his desired "caste," by the
estimation of his personal value, he aspired to it by a conclusive
argument, in the eye of a negro, viz. his master's wealth and rank in
society. Can individuals, who are thus affected at the sale of their
fellow-men, and who view their state of bondage in this light, feel
deeply their own condition, or be very sensitive upon the subject of
equal rights? Yet thus do negroes view slavery. Thus do they converse
upon it; and are as tenacious of the limited privileges, (yet to them
unlimited, because they know, and can therefore aspire to no other)
which, like flowers, are entwined among the links of their moral
bondage. There is one, proud that his chain weighs down a few more gold
pieces than that of his fellow, while the latter is in no less degree
mortified at the deficiency in weight of his own. Do such men "pine in
bondage" and "sigh for freedom?" Freedom, of which they know nothing,
and cannot, therefore, feel the deprivation; a freedom of which they
have heard only, as the orientals of their fabled genii, but to which
generally they no more think of aspiring than the subjects of the caliph
to the immortality and winged freedom of these imaginary beings. These
two negroes I have seen repeatedly since, and am assured that they are
as intelligent, well informed, and "respectable," as any of their class;
none of whom, allowing a very few exceptions, entertain higher or
different views of their state as slaves, or of their rank in the scale
of human beings. Do not mistake me: I am no advocate for slavery; but
neither am I a believer in that wild Garrisonian theory, which, like a
magician's wand, is at once to dissolve every link that binds the slave
to his master, and demolish at one blow a system that has existed, still
gaining in extent and stability, for centuries. The familiar French
proverb, "imagination gallops while the judgment advances only on a
walk," is most applicable to these visionary theorists who would build
Rome in a day.
Opposite to the auction store are a cluster of gay carriages, to and
from which fair beings, not quite angels, are "ascending and
descending," to look over all the "pretty things" in the richly lined
stores. Was there ever a fancy store that ladies were not hovering near?
"A new store"--"new goods,"--"less than cost!" What magic words! What
visions of silks and satins, gros de Swiss and gros de Naples, challys
and shawls, Grecian laces and Paris gloves, with a thousand other
charming etceteras, float before their delighted fancies, in every form
of grace and ornament that the imagination can picture or a refined
taste invent. Ladies are ladies all the world over; and where is the
place in which they do not love "to shop?" In this far corner of the
south and west, you are prepared to give fashion credit for but few
devotees, and those only partial and half-souled worshippers. But you
must not forget that these are southerners; and the southerner is never
found unfashionable or deficient in taste. The moving galaxy of grace
and beauty that floats down Chestnut-street, cannot at any time present
more fashionable and elegantly-dressed promenaders than now enliven the
street, or than that fair bevy of young ladies clustered round yonder
carriage door, all chattering together, with their sweet pleasant
voices, to a pale, beautiful, and interesting girl within, apparently an
invalid. So far as I can judge, as much of "the ton," in dress and
society, prevails here as in Philadelphia, where many residents of the
city and country spend a portion of every summer--certainly more than at
New-Orleans, which is by far the most unfashionable city in the United
States. The gentlemen of Natchez are less particular in their dress,
though much more punctilious than they were five or six years since,
when there was not to be found what would be termed a "fashionable man,"
(according to the acceptation of the term in New-York) among the
residents of this city. And where is the southern gentleman that ever
dressed _fashionably_? They dress well and richly, but seldom
fashionably. Their garments hang upon them loosely, as though made for
larger men; and they wear them with a sort of free and easy air,
enviable but inimitable by the stiffer and more formal northerner. The
southerner, particularly the planter, would wear with a native and
matchless grace the flowing toga of imperial Rome. Though destitute of
that fashionable exterior which the tailor supplies, and for which, in
general, they have a most sovereign indifference and contempt, they
possess--I mean the genuine, native-born, well-educated southerner--an
"_air distingué_," and in the highest degree aristocratic, which is
every where the most striking feature of their appearance.
That knot of gentlemen issuing from a plain brick building--one of the
banks--is composed of bank directors. Their decisions have elevated or
depressed the mercury in many an anxious breast. Two or three faces
resemble those one often sees in Wall-street, or on Change, in Boston.
The resemblance is so striking that one is quite sure at the first
glance that he has seen them there. But no; they are merchants of this
city--thorough-going commercial men. The resemblance is only that of a
species. Merchants resemble each other everywhere. Their features are
strongly marked and characteristic. It has been said that a Boston
merchant may be known all the world over. It has been proved that a
sea-faring life, especially when commenced in early years, has a
tendency to produce a physical change in the organ of vision. That a
mercantile life, long and intently pursued, has a tendency to stamp a
peculiar character upon the features, is equally certain, in the opinion
of those whose habits of observation may have led them to such
physiognomical investigations. Among the remainder, are two or three in
white blanket coats, broad-brimmed white hats, with slender riding-whips
in their hands, who will be readily designated as planters. A
circumstance that very soon arrests the attention of the stranger, is
the number of gentlemen with riding-whips in their hands to be met with
in all parts of the city, particularly on days when any public meeting
is held. Every third or fourth person is thus, to a northerner,
singularly armed. At the north few ride except in gigs. But here all are
horsemen; and it is unusual to see a gentleman in a gig or carriage. If
his wife rides out, he attends her _à cheval_. Instead of gigs,
therefore, which would fill the streets of a northern town,
saddle-horses, usually with high pummelled Spanish saddles, and numerous
private carriages, in which are the ladies of the family, drawn by
long-tailed horses, throng the streets and line the outside of the pave.
At least a third of the persons who fill the streets are planters and
their families from the country, which every day pours forth its
hundreds from many miles around the city, that like a magnet attracts
all within its influence.
There are several public buildings in this street of which I shall make
more particular mention hereafter. My object now is merely to give you
some idea of things as, when presented to it in the novel hues of "first
impressions," they strike the eye of a stranger.
XXVII.
First impressions--American want of taste in public buildings
--Agricultural bank--Masonic hall--Natchez academy--Education
of Mississippians--Cemetery--Theatre--Presbyterian church--
Court-house--Episcopal church--Light-house--Hotels--Planters'
Houses and galleries--Jefferson hotel--Cotton square.
First impressions, if preserved, before the magnifying medium of novelty
through which they are seen becomes dissipated, are far more lively and
striking than the half-faded scenes which memory slowly and imperfectly
brings up from the past. Yet, if immediately recorded, while the colours
are fresh and glowing, there is danger of drawing too much upon the
imagination in the description, and exaggerating the picture. On the
other hand, if the impressions are suffered to become old and faint,
invention is too apt to be called in unconsciously, to fill up and
complete the half-forgotten and defective sketch. The medium is safer
and more accurate. A period of time sufficiently long should be suffered
to elapse, that the mind, by subsequent observation, may be enabled to
correct and digest its early impressions, exercise its judgment without
a bias, and from more matured experience, be prepared to form its
opinions, and make its comparisons with certainty. How far I have
attained this desirable medium, the general character and justice of my
descriptions must alone determine.
The deficient perception of architectural beauty, in the composition of
American minds, has frequently, and with some truth, been a subject upon
which foreign tourists love to exercise their castigating pens--weapons
always wielded fearlessly and pitilessly against every thing on this
side of the Atlantic. The very small number of handsome public buildings
in the United States, and the total contempt for order or style which,
(with but here and there an honourable exception,) they evince, would
give a very plausible foundation for this animadversion, did not
Americans redeem their reputation in this point, by the pure and correct
taste they universally exhibit in the construction of their private
residences. Herein, they are not surpassed by any other nation. Natchez,
like most of the minor cities of this country, cannot boast of any
public buildings remarkable for harmonious conformity to the rules or
orders of architecture. They are, nevertheless, well deserving of
notice, highly ornamental to the city, and reflect honour upon the
public spirit of its citizens. The Agricultural bank is unquestionably
the finest structure in the city. It has been erected very recently on
the south side of Main-street, presenting a noble colonnaded front, of
the modernized Grecian style; being built somewhat after the model of
the United States bank at Philadelphia; though brick and stucco are here
substituted for marble, and heavy pillars for the graceful column. It is
entered from the street by a broad and spacious flight of steps, leading
to its lofty portico, from which three large doors give admission into
its vast hall, decidedly the finest room south or west of Washington.
The whole structure is a chaste and beautiful specimen of architecture.
It is partially enclosed by a light, iron railing. To a stranger this
edifice is a striking object, and, contrasted with the buildings of less
pretension around it, will call forth his warmest admiration. The other
banks, of which there are, in all, three, including a branch of the
United States bank, are plain brick buildings, undistinguished from the
adjoining stores, except by a colder and more unfurnished appearance,
and the absence of signs. A short distance above this fine building is
the Masonic Hall; a large square edifice, two lofty stories in height.
Its front is beautifully stuccoed, and ornamented with white pilasters.
The hall is in the second story; a large, plain, vaulted apartment,
almost entirely destitute of the splendid furniture and rich decorations
which characterise such places at the north. Here masonry, with its
imposing forms, ceremonies, and honours, is yet preserved in all its
pristine glory. The first story of the building is used as an
academy--the only one in this state. It is a well-conducted
institution, and its pupils are thoroughly instructed by competent
officers, who are graduates of northern colleges, as are most of the
public and private instructors of this state. The number of students is
generally large. Those who are destined for professional life, after
completing their preparatory course here, usually enter some one of the
colleges at the north. Yale, Princeton, and Harvard annually receive
several from this state; either from this academy or from under the
hands of the private tutors, who are dispersed throughout the state, and
from whom a great majority of the planters' sons receive their
preparatory education. But on the subject of education in this country,
I shall speak more fully hereafter. I could not pass by this
institution, which reflects so much honour upon the city, without
expressing my gratification at its flourishing condition and high
character. It is the more gratifying from being unexpected at the south,
which, till very lately, has been wholly dependent upon the northern
seminaries or private institutions for the education of her sons. To see
here an institution that cannot be surpassed by any of the same rank in
other states, must not only be pleasing to the friends of education, but
particularly so to the citizens of this state, to whom it is ably
demonstrated, by the success of this academy, that literature is not an
exotic, though its germs may heretofore have been transplanted from
another soil. There is a female seminary also in the city, which, though
of a very respectable character, is not so celebrated and flourishing
as many others in the state.
On the south side of the next square is an old "burying-ground,"
crowning an eminence whose surface is covered with fragments of
grave-stones and dismantled tombs. The street is excavated through it to
its base, leaving a wall or bank of earth nearly thirty feet in height;
upon the verge of which crumbling tombs are suspended, threatening to
fall upon the passenger beneath. It has not been used for many years as
a place of burial; the present cemetery being about a mile above the
city, in a delightful spot among the green hills which cluster along the
banks of the river. This old cemetery is a striking but disagreeable
feature in the midst of so fair a city. Adjoining it, on the eastern
side, and nearly at the extremity of the street and also of the city,
stands the theatre; a large, commodious building, constructed of brick,
with arched entrances and perfectly plain exterior. The citizens of
Natchez are not a play-going community; consequently they take little
pride in the possession of a fine theatre. Its interior, however, is
well arranged, convenient, and handsomely painted and decorated. Its
boards are supplied, for two or three months during every season, by
performers from New-Orleans or New-York. Just beyond the theatre is the
termination of Main-street, here intersected by another, from which, to
the right and left, fine roads extend into the country--one to
Washington, a pleasant village six miles distant, formerly the seat of
government of the territory and the location of the public offices; but
now a retired, unassuming and rural spot, boasting of a well-endowed
college and female seminary--of which, more hereafter. Of the other
public buildings of Natchez, the Presbyterian church is the finest and
most imposing. It stands on a commanding site, overlooking the public
square, a pleasant green flat, in the centre of which is the
court-house. It is constructed of bricks, which are allowed to retain
their original colour; and surrounded by buff-coloured pilasters of
stucco work, which is here generally substituted for granite in facings.
It is surmounted, at the west end, by a fine tower of successive
stories; on one side of which is a clock, conspicuous from the most
distant parts of the city and suburbs.--You are aware, probably, that
there are in this country no Congregationalists, so called;
Presbyterians supply the place of this denomination in the
ecclesiastical society of all the south and west. The prevailing
denomination, however, in this state, as in all this section of the
United States, is that of the Methodists, which embraces men of all
classes, including a large proportion of planters. I now merely allude
to this and other subjects of the kind, as I intend, in subsequent
letters, to treat of them more at large.
The court-house is a fine, large, square building, opposite to the
church, surmounted by a cupola. It is surrounded by a beautiful, though
not spacious, green. On the streets which bound the four sides of it are
situated the lawyers' and public offices, which are generally plain,
neat, wooden buildings, from one to two stories in height. Should they
be denominated from the state of those who occupy them, they would be
correctly designated "bachelors' halls." Shade trees half embower them
and the court-house in their rich foliage. Opposite to the south side of
the square is the county prison; a handsome two story brick building,
resembling, save in its grated tier of windows in the upper story, a
gentleman's private dwelling. There is a fine Episcopalian church in the
south-east part of the town, adding much to its beauty. It is built of
brick, and surmounted by a vast dome, which has a rather heavy,
overgrown appearance, and is evidently too large for the building. It
has a neat front, adorned with a portico of the usual brick pillars.
There are not many Episcopalians here; but the few who are of this
denomination are, as every where else in the United States, generally of
the wealthy and educated class. There is also a Methodist church
adjoining the Masonic hall; a plain, neat building, remarkable only for
its unassuming simplicity, like all others of this denomination in
America.
The light-house upon the bluff, at the north-west corner of the city, is
well deserving of notice, though not properly ranked under the public
buildings of Natchez. It is a simple tower, about forty feet in height,
commanding a section of the river, north and south, of about twelve
miles. But the natural inquiry of the stranger is, "What is its use?" A
light-house on a river bank, three hundred miles from the sea, has
certainly no place in the theory of the utilitarian. The use of it its
projectors must determine. Were a good telescope placed in its lantern
it would make a fine observatory, and become a source of amusement as
well as of improvement to the citizens, to whom it is now merely a
standing monument, in proof of the proverb, that "wisdom dwelleth not in
all men." The hotels are very fine. Parker's, on one of the front
squares, near the bluff, is a handsome, costly, and very extensive
building, three stories in height, with a stuccoed front, in imitation
of granite, and decidedly the largest edifice in the city. Its rooms are
large, spacious, and elegantly furnished; suited rather for gentlemen
and their families, who choose a temporary residence in town, than for
transient travellers and single men, who more frequently resort to the
"Mansion-house." This is not so large a structure as the former, though
its proprietor is enlarging it, on an extensive scale. It has long been
celebrated as an excellent house. Its accommodations for ladies are also
very good, their rooms opening into ventilated piazzas, or galleries, as
they are termed here, which are as necessary to every house in this
country as fire-places to a northern dwelling. These galleries, or more
properly verandas, are constructed--not like the New-England piazza,
raised on columns half the height of the building, with a flat roof, and
surrounded by a railing--but by extending a sloping roof beyond the main
building, supported at its verge by slender columns; as the houses are
usually of but one story in this country, southerners having a singular
aversion to mounting stairs. Such porticoes are easily constructed. No
house, particularly a planter's, is complete without this gallery,
usually at both the back and front; which furnishes a fine promenade and
dining-room in the warm season, and adds much to the lightness and
beauty of the edifice.
There is another very good hotel here, equivalent to Richardson's, in
New-Orleans, or the Elm-street house in Boston, where the country people
usually put up when they come in from the distant counties to dispose of
their cotton. It fronts on "Cotton-square," as a triangular area, formed
by clipping off a corner of one of the city squares, is termed; which is
filled every day, during the months of November, December, and January,
with huge teams loaded with cotton bales, for which this is the peculiar
market place.
The "City hotel," lately enlarged and refurnished, is now becoming quite
a place of fashionable resort.
XXVIII.
Society of Natchez--New-England adventurers--Their prospects
--The Yankee sisterhood--Southern bachelors--Southern society
--Woman--Her past and present condition--Single combats--
Fireside pleasures unknown--A change--Town and country--
Characteristic discrepancies.
Until within a very short period, the society of Natchez has exhibited
one peculiar characteristic, in the estimation of a northerner, in whose
migrating land "seven women," literally fulfilling the prediction, "take
hold of one man;" a prediction which has, moreover, been fulfilled,
according to the redoubtable and most classical Crockett, in the west;
but by no means in this place, or in any of the embryo cities, which are
springing up like Jonah's gourd, along the banks of the great "father of
waters." The predominance of male population in the countless villages
that are dotting the great western valley, rising up amidst the forests,
one after another, as stars come out at evening, and almost in as rapid
succession, is a necessary consequence of the natural laws of migration.
In the old Atlantic and New-England states, the sons, as they
successively grow up to manhood, take the paternal blessing and their
little patrimony, often all easily packed and carried in a knapsack, but
oftener in their heads, and bend their way to the "great west," to seek
their fortunes, with them no nursery tale, but a stern and hardly earned
reality:--there to struggle--prosper or fail--with blighted hopes go
down to early graves, or, building a fire-side of their own, gather
around it sons, who, in their declining years, shall, in their turn, go
forth from the paternal roof to seek beyond the mountains of the Pacific
shore a name, a fire-side, and a home of their own. And such is human
life!
To this migratory propensity is to be attributed the recent peculiar
state of society in this city, and throughout the whole western country.
The sons are the founders of these infant emporiums, but the daughters
stay at home in a state of single blessedness--blessings (?) to the
maternal roof, till some bold aspirants for the yoke of hymen return,
after spying out the land, take them under their migratory wings and
bear them to their new home. But unluckily for six out of every seven of
the fair daughters of the east, the pioneers of the west feel disposed
to pass their lives in all the solitary dignity of the bachelor state.
Wrapped up in their speculations, their segars and their "clubs," not
even a second Sabine device could move them to bend their reluctant
necks to the noose. Those, however, who do take to themselves
"helpmeets," are more gallant and chivalrous than their Roman
predecessors in their mode of obtaining them, not demurring to travel,
like Coelebs, many hundred leagues to the land of steady habits, to
secure the possession of some one of its lovely flowers. The
concentrating of a great number of young gentlemen for a permanent
residence in one spot, without a suitable proportion of the gentler sex
to enliven and relieve the rougher shades of such an assemblage, must
produce a state of society, varying essentially from that in communities
where the division is more equal. Hotels, or offices of professional
business must be their residences--their leisure hours must be spent in
lounging at each other's rooms like college students, (to whose mode of
life their's is not dissimilar,) or in the public rooms of the hotels,
cafés, or gambling houses. Habits difficult to eradicate are contracted,
of dark and fatal consequences to many; and a rude, cavalier bearing is
thereby imperceptibly acquired, more congenial with the wild, free
spirit of the middle ages, than the refinement of modern times. The bold
and rugged outlines natural to the sterner character of man, can only be
softened by that refining influence which the cultivated female mind
irresistibly exerts upon society. Wherever woman--
"Blessing and blest, where'er she moves,"
has exercised this gentle sway, the ruder attributes of man have been
subdued and blended with the soft and lovely virtues so eminently her
own. Second to Christianity, of which it is a striking effect, the
exalted rank to which man has elevated woman, from that degrading and
tyrannical subjugation to which she has in Pagan nations, in all ages,
from the pride and ignorance of her _soi disant_ "lords," been
subjected, has contributed more to the mental and personal refinement,
dignity and moral excellence of men, than any other agency that has
operated with a moral tendency directly upon the human mind. To the
absence of this purifying influence, is to be attributed in a very great
degree, that loose, immoral, and reckless state of society, peculiar to
all border settlements and new towns, originating generally from
communities of men. In such places that mysterious, yet indisputable
power, exercised by the other sex upon society, is unknown; and men,
throwing the reins upon the necks of their passions, plunge into vice
and dissipation, unchecked and unrestrained. In such a state the duello
had its origin--that blessed relic of that blessed age, when our
thick-skulled ancestors broke each other's heads with mace and battle
axe, for "faire ladye's love," or mere pleasant pastime--and a similar
state of things will always preserve and encourage it. Hence the
prevalence of this practice in the newly settled south and west, where
the healthful restraint of female society has been till within a few
years unknown. But as communities gain refinement through its influence,
this mode of "healing honour's wounds," so unwise, unsatisfactory and
sinful, gradually becomes less and less popular--till finally it is but
a "theme of the past." To this state of disuse and oblivion it is
rapidly advancing in this portion of the south-west, which, according to
the theory before advanced, is an indication of the growing refinement,
and moral and intellectual improvement of the community. Natchez has
been, you are well aware, celebrated for the frequency and sanguinary
character of its single combats; and this reputation it has once justly
merited. Till within a few years, duels were alarmingly frequent. But
more recently public opinion has changed, and the practice is now almost
abandoned. The society has emerged from its peculiar bachelor cast, to
that social and refined character, which constitutes the charm of well
organized and cultivated communities. But a short time since, there were
not three married men to ten unmarried. The latter predominating, gave
the tone to society, which was, as I have before observed, that of a
university, so far as habits and manners were concerned. And the
resemblance was still greater, as a large majority of the young men were
graduates of northern seminaries, or
|
asked Fitzooth.
"George of Gamewell has sent in for Robin, and I wish that you should
journey with him, giving him such sage counsel as may fit him for a
year's service in the great and worshipful company that he now may
meet."
"Come with us to-day, father," urged Mistress Fitzooth also. "I have
brought a veal pasty and some bread, so that we may not be hungry on the
road. Also, there is a flask of wine."
"Nay, daughter, I have no thought for the carnal things of life. I will
go with you, since the Ranger of Locksley orders it. It is my place to
obey him whom the King has put in charge of our greenwood. Bide here
whilst I make brief preparation."
His eyes had twinkled, though, when the dame had spoken; and one could
see that 'twas not on roots and fresh water alone that the clerk had
thrived. Full and round were the lines of him under his monkly gown; and
his face was red as any harvest moon.
Hugh bade farewell briefly to them, while the clerk was tying up his
hounds and chattering with them.
When the clerk was ready Fitzooth kissed his dame and bade her be firm
with their son; then, embracing Robin, ordered him to protect his mother
from all mischance. Also he was to bear himself honorably and quietly;
and, whilst being courteous to all folk, he was not to give way unduly
to anyone who should attempt to browbeat or to cozen him.
"Remember always that your father is a proud man; and see, take those
arrows of my own making and learn from them how to trim the hazel. You
have a steady hand and bold eye; be a craftsman when you return to
Locksley, and I will give you control of some part of the forest, under
me. Now, farewell--take my greetings to our brother at Gamewell."
Then the King's Forester turned on his heel and strode back towards
Locksley. Once he paused and faced about to wave his cap to them: then
his figure vanished into the green of the trees.
A sadness fell upon Robin--unaccountable and perplexing. But the hermit
soberly journeyed toward Nottingham, the two men-at-arms, with the
sumpter mule, riding in front.
The road wound in and about the forest, and at noon they came to a part
where the trees nigh shut out the sky.
Robin spied out a fine old stag, and his fingers itched to fit one of
his new arrows to his bow. "These be all of them King's deer, father?"
he asked the friar, thoughtfully.
"Every beast within Sherwood, royal or mean, belongs to our King,
child."
"Do they not say that Henry is away in a foreign land, father?"
"Ay, but he will return. His deer are not yet to be slain by your
arrows, child. When you are Ranger at Locksley, in your father's stead,
who shall then say you nay?"
"My father does not shoot the King's deer, except those past their
time," answered Robin, quickly. "He tends them, and slays instead any
robbers who would maltreat or kill the does. Do you think I could hit
yon beast, father? He makes a pretty mark, and my arrow would but prick
him?"
[Illustration: ROBIN AND HIS MOTHER GO TO NOTTINGHAM FAIR
_The road wound in and about the forest, and at noon they came to a part
where the trees nigh shut out the sky._]
The clerk glanced toward Mistress Fitzooth. "Dame," said he, gravely,
"do you not think that here, in this cool shadow, we might well stay our
travelling? Surely it is near the hour of noon? And," here he sank his
voice to a sly whisper, "it would be well perhaps to let this temptation
pass away from before our Robin! Else, I doubt not, the King will be one
stag the less in Sherwood."
"I like not this dark road, father," began the dame. "We shall surely
come to a brighter place. Robin, do you ride near to me, and let your
bow be at rest. Warrenton, your uncle's man, told me but yesterday----"
Her voice was suddenly drowned in the noise of a horn, wound so shrilly
and distantly as to cause them all to start. Then, in a moment, half a
score of lusty rascals appeared, springing out of the earth almost. The
men-at-arms were seized, and the little cavalcade brought to a rude
halt.
"Toll, toll!" called out the leader. "Toll must you pay, everyone, ere
your journey be continued!"
"Forbear," cried Robin, waving his dagger so soon as the man made
attempt to take his mother's jennet by the bridle. "Tell me the toll,
and the reason for it; and be more mannerly."
The man just then spied that great stag which Robin had longed to shoot,
bounding away to the left of them. Swiftly he slipped an arrow across
his longbow and winged it after the flying beast.
"A miss, an easy miss!" called Robin, impatiently. Dropping his dagger,
he snatched an arrow from his quiver, fitted it to his bow and sent it
speeding towards the stag. "Had I but aimed sooner!" murmured Robin,
regretfully, when his arrow failed by a yard to reach its quarry; and
the clerk held up his hands in pious horror of his words.
"The shot was a long one, young master," spoke the robber, and he
stooped to pick up Robin's little weapon. "Here is your bodkin--'tis no
fault of yours that the arrow was not true."
They all laughed right merrily; but Robin was vexed.
"Stand away, fellows," said he, "and let us pass on. Else shall you all
be whipped."
Again the leader of the band spoke. "Toll first, lording; tender it
prettily to us, and you shall only tender it once."
"I'll tender it not at all," retorted young Fitzooth. "Fie upon you for
staying a woman upon the King's highroad! Pretty men, forsooth, to
attack in so cowardly a fashion!"
"All must buy freedom of the greenwood, master," answered the man, quite
civilly. "We, who exact the toll, take no heed of sex. Pay us now, and
when you return there shall be no questioning."
"A woman should be a safe convoy and free from all toll," argued Robin.
"Now here are my two men."
"Slaves, master; and they have only your mule and the two pikes. It is
not enough."
"You will leave us nothing then, it seems," said Dame Fitzooth, in
trembling but brave voice.
"There is one thing that we all do value, mistress, and I purpose
sparing you that. We will do no one of you any bodily harm."
"Take my purse, then," sighed Mistress Fitzooth. "There is little enough
in it, for we are poor folk."
"Ask toll of the Church," cried Robin, staying his mother. "The Church
is rich, and has to spare. And afterwards, she can grant absolution to
you all."
Again the robbers laughed, as the clerk began explaining very volubly to
them that they were welcome to all that Mother Church could on this
occasion offer.
"We know better than to stay a monk for toll," said the robber. "Beside,
would your excellence have us commit sacrilege?"
"I would have you leave hold of my bridle," answered Robin, very
wrathfully.
"Pay the toll cheerfully, youngling," cried one of the others, "and be
not so wordy in the business. We have other folk to visit; the day is
already half gone from Sherwood."
"I will shoot with you for the freedom of the forest," said Robin,
desperately. "An I lose, then shall you take all but my mother's jennet.
She shall be allowed to carry my mother into Gamewell, whilst I remain
here, as hostage, for her return."
"Let the dame bring back a hundred crowns in each of her hands, then,"
replied the chief of the robbers.
"It is agreed," answered Robin, after one appealing glance towards the
dame. "Now help me down from my horse, and let the clerk see fair play.
Set us a mark, good father, and pray Heaven to speed my arrows
cunningly."
The clerk, who had kept himself much in the background, now spoke. "This
wager seems to savor of unholiness, friends," said he, solemnly. "Yet,
in that it also smacks of manliness, I will even consent to be judge.
You, sir, since you are doubtless well acquainted with the part, can
speak for distance. Now, I do appoint the trunk of yon birch-tree as
first mark in this business."
"Speed your arrow, then, lording," laughed the robber, gaily. "'Tis but
forty ells away! I will follow you respectfully, never doubt it."
Robin bent his bow and trained his eyes upon the birch.
Then suddenly came back upon him his father's words: "Remember that I am
a proud man, Robin."
"I will," muttered Robin, betwixt set teeth, and he aimed with all his
heart and soul in it. There came the twang of the bowstring, and the
next moment the gooseshaft was flying towards its mark.
"A pretty shot, master," said the robber, glancing carelessly towards
the arrow, quivering still in the trunk of the birch-tree. "But you have
scarce taken the centre of our mark. Let me see if I may not mend your
aim."
His arrow sang through the summer air, and took root fairly in the
middle of the trunk, side by side with Robin's.
"You win first round, friend," said the clerk, with seeming reluctance.
"Now, listen, both, whilst I make you a better test." He was about to
continue, when an interruption occurred one that saved him necessity of
further speech.
CHAPTER II
Suddenly through the greenwood came full four score of the King's
Foresters, running towards the robbers, ready to seize them.
These were the foresters of Nottingham, roving far afield. The Sheriff
of Nottingham had become angered at the impudent robberies of late, and
now all of his foresters had spread themselves about Sherwood in the
hope of making such a capture of the outlaws as would please their
master and bring substantial reward to themselves. On the head of Will
o' th' Green, the chief of the band, was set the price of ten golden
crowns.
But alas! these crowns were still to seek; for Will o' th' Green, at
first hint of the danger, had put his horn to his lips and given a long,
low call upon it, and next instant not a robber was to be seen.
Each man had dropped to his hands and knees as soon as he had reached
the bushes; and the foresters might beat and belabor Mother Sherwood in
vain, for she would never betray her children.
Fitzooth's men-at-arms were glad to be released, and were eager now to
give all information against their assailants. One of the fellows swore
roundly that the learned clerk had given Will o' th' Green a very plain
hint; but this assertion was most properly put aside by all who heard
it.
Robin gave his story of the business, and then, having thanked the
captain of the foresters, would have continued the journey. The clerk
was no longer to be denied, however, from his food: and so it came about
that presently the four of them were at a meal together under the
trees--the captain of the foresters having agreed to join with Robin,
the hermit, and Mistress Fitzooth in an attack upon the good wine and
pasty which the latter had provided.
The foresters returned in twos and threes from their fruitless search,
and stood about in little knots discussing the chase. All agreed that
the outlaws had some stronghold underground, with many entrances and
ways into it; easily to be found by those in the secret, but impossible
of passage to persons in pursuit.
"Do you go to Gamewell, friends?" asked the captain, after the meal had
been finished. When he had been answered yes, he told Mistress Fitzooth
that she might have an escort for the rest of the way; since he and his
men must travel to Gamewell themselves, to report the encounter to
Squire George of Gamewell.
Gladly Mistress Fitzooth heard this, and very cheerfully they all
started afresh upon the journey.
Robin alone was sad; the fact that the robber chief's arrow had flown
more near a woodman's mark than his own rankled within his breast.
Ah, but a time would come when Master Will o' th' Green should see
better archery than he now dreamed of. And Robin should be the master
who would teach the lesson.
Building such day-dreams, he cantered quietly enough beside his mother's
jennet; whilst the clerk and the captain of the foresters chattered
amiably together. The dame listened to their gossip, and put in her own
word and question; she had an easy mind now and could give herself to
talk of Prince John and his impudent rebellion.
"So the barons would really make him King?" asked she, round-eyed: "King
of all these lands and forests?"
"Some of our barons have sworn so much," answered the forester, lightly;
"but men speak best with their swords, dame. Have you not heard of young
Montfichet's doings? He has undone himself indeed----"
"Waldemar Fitzurse is behind it all, and young De Brocy," the clerk
interrupted, loudly, giving him a warning glance.
The friar pointed to Robin. "'Tis the lad's cousin, and he does not know
of Geoffrey Montfichet's outlawry," he whispered.
"Some say that the King will establish an assize of arms on his return
from France, whereby every knight, freeholder, and burgess must arm
himself for England's defense," continued the clerk, easily. "'Tis a
pretty notion, and like our King."
"There are tales about our Henry, and ballads more than enough," replied
the forester, shrugging his shoulders. "Will o' th' Green knows a good
one, I am told."
At the mention of the outlaw's name Robin pricked up his ears. He asked
many questions concerning Master Will; and learned that he had been
outlawed by Henry himself for the accidental slaying of a younger
brother in a quarrel years since. Before that he had been a dutiful and
loyal subject, and there were some who vowed that Master Will was as
loyal now as many of Henry's barons. Will shot the King's deer, truly,
but only that he might live: the others conspired against their
monarch's honor, in order that their own might be increased.
The cavalcade came into sight of Gamewell Hall while still at this
gossip. The night was falling and lights burned behind the embrasured
windows of the castle, for such it was in truth, being embattled and
surrounded properly by a moat and heavy walls.
The captain wound his horn to such purpose that the bridge was soon
lowered, and the whole party began to trot over it into the wide
courtyard before the hall. That it was a very magnificent place was
apparent, despite the shadows.
Before the door of the hall Robin sprang lightly from his horse and ran
to help his mother from her saddle with tender care: then moved to give
assistance to the clerk. The latter had bundled himself to firm ground,
however, and now stood stolidly expectant.
Master Montfichet--George of Gamewell, as the country folk called him
mostly--had come down to greet his guests, and was waiting upon them ere
Robin could turn about. The Squire was an old man, with white hair
curling from under a little round cap. He wore long black robes, loose
and rather monkish in their fashion. He seemed as unlike his sister as
Robin could well imagine, besides being so much more advanced in years.
His face was hairless and rather pale; but his eyes shone brightly.
There was a very pleasant expression in the lines about his mouth, and
his manner was perfect. He embraced Robin with kindliness; and real
affection for his sister seemed to underlie his few words of welcome. To
the Friar of Copmanhurst he was so courteous and respectful that Robin
began to wonder whether he himself had ever properly regarded the clerk
in the past. If so great a man should bow to him, what ought Robin to
do? Robin remembered that he had often ventured to rally and tease this
good-natured master who had taught him his letters.
The Squire bade them follow him, so soon as their horses and baggage had
been duly given over to the servants and he had heard the forester's
complaint against the outlaws. The Squire made little comment, but
frowned.
At the conclusion of the captain's report, they came into the hall,
lighted by a thousand fat tapers.
"Sister Nell--do you please dismiss us," said the Squire, in his courtly
way, after he had signed to some waiting-maids to take charge of
Mistress Fitzooth. "I will lead Robin to his chamber myself, and show
him the arrangement we have made for his stay at Gamewell. Supper will
be served us here in less than an hour. Father, your apartments shall be
near my own. Come with me, also."
In the room allotted to him Robin found new and gay clothes laid out
upon a fair, white bed, with a little rush mat beside it. A high
latticed window looked out upon the court, and there was a bench in the
nook, curiously carven and filled with stuffs and naperies the like of
which Robin had never seen before.
The walls were hung with tapestries, and very fierce and amazing were
the pictures embroidered upon them. The ceiling was low and raftered
with polished beams. Behind the door was a sword suspended by a leathern
belt.
"For you, kinsman," the Squire had said, smilingly.
Robin lost no time in doffing his green jerkin and hose, and then he
washed himself and eagerly essayed his new habiliments. When the sword
had been buckled on, our young hero of Locksley felt himself equal to
Will o' th' Green or any other gallant in Christendom.
He strode along the corridors and found his way back to the great hall.
There the Master of Gamewell and his mother awaited him. Mistress
Fitzooth's eyes shone approvingly, and Robin slipped his fingers into
hers.
"I'll build a castle as fine as this, mother mine, one of these days,"
Robin told her: and he began to ask Master Montfichet questions as to
the number of claims-at-law that he must have won in order to hold so
splendid a domain. The Squire smilingly told him that the King had given
Gamewell to him as a reward for valor in battle many years agone.
"Then will I fight for the King," cried Robin, with flashing eyes, "so
that I may win my father Broadweald and all the lands of it."
"And I will teach you, Robin: be sure of that," said old George
Montfichet. "But your sword must be swung for the right King, harkee.
Not for rebellious princes will we cry to arms; but for him whom God
hath placed over us--Henry the Angevin."
"Amen," murmured the clerk, fervently. "Let law and order be respected
always."
"It may mean much to you, friar," said Montfichet. "Young John has the
Priory of York under his hands."
"He has not fingers upon Sherwood, and we are free of it!" cried the
clerk. Then he hastily corrected himself. "We hermits can have no fear,
since we have no wealth. Happy then the man with naught to lose, and who
has a contented mind."
"I will be free of Sherwood Forest, father, if that boon shall wait upon
my archery. Master Will, the robber, swore that if I beat him, sir"--he
had turned his bright face to old Gamewell's--"I should go free of the
greenwood. And I will win the right."
"'Tis scarcely Will's to grant," frowned the Squire; "yet, in a way, he
has control of the forest. It is a matter which I will look to, since
the Sheriff seems so fearful of him," he added, significantly.
CHAPTER III
The next day they journeyed quietly into Nottingham, taking only a few
retainers with them. The clerk chose to stay at the hall, fearing, as he
said, that his eyes would be offended with the vanity of the town.
When they had come to the meadows wherein the Fair was held, Robin was
overcome with joy at the sight of the wonderments before him.
That which most pleased him was the tumbling and wrestling of a company
of itinerant players, merry fellows, all in a great flutter of tinsel
and noise. They were father and three sons, and while the old man blew
vigorously upon some instrument, the three sons amused themselves and
the crowd by cutting capers.
Again and again did Robin entice Master Montfichet to return to these
strollers. It was the wrestling that most moved him, for they put such
heart into it as to make the thing seem real. "Give them another penny,
sir," requested Robin, with heightened color. "Nay, give them a silver
one. Did you ever see the like? The little one has the trick of it, for
sure... I do believe that he will throw the elder in the next bout."
"Will you try a turn with me, young master?" asked the little stroller,
overhearing these words, "If you can stand twice to me, I'll teach you
the trick and more besides."
"Nay, nay," said the Squire, hastily. "We have no leisure for such
play, Robin. Your mother is waiting for us at yonder booth. Let us go to
her."
Robin turned away reluctantly. "I do think I could stand twice to him.
The grass is dry within the ring, sir--do you think I should hurt my
clothes?"
Such pleading as this moved the capricious old Master of Gamewell.
Although it was scarce a proper thing for one of gentle blood to mix
with these commoners, yet the Squire could not forego his own appetite
for sport. He turned about to the strollers: "I will give a purse of
silver pennies to the one who wins the next bout," said he. "Let any and
all be welcome to the ring, and the bout shall be one of three falls.
Challenge anyone in Nottingham; I dare swear some lad will be found who
shall show you how to grip and throw."
The father of the players struck a most pompous attitude and blew three
piercing blasts. "Come one, come all!" cried he. "Here be the three
great wrestlers from Cumberland, where wrestling is practised by every
lad and man! Here are the wrestlers who have beaten all in their own
county, and who now seek to overcome other champions! Oyez, oyez! There
is a prize of twenty silver pennies to be handed to the winner of the
next bout (did you say twenty or thirty pennies, lording?). Come one,
come all--the lads from Cumberland challenge you!"
"Now let me wrestle for the pence, sir," pleaded Robin, catching hold of
the Squire's sleeve. "Why should not I try to win them? They might
become the foundation of that fortune which I would have for my father's
sake."
"Twenty pennies would buy him little of Broadweald, boy," laughed the
Squire. "Nor should a Montfichet struggle in the mob for vulgar gain.
You are a Montfichet--remember it--on your mother's side. We will see
how they fare, these men of Cumberland, against the lads of Nottingham
and Sherwood. Here comes one in answer to the challenge."
A thin, pale-faced fellow had claimed the purse whilst the Squire had
been speaking. "'Tis yours if you can take it," answered the old
stroller, as he and his lads cleared the ring. A great crowd of folk
gathered about, and Montfichet and Robin were in danger of being jostled
into the background.
"Stand here beside me, lording," commanded the stroller. "Do you keep
back there, impudent dogs! This is the noble who gives the purse. There
shall be no purse at all, an you harry us so sorely. Stand back, you and
you!" He pushed back the mob with vigorous thrusts. "Now let the best
man win."
The two lads had stripped to their waists, and were eyeing each other
warily. The Nottingham youth, despite his slimness, showed clean and
muscular against the swarthy thick-set boy from Cumberland. They
suddenly closed in and clutched each other, then swayed uncertainly from
side to side. The crowd cheered madly.
The competitors for Montfichet's purse were evenly matched in strength:
it remained for one of them to throw the other by means of some trick or
feint. The stroller tried a simple ruse, and nigh lost his feet in doing
it.
"You must show us a better attempt than that, Cumberland!" called out
someone. Robin, quick-eared to recognize a voice, turned his head
instantly, and in time to catch a glimpse of Will o' th' Green, the
robber of Sherwood!
Seeing Robin's gaze fixed upon him, Master Will deemed it prudent to
discreetly withdraw. He nodded boldly to the lad first, however; then
moved slowly away. "Hold fast to him, Nottingham, for your credit's
sake," he cried, ere disappearing.
Meanwhile the wrestlers tugged and strained every nerve. Great beads of
perspiration stood out upon their brows. Neither made any use of the
many common tricks of wrestling: each perceived in the other no usual
foe.
Suddenly the Nottingham lad slipped, or seemed to slip, and instantly
the other gripped him for a throw. Fatal mistake--'twas but a ruse--and
so clear a one as to end the first round. The Nottingham lad recovered
adroitly, and now that the other had his arm low about the enemy's body,
his equipoise was readily disturbed. The stroller felt himself swiftly
thrust downward, and as they both fell together it was he who went
undermost.
"A Nottingham! A Nottingham!" clamored the crowd, approvingly. Then all
prepared themselves for the second round.
This, to Robin's surprise, was ended as soon as begun. The Cumberland
lad knew of a clever grip, and practised it upon the other immediately,
and the Nottingham hero went down heavily.
The third bout was a stubborn match, but fortune decided it at length in
favor of the stroller. Montfichet handed the purse to the winner without
regret. "Spend the money worthily as you have won it, Cumberland,"
spoke the Squire. "Now, Robin, let us join your mother. She will be
weary waiting for us."
"And if your stomach sickens for a fight with me, master, here may I be
found until Saturday at noon." So said the little tumbler, roguishly.
"'Tis a pity that we could not tussle for the purse, eh? but I would
have given your ribs a basting."
"Now shall I twist his ears for him, Squire?" said Robin.
"Nay, boy, let his ears grow longer, as befitteth; then you will have
freer play with them. Come with me to see the miracle-play, and be not
so ready to answer these rascallions. I begin to think that we should
not have gone the round of the shows by ourselves, Master Spitfire.
Travelling unattended with you is too dangerous a business."
Montfichet smiled despite his chidings. He had already taken a fancy to
this high-spirited youth. He walked affectionately, with his hand upon
Robin's shoulder, towards the booth where, with her maids, Mistress
Fitzooth was waiting for them. "Are you sorry for Nottingham, Robin?" he
asked, as they passed by the pale-faced, rueful wrestler. "Then take him
this little purse quietly. Tell him it is for consolation, from a
friend."
Robin gladly performed the task; then, as he returned to the Squire's
side, thought to ask instruction on a point which had perplexed him not
a little. "Yesterday, sir," he began, "when we were in the greenwood,
all men seemed eager to catch the robber chief."
"Well, Robin?"
"To-day he walks about Nottingham Fair, and no one attempts to tarry
him. Why is this, sir? Is the ground sanctuary?"
"Have you spied out Will o' th 'Green indeed?" began Montfichet,
eagerly. "That were hard to believe, for all he is so audacious."
"Truly, sir, I saw him when we were at the wrestling. He peered at me
above the caps of the people."
"Point him out now to me, Robin, if you can." The Squire became
humorously doubtful, and his amusement grew upon him as Robin vainly
searched with his bright eyes about the throng. "No Will o' th' Green is
here, child; he would be a fish out of water, indeed, in Nottingham
town. Dearly would I love to catch him, though."
"Yet I did see him, sir, and he knew me. Now here is my mother, who
shall tell you how long we talked together yesterday. It is not likely
that I would forget his voice."
"Well, well, perhaps you are right," said the Squire. "At any rate,
we'll keep sharp eyes for the rogue. Have you seen the miracle-play,
Sister Nell?" he added now to Mistress Fitzooth.
"I have been waiting here for you," answered she, briefly, "Robin, what
do you think of it all?"
Robin's reply was drowned in the noise of the music made within the
tents. It was so dreadful a din that all were fain to move away.
"See, mother, here is a wizard; let us go in here!" Robin had spied a
dim, mysterious booth, outside of which were triangles and cones and
fiery serpents coming forth from a golden pot, with cabalistic signs
and figures about the sides of it. Standing there was a tall, aged man,
clad in a long red robe and leaning upon a star-capped wand.
"Will you have the stars read to you, lording?" he asked, gravely.
"Ay, surely!" clamored Robin. "Come, mother mine; come, sir, let us ask
him questions of Locksley, and hear what my father may be doing."
"Do you think that you will hear truth, child? Well, have your way. Will
you join us, Nell--the business is a pleasing one, for these knaves have
the tricks of their trade. But harkee, friends, give no real heed to the
mummery."
The wizard ushered them into his tent. Then he dropped the edge of the
canvas over the opening, shrouding them in complete darkness.
The Squire began an angry protest, thinking that now was a good chance
for any confederate to rob them or cut their pockets: but the wizard,
unheeding, struck suddenly upon a small gong. A little blue flame sprang
up from a brazier at the far end of the tent.
In the strange light one could now see the furniture and appurtenances
of this quaint place. They were curious enough, although few in number.
A globe, and a small table covered with a black cloth; a bench strewn
with papers and parchments; and a skeleton of an ape, terribly deformed,
were the chief items of the collection.
A curtain concealed part of the tent. Behind the brazier were hanging
shelves covered with little bottles and phials. The wizard stretched
his wand out towards the dancing blue flame, and it forthwith leaped up
into a golden glory.
"Approach, Robin, son of Fitzooth the Ranger," commanded the wizard.
"Place your hand upon the globe and look down upon this table." He
pushed away the black cloth, showing that the center of the table was
made of flat green glass. "Look steadily, and tell me what you see."
"I see through it the grass of the ground on which we stand," said
Robin. "There is naught else."
"Look again, Robin of Locksley."
Robin strained his eyes in the hope of discovering something of mystery.
But the flat glass was clear and disappointing.
"Let me take your place, Robin," said Mistress Fitzooth, impatiently.
But now the green of the glass began to fade; and it seemed to become
opaque and misty. Robin dimly saw in it a sudden miniature picture of a
glade in the forest of Sherwood, the trees moving under a south-west
wind, and the grasses and flowers bowing together and trembling.
It seemed to be summer; the bracken was high and green. A man, clad in
doublet and hose of Lincoln green, strode forward into the center of the
picture. He was a slim fellow, not over tall, with a likeable face,
bearded and bronzed; and a forester, too, if one might judge by the
longbow which he carried. He wore no badge nor mark of servitude,
however, and walked as a free man. His face, vaguely familiar, wore an
expectant look. He turned his glances right and left. A low call sounded
from the bushes on his left. Robin could hear it as a sound afar off.
The man cautiously moved towards the verge of the glade, and as he did
so there came a shower of light laughter from the undergrowth. Pushing
aside the bracken came forth two arms; a merry face appeared; then,
quick as a flash, upstood a page, gaily clad, with black curly hair and
strange eyes.
The man opened his arms to the lad, and then Robin saw that 'twas no boy
at all. It was a maid, joyous with life, playing such a prank as this
that she might bring herself to her true love's side.
Robin watched them delightedly. In some way he knew that in this
mirrored picture _he_ was concerned to a curious degree; and when a cold
cloud passing above the glade took the sun and the light from it Robin
felt an intense anxiety.
"Can you see aught now, Robin of the Woods?" murmured the soft voice of
the wizard, and Robin would have asked him who was the man, if his
tongue had been at command.
His eyes took all the strength of his brain. They waited furiously for
the cloud to pass.
When all had become clear again the man was alone. His face was
sorrowful, ill, and old. He was fitting an arrow to his bow, and his
hand trembled as his fingers drew the string. He drew it slowly, almost
wearily, yet with a practised gesture. Robin, watching him, saw the
arrow leap forth from the picture.
"He is dying and shoots his last arrow--is it not so?" he uttered
thickly, striving to understand.
While he spoke the vision faded and was gone.
CHAPTER IV
Robin started back angrily and faced the Squire. He began a confused
complaint against the wizard, who had vanished behind the curtain on the
left. Master Montfichet shrugged his shoulders indulgently.
"Give not so earnest a mind to these mummeries, child. 'Twas all a
trick! What did you see? A golden fortune and a happy life?"
"I did see a man, sir, dressed all in Lincoln green. He was like unto my
father, in a way, and yet was not my father. Also there was a stripling
page, who turned into a maid. Very beautiful she was, and I would know
her again in any guise."
"Ah, Master Robin, have you eyes for the maids already?"
"This was so sweet a lady, sir, and in some manner I do think she died.
And the man shot an arrow, meaning me to see where it fell, since there
would be her grave. That is what I think he meant. But then the picture
was gone as quickly as it came."
"Sister Nell, do you hear these marvels? Take your place and let us see
what the crystal can show to you. Most worthy conjurer of dreams, take
up your wand again: we all are waiting
|
the Shoemaker, is considered as a just
example of human science, no less than the knowledge which the geometer
or the astronomer possesses of the theoretical truths with which he
is conversant. Not only so; but traditionary and mythological tales,
mystical imaginations and fantastical etymologies, are mixed up, as
no less choice ingredients, with the most acute logical analyses, and
the most exact conduct of metaphysical controversies. There is no
distinction made between the knowledge possessed by the theoretical
psychologist and the physician, the philosophical teacher of morals
and the legislator or the administrator of law. This, indeed, is the
less to be wondered at, since even in our own time the same confusion
is very commonly made by persons not otherwise ignorant or uncultured.
On the other hand, we may remark finally, that Plato's admiration of
Ideas was not a barren imagination, even so far as regarded physical
science. For, as we have seen[5], he had a very important share in
the introduction of the theory of epicycles, having been the first to
propose to astronomers in a distinct form, the problem of which that
theory was the solution; namely, "to explain the celestial phenomena
by the combination of equable circular motions." This demand of an
ideal hypothesis which should exactly express the phenomena (as well
as they could then be observed), and from which, by the interposition
of suitable steps, all special cases might be deduced, falls in well
with those views respecting the proper mode of seeking knowledge
which we have quoted from the _Philebus_. And the Idea which could
thus represent and replace all the particular Facts, being not only
sought but found, we may readily suppose that the philosopher was, by
this event, strongly confirmed in his persuasion that such an Idea
was indeed what the inquirer ought to seek. In this conviction all
his genuine followers up to modern times have participated; and thus,
though they have avoided the error of those who hold that facts alone
are valuable as the elements of our knowledge, they have frequently run
into the opposite error of too much despising and neglecting facts, and
of thinking that the business of the inquirer after truth was only a
profound and constant contemplation of the conceptions of his own mind.
But of this hereafter.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: _Metaph._ xii. 4.]
[Footnote 2: Diog. Laert. _Vit. Plat._]
[Footnote 3: T. ii. p. 16, c, d. ed. Bekker, t. v. p. 437.]
[Footnote 4: See the remarks on this phrase in the next chapter.]
[Footnote 5: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. iii. c. ii.]
CHAPTER III.
ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON PLATO.
The leading points in Plato's writings which bear upon the philosophy
of discovery are these:
1. The Doctrine of Ideas.
2. The Doctrine of the One and the Many.
3. The notion of the nature and aim of Science.
4. The survey of existing Sciences.
1. The Doctrine of Ideas is an attempt to solve a problem which in all
ages forces itself upon the notice of thoughtful men; namely, How can
certain and permanent knowledge be possible for man, since all his
knowledge must be derived from transient and fluctuating sensations?
And the answer given by this doctrine is, that certain and permanent
knowledge is _not_ derived from _Sensations_, but from _Ideas_. There
are in the mind certain elements of knowledge which are not derived
from sensation, and are only imperfectly exemplified in sensible
objects; and when we reason concerning sensible things so as to obtain
real knowledge, we do so by considering such things as partaking of
the qualities of the Ideas concerning which there can be truth. The
sciences of Geometry and Arithmetic show that there _are_ truths which
man can know; and the Doctrine of Ideas explains how this is possible.
So far the Doctrine of Ideas answers its primary purpose, and is a
reply (by no means the least intelligible and satisfactory reply) to
a question still agitated among philosophers: What is the ground of
geometrical (and other necessary) truth?
But Plato seems, in many of his writings, to extend this doctrine much
further; and to assume, not only Ideas of Space and its properties,
from which geometrical truths are derived; but of Relations, as the
Relations of Like and Unlike, Greater and Less; and of mere material
objects, as Tables and Chairs. Now to assume Ideas of such things as
these solves no difficulty and is supported by no argument. In this
respect the Ideal theory is of no value in Science.
It is curious that we have a very acute refutation of the Ideal theory
in this sense, not only in Aristotle, the open opponent of Plato on
this subject, but in the Platonic writings themselves: namely, in the
Dialogue entitled _Parmenides_; which, on this and on other accounts, I
consider to be the work not of Plato, but of an opponent of Plato[6].
2. I have spoken, in the preceding chapter, of Plato's doctrine that
truth is to be obtained by discerning the One in the Many. This
expression is used, it would seem, in a somewhat large and fluctuating
way, to mean several things; as for instance, finding the one _kind_ in
many _individuals_ (for instance, the one idea of dog in many dogs);
or the one _law_ in many _phenomena_ (for instance, the eccentrics and
epicycles in many planets). In any interpretation, it is too loose and
indefinite a rule to be of much value in the formation of sciences,
though it has been recently again propounded as important in modern
times.
3. I have said, in the preceding chapter, that Plato, though he saw
that scientific truths of great generality might be obtained and
were to be arrived at by philosophers, overlooked the necessity of a
_gradual_ and _successive_ advance from the less general to the more
general; and I have described this as a 'dimness of vision.' I must now
acknowledge that this is not a very appropriate phrase; for not only
no acuteness of vision could have enabled Plato to see that gradual
generalization in science of which, as yet, no example had appeared;
but it was very fortunate for the progress of truth, at that time, that
Plato had imagined to himself the object of science to be general
and sublime truths which prove themselves to be true by the light of
their own generality and symmetry. It is worth while to illustrate this
notice of Plato by some references to his writings.
In the Sixth Book of the _Republic_, Plato treats of the then existing
sciences as the instruments of a philosophical education. Among the
most conspicuous of these is astronomy. He there ridicules the notion
that astronomy is a sublime science because it makes men look _upward_.
He asserts that the really sublime science is that which makes men look
at the _realities_, which are suggested by the appearances seen in the
heavens: namely, the spheres which revolve and carry the luminaries
in their revolutions. Now it was no doubt the determined search for
such "realities" as these which gave birth to the Greek _Astronomy_,
that first and critical step in the progress of science. Plato, by his
exhortations, if not by his suggestions, contributed effectually, as
I conceive, to this step in science. In the same manner he requires
a science of _Harmonics_ which shall be free from the defects and
inaccuracies which occur in actual instruments. This belief that the
universe was full of mathematical relations, and that these were the
true objects of scientific research, gave a vigour, largeness of mind,
and confidence to the Greek speculators which no more cautious view of
the problem of scientific discovery could have supplied. It was well
that this advanced guard in the army of discoverers was filled with
indomitable courage, boundless hopes, and creative minds.
But we must not forget that this disposition to what Bacon calls
_anticipation_ was full of danger as well as of hope. It led Plato
into error, as it led Kepler afterwards, and many others in all ages
of scientific activity. It led Plato into error, for instance, when it
led him to assert (in the _Timæus_) that the four elements, Earth, Air,
Fire and Water, have, for the forms of their particles respectively,
the Cube, the Icosahedron, the Pyramid, and the Octahedron; and again,
when it led him to despise the practical controversies of the musicians
of his time; which controversies were, in fact, the proof of the
truth of the mathematical theory of Harmonics. And in like manner it
led Kepler into error when it led him to believe that he had found the
reason of the number, size and motion of the planetary orbits in the
application of the five regular solids to the frame of the universe[7].
How far the caution in forming hypotheses which Bacon's writings urge
upon us is more severe than suits the present prospects of science,
we may hereafter consider; but it is plainly very conceivable that
a boldness in the invention and application of hypotheses which was
propitious to science in its infancy, may be one of the greatest
dangers of its more mature period: and further, that the happy effect
of such a temper depended entirely upon the candour, skill and labour
with which the hypotheses were compared with the observed phenomena.
4. Plato has given a survey of the sciences of his time as Francis
Bacon has of _his_. Indeed Plato has given two such surveys: one,
in the _Republic_, in reviewing, as I have said, the elements of a
philosophical education; the other in the _Timæus_, as the portions
of a theological view of the universe--such as has been called a
_Theodicæa_, a justification of God. In the former passage of Plato,
the sciences enumerated are Arithmetic, Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry,
Astronomy and Harmonics[8]. In the _Timæus_ we have a further notice
of many other subjects, in a way which is intended, I conceive, to
include such knowledge as Plato had then arrived at on the various
parts of the universe. The subjects there referred to are, as I have
elsewhere stated[9], these: light and heat, water, ice, gold, gems,
rust and other natural objects:--odours, taste, hearing, lights,
colour, and the powers of sense in general:--the parts and organs of
the body, as the bones, the marrow, the brain, flesh, muscles, tendons,
ligaments and nerves; the skin, the hair, the nails; the veins and
arteries; respiration; generation; and in short, every obvious point
of physiology. But the opinions thus delivered in the _Timæus_ on the
latter subject have little to do with the progress of real knowledge.
The doctrines, on the other hand, which depend upon geometrical and
arithmetical relations are portions or preludes of the sciences which
the fulness of time brought forth.
5. I may, as further bearing upon the Platonic notion of science,
notice Plato's view of the constitution of the human mind. According
to him the Ideas which are the constituents of science form an
Intelligible World, while the visible and tangible things which we
perceive by our senses form the Visible World. In the visible world we
have shadows and reflections of actual objects, and by these shadows
and reflections we may judge of the objects, even when we cannot do
so directly; as when men in a dark cavern judge of external objects
by the shadows which they cast into the cavern. In like manner in the
Intelligible World there are conceptions which are the usual objects of
human thought, and about which we reason; but these are only shadows
and reflections of the Ideas which are the real sources of truth.
And the Reasoning Faculty, the Discursive Reason, the _Logos_, which
thus deals with conceptions, is subordinate to the Intuitive Faculty,
the Intuitive Reason, the _Nous_, which apprehends Ideas[10]. This
recognition of a Faculty in man which contemplates the foundations--the
_Fundamental Ideas_--of science, and by apprehending such Ideas, makes
science possible, is consentaneous to the philosophy which I have
all along presented, as the view taught us by a careful study of the
history and nature of science. That new Fundamental Ideas are unfolded,
and the Intuitive Faculty developed and enlarged by the progress of
science and by an intimate acquaintance with its reasonings, Plato
appears to have discerned in some measure, though dimly. And this is
the less wonderful, inasmuch as this gradual and successive extension
of the field of Intuitive Truth, in proportion as we become familiar
with a larger amount of derived truth, is even now accepted by few,
though proved by the reasonings of the greatest scientific discoverers
in every age.
The leading defect in Plato's view of the nature of real science is his
not seeing fully the extent to which experience and observation are the
basis of all our knowledge of the universe. He considers the luminaries
which appear in the heavens to be not the true objects of astronomy,
but only some imperfect adumbration of them;--mere diagrams which may
assist us in the study of a higher truth, as beautiful diagrams might
illustrate the truths of geometry, but would not prove them. This
notion of an astronomy which is an astronomy of Theories and not of
Facts, is not tenable, for Theories _are_ Facts. Theories and Facts
are equally _real_; true Theories are Facts, and Facts are familiar
Theories. But when Plato says that astronomy is a series of problems
suggested by visible things, he uses expressions quite conformable
to the true philosophy of science; and the like is true of all other
sciences.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: This matter is further discussed in the Appendix, Essay A.]
[Footnote 7: These matters are further discussed in the Appendix, Essay
B.]
[Footnote 8: See Appendix, Essay B.]
[Footnote 9: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. ii. Additions to 3rd Ed.]
[Footnote 10: See these views further discussed in the Appendix, Essay
C.]
CHAPTER IV.
ARISTOTLE.
The views of Aristotle with regard to the foundations of human
knowledge are very different from those of his tutor Plato, and are
even by himself put in opposition to them. He dissents altogether
from the Platonic doctrine that Ideas are the true materials of our
knowledge; and after giving, respecting the origin of this doctrine,
the account which we quoted in the last chapter, he goes on to reason
against it. "Thus," he says[11], "they devised Ideas of all things
which are spoken of as universals: much as if any one having to count a
number of objects, should think that he could not do it while they were
few, and should expect to count them by making them more numerous. For
the kinds of things are almost more numerous than the special sensible
objects, by seeking the causes of which they were led to their Ideas."
He then goes on to urge several other reasons against the assumption of
Ideas and the use of them in philosophical researches.
Aristotle himself establishes his doctrines by trains of reasoning. But
reasoning must proceed from certain First Principles; and the question
then arises, Whence are these First Principles obtained? To this he
replies, that they are the result of _Experience_, and he even employs
the same technical expression by which we at this day describe the
process of collecting these principles from observed facts;--that they
are obtained by _Induction_. I have already quoted passages in which
this statement is made[12]. "The way of reasoning," he says[13], "is
the same in philosophy, and in any art or science: we must collect
the _facts_ (τὰ ὑπὰρχοντα), and the things to which the facts happen,
and must have as large a supply of these as possible, and then we must
examine them according to the terms of our syllogisms."... "There are
peculiar principles in each science; and in each case these principles
must be obtained from _experience_. Thus astronomical observation
supplies the principles of astronomical science. For the phenomena
being rightly taken, the demonstrations of astronomy were discovered;
and the same is the case with any other Art or Science. So that if
the facts in each case be taken, it is our business to construct the
demonstrations. For if _in our natural history_ (κατὰ τὰν ἱστορί αν)
we have omitted none of the facts and properties which belong to the
subject, we shall learn what we can demonstrate and what we cannot."
And again[14], "It is manifest that if any sensation be wanting, there
must be some knowledge wanting, which we are thus prevented from
having. For we acquire knowledge either _by Induction_ (ἐπαγωγῆ) or
by Demonstration: and Demonstration is from universals, but Induction
from particulars. It is impossible to have universal theoretical
propositions except by Induction: and we cannot make inductions without
having sensation; for sensation has to do with particulars."
It is easy to show that Aristotle uses the term _Induction_, as we use
it, to express the process of collecting a general proposition from
particular cases in which it is exemplified. Thus in a passage which
we have already quoted[15], he says, "Induction, and Syllogism from
Induction, is when we attribute one extreme term to the middle by means
of the other." The import of this technical phraseology will further
appear by the example which he gives: "We find that several animals
which are deficient in bile are long-lived, as man, the horse, the
mule; hence we infer that _all_ animals which are deficient in bile are
long-lived."
We may observe, however, that both Aristotle's notion of induction,
and many other parts of his philosophy, are obscure and imperfect, in
consequence of his refusing to contemplate ideas as something distinct
from sensation. It thus happens that he always assumes the ideas
which enter into his proposition as _given_; and considers it as the
philosopher's business to determine whether such propositions are true
or not: whereas the most important feature in induction is, as we have
said, the _introduction_ of a new idea, and not its employment when
once introduced. That the mind in this manner gives unity to that which
is manifold,--that we are thus led to speculative principles which have
an evidence higher than any others,--and that a peculiar sagacity in
some men seizes upon the conceptions by which the facts may be bound
into true propositions,--are doctrines which form no essential part
of the philosophy of the Stagirite, although such views are sometimes
recognized, more or less clearly, in his expressions. Thus he says[16],
"There can be no knowledge when the sensation does not continue in
the mind. For this purpose, it is necessary both to perceive, and to
have some _unity_ in the mind (αἰσθανομένοις εχειν ἔν τι[17] ἐν τῇ
ψυχῇ); and many such perceptions having taken place, some difference
is then perceived: and from the remembrance of these arises Reason.
Thus from Sensation comes Memory, and from Memory of the same thing
often repeated comes Experience: for many acts of Memory make up one
Experience. And from Experience, or from any Universal Notion which
takes a permanent place in the mind,--from the _unity in the manifold_,
the same some one thing being found in many facts,--springs the first
principle of Art and of Science; of Art, if it be employed about
production; of Science, if about existence."
I will add to this, Aristotle's notice of _Sagacity_; since, although
little or no further reference is made to this quality in his
philosophy, the passage fixes our attention upon an important step in
the formation of knowledge. "Sagacity" (ἀγχίνοια), he says[18], "is a
hitting by guess (εὐστοχία τις) upon the middle term (the conception
common to two cases) in an inappreciable time. As for example, if any
one seeing that the bright side of the moon is always towards the sun,
suddenly perceives why this is; namely, because the moon shines by the
light of the sun:--or if he sees a person talking with a rich man, he
guesses that he is borrowing money;--or conjectures that two persons
are friends, because they are enemies of the same person."--To consider
only the first of these examples;--the conception here introduced,
that of a body shining by the light which another casts upon it, is
not contained in the observed facts, but introduced by the mind. It
is, in short, that conception which, in the act of induction, the mind
superadds to the phenomena as they are presented by the senses: and to
invent such appropriate conceptions, such "eustochies," is, indeed, the
precise office of inductive sagacity.
At the end of this work (the _Later Analytics_) Aristotle ascribes
our knowledge of principles to Intellect (νοῦς), or, as it appears
necessary to translate the word, _Intuition_[19]. "Since, of our
intellectual habits by which we aim at truth, some are always true, but
some admit of being false, as Opinion and Reasoning, but Science and
Intuition are always true; and since there is nothing which is more
certain than Science except Intuition; and since Principles are better
known to us than the Deductions from them; and since all Science is
connected by reasoning, we cannot have Science respecting Principles.
Considering this then, and that the beginning of Demonstration cannot
be Demonstration, nor the beginning of Science, Science; and since, as
we have said, there is no other kind of truth, Intuition must be the
beginning of Science."
What is here said, is, no doubt, in accordance with the doctrines which
we have endeavoured to establish respecting the nature of Science,
if by this _Intuition_ we understand that contemplation of certain
Fundamental Ideas, which is the basis of all rigorous knowledge. But
notwithstanding this apparent approximation, Aristotle was far from
having an habitual and practical possession of the principles which he
thus touches upon. He did not, in reality, construct his philosophy by
giving Unity to that which was manifold, or by seeking in Intuition
principles which might be the basis of Demonstration; nor did he
collect, in each subject, fundamental propositions by an induction
of particulars. He rather endeavoured to divide than to unite; he
employed himself, not in combining facts, but in analysing notions;
and the criterion to which he referred his analysis was, not the facts
of our experience, but our habits of language. Thus his opinions
rested, not upon sound inductions, gathered in each case from the
phenomena by means of appropriate Ideas; but upon the loose and vague
generalizations which are implied in the common use of speech.
Yet Aristotle was so far consistent with his own doctrine of the
derivation of knowledge from experience, that he made in almost
every province of human knowledge, a vast collection of such special
facts as the experience of his time supplied. These collections are
almost unrivalled, even to the present day, especially in Natural
History; in other departments, when to the facts we must add the right
Inductive Idea, in order to obtain truth, we find little of value
in the Aristotelic works. But in those parts which refer to Natural
History, we find not only an immense and varied collection of facts and
observations, but a sagacity and acuteness in classification which it
is impossible not to admire. This indeed appears to have been the most
eminent faculty in Aristotle's mind.
The influence of Aristotle in succeeding ages will come under our
notice shortly.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: _Metaph._ xii. 4.]
[Footnote 12: _Hist. Ind. Sc._ b. i. c. iii. sect. 2.]
[Footnote 13: _Analyt. Prior._ i. 30.]
[Footnote 14: _Analyt. Post._ i. 18.]
[Footnote 15: _Analyt. Prior._ ii. 23, περὶ τῆς ἐπαγωγῆς.]
[Footnote 16: _Analyt. Post._ ii. 19.]
[Footnote 17: But the best reading seems to be not ἔν τι but ἔτι:
and the clause must be rendered "both to perceive and to retain the
perception in the mind." This correction does not disturb the general
sense of the passage, that the first principles of science are obtained
by finding the One in the Many.]
[Footnote 18: _Analyt. Post._ i. 34.]
[Footnote 19: _Ibid._ ii. 19.]
CHAPTER V.
ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON ARISTOTLE.
1. One of the most conspicuous points in Aristotle's doctrines as
bearing upon the philosophy of Science is his account of that mode of
attaining truth which is called _Induction_; for we are accustomed
to consider Induction as the process by which our Sciences have been
formed; and we call them collectively the _Inductive Sciences_.
Aristotle often speaks of Induction, as for instance, when he says that
Socrates introduced the frequent use of it. But the cardinal passage
on this subject is in his _Analytics_, in which he compares Syllogism
and Induction as two modes of drawing conclusions[20]. He there says
that all belief arises either from Syllogism or from Induction: and
adds that Induction is, when by means of one extreme term we infer
the other extreme to be true of the middle term. The example which
he gives is this: knowing that particular animals are long-lived, as
elephant, horse, mule; and finding that these animals agree in having
no gall-bladder; we infer, by _Induction_, that _all_ animals which
have no gall-bladder are long-lived. This may be done, he says, if the
middle and the second extreme are convertible: as the following formal
statement may show.
Elephant, horse, mule, &c. are long-lived.
Elephant, horse, mule, &c. are all gall-less.
If we might convert this proposition, and say
All gall-less animals are as elephant, horse, mule, &c.:
we might infer _syllogistically_ that
All gall-less animals are long-lived.
And though we cannot infer this syllogistically, we infer it by
Induction, when we have a sufficient amount of instances[21].
I have already elsewhere given this account of Induction, as a process
employed in the formation of our knowledge[22]. What I have now to
remark concerning Aristotle is, that it does not appear to have
occurred to him, that in establishing such a proposition as that which
he gives as his instance, the main difficulty is the _discovery_ of
a _middle term_ which will allow us to frame such a proposition as
we need. The zoologist who wanted to know what kind of animals are
long-lived, might guess long before he guessed that the absence of the
gall-bladder supplied the requisite middle term; (if the proposition
were true; which it is not.) And in like manner in other cases, it
is difficult to find a middle term, which enables us to collect a
proposition by Induction. And herein consists the imperfection of his
view of the subject; which considers the main point to be the proof
of the proposition when the conceptions are _given_, whereas the main
point really is, the _discovery_ of conceptions which will make a true
proposition possible.
2. Since the main characteristic of the steps which have occurred in
the formation of the physical sciences, is not merely that they are
propositions collected by Induction, but by the introduction of a _new_
conception; it has been suggested that it is not a characteristic
designation of these Sciences to call them _Inductive Sciences_. Almost
every discovery involves in it the introduction of a new conception,
as the element of a new proposition; and the novelty of the conception
is more characteristic of the stages of discovery than the inductive
application of it. Hence as bearing upon the Philosophy of Discovery,
the statements of Aristotle concerning Induction, though acute and
valuable, are not so valuable as they might seem. Even Francis Bacon,
it has been asserted, erred in the same way (and of course with less
excuse) in asserting Induction, of a certain kind, to be the great
instrument for the promotion of knowledge, and in overlooking the
necessity of the _Invention_ which gives Induction its value.
3. The invention or discovery of a conception by which many facts
of observation are conjoined so as to make them the materials of a
proposition, is called in Plato, as we have seen, _finding the One in
the Many_.
In the passage quoted from the _Later Analytics_, Aristotle uses the
same expression, and speaks very justly respecting the formation of
knowledge. Indeed the _Titles_ of the chapters of this and many parts
of Aristotle's works would lead us to expect just such a Philosophy
of Discovery as is the object of our study at present. Thus we have,
_Anal. Post._ B. II. chap. 13: "How we are to hunt (θηρεύειν) the
predications of a Definition." Chap. 14: "Precepts for the invention
of Problems and of a Middle Term:" and the like. But when we come to
read these chapters, they contain little that is of value, and resolve
themselves mostly into permutations of Aristotle's logical phraseology.
4. The part of the Aristotelian philosophy which has most permanently
retained its place in modern Sciences is a part of which a use has been
made quite different from that which was originally contemplated. The
"Five words" which are explained in the Introduction to Aristotle's
_Categories_: namely, the words _Genus_, _Species_, _Difference_,
_Property_, _Accident_, were introduced mainly that they might be used
in the propositions of which Syllogisms consist, and might thus be the
elements of reasoning. But it has so happened that these words are
rarely used in Sciences of Reasoning, but are abundantly and commonly
used in the Sciences of Classification, as I have explained in
speaking of the Classificatory Sciences[23].
5. Of Aristotle's actual contributions to the Physical Sciences I have
spoken in the History of those Sciences[24]. I have[25] stated that
he conceived the globular form of the earth so clearly and gave so
forcibly the arguments for that doctrine, that we may look upon him as
the most effective teacher of it. Also in the Appendix to that History,
published in the third edition, I have given Aristotle's account of the
Rainbow, as a further example of his industrious accumulation of facts,
and of his liability to error in his facts.
6. We do not find Aristotle so much impressed as we might have expected
by that great monument of Grecian ingenuity, the theory of epicycles
and excentrics which his predecessor Plato urged so strongly upon the
attention of his contemporaries. Aristotle proves, as I have said,
the globular form of the earth by good and sufficient arguments. He
also proves by arguments which seem to him quite conclusive[26], that
the earth is in the center of the universe, and immoveable. As to the
motions of the rest of the planets, he says little. The questions
of their order, and their distances, and the like, belong, he says,
to Astrology[27]. He remarks only that the revolution of the heaven
itself, the outermost revolution, is simple and the quickest of all:
that the revolutions of the others are slower, each moving in a
direction opposite to the heaven in its own circle: and that it is
reasonable that those which are nearest to the first revolution should
take the longest time in describing their own circle, and those that
are furthest off, the least time, and the intermediate ones in the
order of their distances, "as also the mathematicians show."
In the _Metaphysics_[28] he enumerates the circular movements which
had been introduced by the astronomers Eudoxus and Calippus for the
explanation of the phenomena presented by the sun, moon and planets.
These, he says, amount to fifty-five; and this, he says, must be the
number of essences and principles which exist in the universe.
7. In the Sciences of Classification, and especially in the
classification of animals, higher claims have been made for Aristotle,
which I have discussed in the History[29]. I have there attempted to
show that Aristotle's classification, inasmuch as it enumerates all
the parts of animals, may be said to contain the _materials_ of every
subsequent classification: but that it cannot be said to anticipate
any modern system, because the different grades of classification are
not made _subordinate_ to one another as a _system_ of classification
requires. I have the satisfaction of finding Mr. Owen agreeing with me
in these views[30].
8. Francis Bacon's criticism on Aristotle which I have quoted in the
Appendix to the History[31], is severe, and I think evidently the
result of prejudice. He disparages Aristotle in comparison with the
other philosophers of Greece. 'Their systems,' he says, 'had some
savour of experience, and nature, and bodily things; while the Physics
of Aristotle, in general, sound only of Logical Terms.
'Nor let anyone be moved by this: that in his books _Of Animals_,
and in his _Problems_, and in others of his tracts, there is often a
quoting of experiments. For he had made up his mind beforehand; and did
not consult experience in order to make right propositions and axioms,
but when he had settled his system to his will, he twisted experience
round and made her bend to his system.'
I do not think that this can be said with any truth. I know no
instances in which Aristotle has twisted experience round, and made
her bend to his system. In his _Problems_, he is so far from giving
dogmatical solutions of the questions proposed, that in most cases, he
propounds two or three solutions as mere suggestions and conjectures.
And both in his History of Animals, as I have said, and in others of
his works, the want of system gives them an incoherent and tumultuary
character, which even a false system would have advantageously removed;
for, as I have said elsewhere, it is easier to translate a false system
into a true one, than to introduce system into a mass of confusion.
9. It is curious that a fundamental error into which Aristotle fell in
his view of the conditions which determine the formation of Science
is very nearly the same as one of Francis Bacon's leading mistakes.
Aristotle says, that Science consists in knowing the _causes_ of
things, as Bacon aims at acquiring a knowledge of the _forms_ or
_essences_ of things and their qualities. But the history of all the
sciences teaches us that sciences do not begin with such knowledge, and
that in few cases only do they ever attain to it. Sciences begin by a
knowledge of the _laws_ of _phenomena_, and proceed by the discovery
of the scientific ideas by which the phenomena are colligated, as I
have shown in other works[32]. The discovery of causes is not beyond
the human powers, as some have taught. Those who thus speak disregard
the lessons taught by the history of Physical Astronomy, of Geology, of
Physical Optics, Thermotics and other sciences. But the discovery of
causes, and of the essential forms of qualities, is a triumph reserved
for the later stages of each Science, when the knowledge of the laws of
phenomena has already made great progress. It was not to be expected
that Aristotle would discern this truth, when, as yet, there was no
Science extant in which it had been exemplified. Yet in Astronomy, the
theory of epicycles and excentrics had immense value, and even has
still, as representing the laws of phenomena; while the attempt to find
in it, as Aristotle wished to do, the ultimate causes of the motions
of the universe, could only mislead. The Aristotelian maxim, which
sounds so plausible, and has been so generally accepted, that "to know
truly is to know the causes of things," is a bad guide in scientific
research. Instead of it we might substitute this: that "though we may
aspire to know at last _why_ things are, we must be content for a long
time with knowing _how_ they are."
10. Hence if we are asked whether Plato or Aristotle had the truer
views of the nature and property of Science, we must give the
preference to Plato; for though his
|
read or heard, but the Major[23] & his family slept soundly, for he
had been through before consequently he heeded them not, nor did I say a
word, but was glad when day broke; my fears were dispelled with the
darkness. Seated outside the tent I was amused watching the indians
shoot with their bows & arrows for 5 or 10 cts that some men would put
up for the purpose of seeing them shoot, or looking at them ride on
their ponies in a manner that none but indians can; it is a novel sight
to see them, their faces painted, or tattooed, wraped in their red
blankets with a kind of cap on their heads, & stuck in the top were from
one to a dozen long feathers of various colors, & by a word to their
ponies, for I seldom see them use a whip, they scamper away with the
speed of the wind.
[May 1--18th day] Teams crossing the river all the while, but there is
not half ferry boats enough here, great delay is the consequence,
besides the pushing, & crowding, to see who shall get across first.
There is every description of teams & waggons; from a hand cart &
wheel-barrow, to a fine six horse carriage & buggie; but more than two
thirds are oxen & waggons similar to our own; & by the looks of their
loads they do not intend to starve. Most of the horses, mules & cattle,
are the best the states afford; they are indeed beautiful, but I fear
some of them will share the fate of the "gallant grey" of Snowdouns
Knight.[24] [May 2--19th day] It being a very pleasant day we walked out
toward the indian encampment, we saw a little way to our left a painted
post, which the Major said denoted that an indian was buried there; we
turned aside, found there were two graves on[e] of quite recent date, &
recolecting that I had seen a coffin put on the ferryboat that day I
came over I supposed this to be the same, deposited here, & that the
noise I heard them making the following night, was the funeral dirge.
There was one old grey headed indian here, but on approach, he wraped
his blanket around him, & without speaking, or seeming to take notice of
us, walked off into the thickets, & disappeared. I looked after him as
he turned away, & felt as if I was an intruder. There was an air of
greatness about him, his tall and erect figure, & noble features; he had
doubtless sat arround the council fires of his tribe when they were
many, before the white man had reduced their numbers to a mere handful,
& perhaps this one now laid low, might have been the last belonging to
him; no doubt but he could "a tale unfold," of the events of bygone
years. But we proceeded onward & found that they had nearly all packed
up and gone, some of the squaws were mounted on their little ponies 2 on
each, seated on opposite sides, so as to ballance. We turned to the
tent, heard that the Majors teems had arrived in town, & would be over
in the morning. [May 3--20th day] A place having been found at a private
house where I could be accommodated for a few days, I recrossed the
river, went to the house where I was to stay, until the team came which
I most anxiously wished for, as the numbers which passed over dayly,
seemed to me so great that we should be behind, for there are a like
number crossing at several other points at the same time.
[May 4 to 7--21st to 24th days] Began to look for the team, but manny
said, it would take at least 18 or 20 days to come from St. louis here,
looked quite hard to-day.
[May 8--25th day] This morning I went out walked up a hill which
overlooks the town & river, never saw such a bustle, there was a large
drove of cattle filling the streets for some distance, which they were
crossing to the other side as fast as possible, with their little boats,
where there should have been at least 2 good large steam ferry boats, &
I should think that they could afford to build them, or charter them
from some other ports, this I know & all others who have experienced it,
that it is a great vexation to keep ones team standing for a day or two
in the street, & watch your chance to get ferried over, for the press is
so great that they will slip in before you if they can. I saw several
teams approaching the town, & I suppose I saw ours, for they came in
about that time, but I did not see the grey pony (which I afterwards
learned they had sold her back getting sore) nor the blue steer which
had died concluded it was not them, returned to the house, & thought if
it was them they would soon be in, but as it proved the letter which I
had deposited in the P. O., informing them of my wherebouts, was nailed
upon the door, & had been covered over by others of more recent date, I
had also left word with the commission merchant to whom the goods were
shiped that I was going over the river to stay several days prehaps
[_sic_] until they came; if not I would leave a line there, or in the P.
O. Loyd got this word, & not finding any line in the office, immediately
crossed the river & searched for me for several miles out on the road.
[May 9--26th day] Sunday I sat at the window observing every team &
every person, for I thought surely they would come to day, while they at
the same time were looking as hard for me. Loyd having got no tidi[ngs]
of me over the river; went to every church in the town, & looked if I
was there, but not seeing me, he went to the P. O. once more, & tearing
off some score of letters he found the desired information, & in a few
moments he was at the door; & "the lost was found," all was soon
explained, we eat our dinner, which was to be out last at a table for
some time. We went down, crossed over the river, after having procured
several articles to complete our outfit, found our team already on the
opposite bank ready to start, our other team from Calhoun Co.[25] was
in waiting to accompany us, they had fallen in company with our folk &
George[26] being acquainted with them, & as we had never heard from Mr.
Besser we were glad of their company, but there was no woman with them,
but 5 men one waggon 4 yoke of splendid cattle, they were merry fellows
and as we came up they joked us not a little about our looking for each
other at the same time. & congratulated us upon our success.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] On the Missouri River, from St. Louis to St. Joseph.
[15] The "Martha Jewett," of which W. C. Jewett was master, began her
trips on the Missouri River in 1852. She was "one of the finest and most
popular boats on the river in her day."
[16] Boonville, the county seat of Cooper Co., Mo.
[17] The "Saluda," a side-wheel steamer with double engine and two
boilers, having a capacity of 233 tons, was built in 1846. She exploded
at Lexington, Mo., on the morning of April 9, 1852, only eighteen days
prior to the above observation of Mrs. Frizzell.--_Chappell. History of
the Missouri River, 1906, p. 52, 74._
[18] Kansas City.
[19] Fort Leavenworth, two miles north of the city of Leavenworth, Kan.,
situate on Rattlesnake Hills, was first occupied as a cantonment in
1827, and became a regular fort of the U. S. government about 1832.
[20] Cannon.--_Original note_.
[21] Mrs. Frizzell made an error at this point, numbering the day as the
"18th", instead of 15th, which led to a misnumbering throughout. It has
been corrected here.
[22] Potawatomi and Winnebago.
[23] An original note names him "Major Stemmons, of Rockport, Mo." This
is evidently an error for _Slemmons_, a family-name that is yet found in
Atchison County.
[24] An allusion to the Knight of Snowdoun in Scott's _The Lady of the
Lake_.
[25] Calhoun Co., Ill.
[26] One of her sons.
CHAPTER III
FROM ST. JOSEPH TO FT. KEARNEY
Come now with me gentle reader, and let us cross the plains, I will
endeavor to show you whatever is worth seeing, & tell you as much as you
will care about hearing, while you are comfortably seated around your
own fireside, without fatiegue, or exposure, I will conduct you the
whole of this long & weary journey, which I wish if you should ever in
reality travel, that you may feel no more fatiegue than you do at the
presant moment, but I fear that you would, as you yourself will probably
admit before the close of this narative. This is considered th[e]
starting point[27] from this river is time reconed, & it matters not how
far you have come, this is the point to which they all refer, for the
question is never, when did you leave home? but, when did you leave the
Mississouri [sic] river? Our team looked bad one ox had died, the roads
through Missouri were muddy & bad. It was about 2 o'clock as we started
out through the heavy timbered bottom which extends back some 7 or 8
miles from the river, & which was to be the last of any note until we
reached the Siera Nevada Mts. It seems hard to believe, but it is
nevertheless true, that this immence distance is nearly destitute of
timber, particularly near the road. It comenced raining a little, we
reached the outskirts of the timber, called the bluffs, as the land
raises here, we encamped pitched our tent, soon had a large fire, got
supper, turned the cattle out to graze on the grass & bushes, for they
were vary hungry & devoured whatever came in their way, they soon filled
themselves & they were drove up & tied each one by a rope, to the
waggon, or bushes nearby. There were several campfires burning in sight,
we at length went to bed, Loyd & I occupied the waggon, while the boys
slept in the tent, I had bought rag carpet enough to spread over the
ground in the tent which proved excellent for keeping the wet, or sand,
from getting on the bedding, which consisted of buffalo robes &
blankets, which I considder the best for this journey, as they keep
cleaner & do not get damp so easily as cotton quilts.
[May 10--27th day] Stayed in camp to-day unloaded our waggon put every
thing that it was possible in sacks leaving our trunk chest, barrels &
boxes, which relieved the waggon, of at least, 300 lbs, besides it was
much more conveniently packed. Water being handy, we washed up all our
things & prepared to start soon in the morning. A boy about 12 years
old came to our tent poorly clad, he said he was going back, I asked him
several questions, & learned that he had ran away from his folks who
lived in the eastern part of Ohio, had got his passage from one
Steamboat to another, until he had reached St. Jo.[28] & then had got in
with some one to go to California, but he said they would not let him go
any further, & sent him back, I gave him something to eat & told him to
go back to his parents, I know not where he went but from his tale this
was not the first time that he had ran away from home. What a grief to
parents must such children be.
[Illustration: THREE ROUTE MAPS
ST. JOSEPH TO FT. KEARNY--FT. KEARNY TO FT. LARAMIE--FT. LARAMIE TO
SOUTH PASS]
[May 11--28th day] Fine morning, started out on the Plain which appeared
boundless, stretching away to the south & covered with excellent grass 5
or 6 inches high, but they were not near so level as I had supposed,
quite undulating like the waves of the sea when subsiding from a storm,
In 6 or 8 ms,[29] we came to where there was a general halt, some dozen
teams standing here waiting to cross a deep slue,[30] in which one team
& waggon were stuck & were obliged to unload part of their goods, it
being difficult to attatch more team to it where it then was, some
others taking the precaution doubled theirs before starting in, but
noticed that the great difficulty was in the cattle not pulling
together, we drove in just above them, passed over, went on our way
which for many miles is often in sight of the Mississouri [_sic_] river
and the highlands on the opposite bank to the cultivated fields of which
I often turned a "lingiring look" which is the last I have as yet seen,
or may see for some time, with one exception which I shall soon relate.
We met two or three indians, saw a fresh made grave, a feather bed lying
upon it, we afterwards learned that a man & his wife had both died a few
days before, & were burried together here, they left 2 small children,
which were sent back to St. Joseph by an indian chief. We now came to
Wolf creek,[31] a small stream but very steep banks, the indians have
constructed a kind of bridge over it, & charged 50 cts per waggon, there
were several of them here, quite fine looking fellows, not near so dark
as those I had seen, but of the real copper color, said they were of the
Sacs & Fox tribes.[32] One was a chief, he was dressed in real indian
stile, had his hair shaved off all except the crown lock, which was tied
up & ornamented with beads & feathers, he, & one or two others, had
various trinkits upon their arms, legs, & heads, but their main dress
was their bright red blankets, There were several teams here, which were
passing over before us, when one of the teams getting stalled on the
opposite bank, which was steep & muddy, a little pert looking indian
jumped up comenced talking & jesticulating in great earnest; on
inquiring what it was he said? an interpreter nearby said, he was saying
to the driver, that if he could not go through there he could not go to
California, he had better go back home. We passed over when our turn
came, & went a short distance up the stream, & encamped; having come
about 20 ms, fine grass here, & some small timber along the banks of
this creek, I had a severe headache this evening, our folks having got
their supper, they were soon seated around a blazing fire, & were soon
joined by several indians, who likewise seated themselves by the fire, &
as one of them could speak a little English, they kept up quite a
conversation. They said they no steal white mans cattle, they good
indian, but the Pawnee he bad indian, he steal, no good, Loyd gave them
a drink of brandy which when they had tasted, said strong, strong, but
smacked their lips as if it was not stronger than they liked. I lay in
the waggon looked out upon this group, which as the glare of the fire
fell on the grim visages, & bare, brawny arms, & naked bodies; having
nothing on the upper part of the body but their loose blanket, & as they
move their arms about when speaking, their bodies are half naked most of
the time, the contrast was striking between their wild looks & savage
dress, to the familiar faces of our own company, & their civilized dress
and speech. [May 12--29th day] I felt quite well this morning, we soon
dispatched our breakfast, yoked up our cattle which were as full as
_ticks_, started out into the broad road, or roads, for here there are
several tracks, there is plenty of room for horse, or mule teams to go
around, which will be quite different when we come to the Mountains, we
passed the indian mission,[33] where there are several hundred acers of
land cultivated by indians under the superintendince of the
missionaries. Rested our teams at noon, took a lunch, went on some 10
miles farther [sic], & encamped, where there was good grass, but very
little water & no wood, we succeeded in boiling the tea kettle, & making
some coffee, & having plenty of bread, meat, & crackers, fruit pickles,
&c, we done very well for supper, it was quite cold tonight, but slept
well till morning.
[May 13--30th day] Started out soon this morning, passed several graves,
we hear that it is sickly on the route, that there are cholera,
smallpox, & measles, but rumor says so much, that you do not know when
to believe her, but the graves prove that some have died, & it must be
expected that from such a number, some would die; but it is very sad to
part with them here, for the heart can hardly support the addition, of
so much grief, for there are few whose hearts are not already pained, by
leaving so many behind. We came to another indian toll bridge, which
crossed a small ravine, charged but 25 cts, two indians here, went on
till near night and encamped for the night, very good place, in a hollow
to the left of the road. George caught some small fish with a pinhook.
[May 14--31st day] Soon in the morning we renewed our journey, through a
fine rotting[34] prairie, small groves of timber along the water
courses, giving the landscape a very picturesque appearance; saw several
graves to day, passed where they were burying a man, crossed the little
Nimahaw,[35] a fine stream, encamped on the bank. We had not been here
long, when a little white calf came up to us out of the bushes, &
appeared very hungry; it had probably been left on purpose, though most
of them are gennerally killed, but he might have been hid in the bushes,
& people are not very tenderhearted on this journey, but he reminded me
so much of home I would not let them shoot it; we left it there to be
devoured by wolves, or die of hunger, or be killed by some one else.
[May 15--32d day] We renewed our journey, when about noon it commenced
to rain we turned down to the right, & encamped, it continuing rainy, we
staid till next day; here was a small stream full of little fishes,
which if we had had a small sceine, we might have caught any amount; but
we had not so much as a fish hook, which we had forgoten to provide.
[May 16--33d day] Crossed the Big Nimahaw,[36] nooned here, there were
so many teams here crossing that we had to wait some 2 hours, for many
would not go through, until they had doubled their team; but we crossed
with our 4 yoke of small cattle, & the largest waggon there, without any
difficulty, but a little snug pulling; George said we done it _easy_;
our team is certainly no. 1. This is a fine mill stream, some very good
timber on its banks, & as rich prairie around as I ever saw, there is no
reason why it should not be settled some day. We passed the junction of
the Indipendence road,[37] there was as many teems in sight, as on ours,
& their track looked about the same, Saw a fine sheet iron stove sitting
beside the road, took it along cooked in it that night, & then left it;
for they are of very little account, unless you could have dry wood. We
met a man who was driving several cows, the men in the other waggon
recognized 4 of them, belonging to a man from their country, with whom
they had intended to travel. They asked the man where was the owner of
the cows? & why he was driving them back? he said first that he was the
owner, & that he had bought them; but as he could not tell where the man
was, nor discribe him, they concluded he had no right to them; & finaly
he said them four he had found, & they took them away from him; & as one
of them gave milk, we were enable[d] to live quite well; & I would
advise all to take cows on this trip, if you used the milk only to make
bread, for you can do very little with yeast, & the soda & cream tarter
I do not like.
[May 17--34th day] We went on through a rich & fertile country, &
encamped some 2 ms to the left of the road, in one of the most wild and
romantic places I ever saw; the wolves howled around the tent nearly all
night, I could not sleep soundly, therefor dreamed of being attacted by
bears, & wolves; when the sharp bark of one, close to the waggon, would
rouse me from my fitful slumbers but the rest slept so soundly, that
they hardly heard them; for people sleep in general very sound, on this
trip, for being tired at night, they feel like reposing.
[May 18--35th day] Proceeded onward, crossed the Big Blue river[38]
there was a ferry here, but we forded it, although it came near running
into our waggon bed; came on some 11, ms. father [_sic_], & encamped, to
the left, down in a hollow where there was small stream; Here[39] a
doctor from the same place of those men who were travelling with us,
came up, he had started to pack through with 2 horses, but soon getting
tired of it, he had let a man have one of the horses, & provisions, to
take him through: but he said they soon wanted him to help about every
thing & he got tired of it; & offered to go through with them, & cook
for them, they concented, as one of their company had gone back which I
had forgotten to mention, for we meet some going back every day, some
have been sick, some say that they are carrying the mail; but there is
most to great a number for that purpose. [May 19--36th day] Beautiful
morning the Dr. said I could ride his horse if I liked, & having my
saddle yet, I gladly excepted it; for it is tiresome riding in the
waggon all the while, & every waggon should be provided, with at least
one good horse, for the company to ride when they are weary, or when
they wish to go out & hunt; for it is very hard to go off from the road
a hunting, & perhaps kill some game, & then have it to carry & overtake
the teams; for as slow a[s] an ox teem may seem to move, they are very
hard to catch up with, when you fall behind an hour or two. and you need
a horse also, to ride through & drive the team in all bad places, & to
get up your cattle without getting your feet wet, by wading in water or
dew; if such exposures as these were avoided, I do not think there would
be as much sickness as there usually is, along here, for we have not
passed less than 100 fresh graves from St. Joseph to the Blue river. See
some dead stalk, the wolves have a feast, hope they will not disturb the
graves. [May 20--37th day] We travel about 20 ms. a day our cattle are
thriving, look well; but this Gy[p]sy life is anything but agreeable, it
is impossible to keep anything clean, & it is with great dificulty that
you do what little you have to do. Turned down to the left; tolerable
grass only; here we saw the first buffalo sign; the wolves kept barking
all night. [May 21--38th day] Raining some, came 7 or 8 ms, the rain
still continuing, we put up for the day, down to the left, near a dry
sandy creek, here was a fresh grave; there being some timber along this
creek, we soon had a large fire, & prepared our dinner. We have not as
yet seen any game, & a fishhook would have been of more service so far,
than half a dozen guns, The weather is quite cold, need overcoats, &
mittens. [May 22--39th day] Again we get up the cattle & start on; the
land here is poor, the country flat, & grass only in places, the road is
very crooked thus far; for the track runs wherever it is nearest level.
We encamped on the Little blue,[40] which we had been following up for
the last 3 or 4 days, it is a poor place for grass. Some teams turned
back a day or two since, & one old lady said we had all better turn
back, for if the grass began to give out now, what would become of us if
we went on until our teams were not able to take us back; she said she
was going back, for she had made a living before she had ever heard of
California, & the rest might go on & starve their teams to death if they
liked. Saw the heads of [s]everal fine large fish lying here, but could
not catch any with a pin hook. [May 23--40th day] After some difficulty,
we got our cattle from the other side of the river, where they had
strayed during the night, but when we found they were across, some of
the men went over & watched them, which was the first time we had
watched them, but being now in the Pawnee country we were a little
afraid they might be stolen, but we did not see one of these indians,
some said it was because they were afraid of the smallpox. We passed a
spot where there was a board put up, & this information upon it, that a
man was found here on the 17th, horribly murdered, with wounds of a
knife, & buckshot, his shirt was lying there, with the blood & wounds
upon it, he was buried near by, it stated by whom &c. I have never
learned any more, but I hope the murderer may meet his reward, sooner or
later. [May 24--41st day] The day being clear & still, as we passed over
the 16 mile desert, to the head waters of the L. Blue[41]; we saw a
mirage, at first we thought we were near a pond of water which we saw
just over the ridge, & remarked that the guide had said there was no
water here; but when we came near, it was gone, and then suspecting what
it was, we looked around (for here you can see any distance in all
directions) we saw beautiful streams, bordered with trees, small lakes,
with islands, & once on looking back, we saw several men in the road,
who looked to be 15 ft tall, & once or twice we saw what appeared to be
large & stately buildings. Met a company of fur traders with 16 waggons
loaded with buffalo robes, they were very singular in appearence looking
like so many huge elephants, & the men, except 2, were half breeds; &
indians, & a rougher looking set, I never saw; & their teams which were
cattle, looked about used up; quite warm to day, crossed the last branch
of the Little Blue, it was dry and good crossing, we went on some 3
miles, and encamped near some small ponds of water, no wood, only what
we could find at old camping places; we had brought a little water in
our kegs, made some coffe[e], & just as we were done supper, the sun was
declining in the west, making thing[s] appear very distinctly on the
horizon, when there was an animal discovered, feeding on the plain, not
far distant. 2 of our men went in persuit, and after some time, returned
with a quarter of fresh meat, which they said was antelope; but asking
them why they did not bring more, & they making rather a vague reply,
and not being anyways anxious to have any of it cooked, & from certain
sly looks which they exchanged, I began to think something was wrong
about it, at length one went out in the morning [May 25--42nd day] and
found it to be an old sheep left from some drove, which was probably
unable to travel, but the sport was that they thinking it was an
antelope, and it being so dark that they could not see distinctly, &
knowing that they were hard to get a shot at, they crept on their hands
& knees for some distance, both fired at the same time, & shot the poor
sheep through & through; but to turn the joke, they brought up a piece,
to have the Dr. _& me_[42] cook some of it, but failed. This made us
something to joke & laugh about for some time, for it is seldom that you
meet with anything for merriment, on this journey. We reached the Platte
river,[43] after a hard days drive, although the sand hills which were
in sight, soon after we started in the morning; did not seem to be, but
2 or 3 ms. distant. Saw several antelope but could not get a shot at
them it being so level, There is no wood here, except what is procured
from the island, the river was not fordable at this time, but some swam
accross on horseback & procured some; but with much difficulty and
danger, the current being very swift, & the bottom quicksand; we
contented ourselves with a few willow bushes; there were some buffalo
chips, but we had not as yet got in the way of using them. [May 26--43d
day] We are about 5, ms below Ft. Karney.[44] Several indians of the
Sioux tribe came to our tent, the best looking indians I ever saw, they
were tall, strongly made, firm features, light copper color, cleanly in
appearance, quite well dressed in red blankets, and highly ornamented,
with bows and arrows in their hands. We gave them some crackers &
coffee, with which they seemed very much pleased. They signified that
they wished to trade, & pointing of to the right, we saw, many more
indians seated on the ground not far distant, with some 20 ponies
feeding around them, as we started out there, we saw a train of waggons
which were passing, halt, & appear to be perplexed, we soon saw the
cause, a huge indian, naked to his waist, with a drawn sword,
brandishing it in the road, & seemed to say, "stand & deliver." But when
we came up, he signified that he wished to trade, but they wishing to
proceed, & not wanting to be detained, they gave him some crackers &c,
each waggon as they passed, throwing him something on a blanket, which
he had spread on the ground beside the road; but I saw the indians
chuckle to one another, upon the success of the old chiefs maneuver.
This old chief accompanied us to the rest of the indians, & he gave the
doctor a buffalo robe for his vest, which he immediately put on,
buttoned it up, and appeared much pleased with his bargain; but not
better than the doctor did with his. We also got a very fine robe, for
a bridle & mantingals [_sic_], which were not very new. We struck our
tent, moved on up to the fort; there are 2 or 3 good frame building
here, saw some children playing in the porch of one of them, suppose
there are some families here but the barracks & magazines are mostly
built of turf; the place is not inclosed, & presents no striking
appearance, but we liked to look at a house as it had been some time
since we had seen one, and would be some time before we should see
another. They kept a register here, of the number of waggons which
passed, there had then passed 2657, & as many waggons pass without
touching here, I do not think they can keep a correct account, & I do
not think they try to get the number of those that pass on the north
side of the river, for it would be difficult to do. Opposite the town, &
extending up & down the river for 16 or 18 ms, is an island,[45] it is
covered with a fine growth of cottonwood timber, I was struck with its
appearance with the mirage which I had seen on the plain, & believe it
the same reflected by the atmosphere.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] St. Joseph, Mo.
[28] St. Joseph, Mo.
[29] Abbreviation used throughout for "miles."
[30] A variant of "slough."
[31] Wolf Creek, a tributary of the Missouri, rises in Brown Co. and
runs through Doniphan Co., Kan.
[32] Sauk and Fox, from this northeastern section of Kansas.
[33] This seems to refer to the Presbyterian mission among the Iowas and
the Sauk and Fox, established in 1837, near the present town of
Highland, Doniphan Co., Kan.
[34] So in the original and evidently an error for "rolling" or
undulating.
[35] The Little Nemaha R., in the southeastern corner of Nebraska, and
empties into the Missouri seven miles below Brownsville.
[36] Nemaha or Big Nemaha R., in the southeastern part of Nebraska,
emptying into the Missouri two miles below Rulo.
[37] This is a mistake, did not pass it till 2 days
afterwards.--_Original note._
[38] The Big Blue R., an affluent of the Kansas R., rising in Nebraska
and running nearly southward into Kansas.
[39] This it a mistake--did not join us till 3 days after
this.--_Original note._ This doctor's name is nowhere given in her
journal.
[40] The Little Blue R. rises in the southern part of Nebraska, runs
through Jefferson Co., thence into the State of Kansas, and empties into
the Big Blue R. in Marshall Co., of that state.
[41] Little Blue R.
[42] These words are partly erased in the original manuscript.
[43] The Platte or Nebraska R., and well-known affluent of the Missouri
R. Her description is similar to Frémont's, in his first exploration of
ten years earlier.--Frémont. _Report._ Washington, 1845, p. 16.
[44] Fort Kearny, Nebraska, named after Col. Stephen W. Kearny who, in
1845, conducted the first military expedition through the West, from
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains. It
was at first named Fort Childs, in honor of Gen. Thomas Childs, of the
Mexican War. The post was abandoned permanently in 1871.
[45] Judging from the length of miles, the reference seems to be to the
group of islands of which Long Island, opposite Kearney, Neb., is the
largest.
CHAPTER IV
FROM FT. KERNEY TO FT. LARIMIE
Leaving our letters in the P. O. went on some 10 or 12 ms. & stoped for
the night, there was no wood, & was not likely to be fore some distance
according to the guides. [May 27--44th day] The grass being poor, & no
wood, & believing that it was better on the north side, & I guess our
cattle thought so too, for they all got into the river last night &
started to swim across, but after a while they give it up & come out. we
concluded to cross the river
|
the _Assultus_ are to be found in these
two Lines:
"Illas _ducit_ amor trans Gargara, transque sonantem
Ascanium: superant _montes_, & flumina tranant.
In these two Lines the Vowel _a_ is repeated fourteen times, and what
an Effect this has upon the Ear, the Reader cannot but perceive.
2. Of the _Allusio Verborum_, the following are Examples:
"_Nec nocturna quidem carpentes pensa puellæ._
Again,
"_Hoc metuens; molemque & montes insuper altos._
Again,
"_Stat sonipes, ac frena ferox spumantia mandit._
Again,
"_Vitavisse vices Danaum._
3. Of the _Assonantia Syllabarum_ or _Rhyme_, there are in _Virgil_
the several following Sorts.
1. _The plain direct Rhyme_, which is of two Kinds, _Single_ or
_Double_.
2. _The intermediate_ or _casual plain Rhyme_.
3. _The scanning conclusive Rhyme_. So called, because it would hardly
be perceived by the Generality of Readers, unless they first scann'd
the Verse; but when they have done that in three or four Lines, the
Ear will afterwards make the necessary Distinction without any farther
trouble.
I will explain and give Examples of all these several sorts of _Rhyme_
in their Order.
1. To treat of the plain _Single_ direct _Rhyme_. The following Verses
are Examples of this sort of Rhyme: But to make them more like our
own, I will divide the Verse into two Parts.
"_Poculaque inventis
Acheloia miscuit uvis._
"_Totaque Thuriferis
Panchaia pinguis arenis._
"_Et premere, & laxas
Sciret dare, jussus habenas._
"_Atque rotis summas
Levibus pellabitur undas._
"_O nimium coelo
Et pelago confise sereno._
Many more of these Lines might be produced, but these are sufficient.
Of the plain direct _Double_ Rhyme (which is the Sort of Rhyme the
_Spectator_ speaks of No. 60, and which the Monks were in Love with)
the following are Instances.
"_Hic labor extremus, lon_garum _hæc meta vi_arum.
Again,
"_I nunc & verbis
Virtutem illude superbis._
Again,
"_Cornua veletarum
Obvertimus Antennarum._
2. _Of the intermediate plain Rhyme_, the following are Examples.
"Imposuit, _regemque_ dedit, _qui foedere certo_.
And,
"_Descendo, ac ducente_ Deo _flammam inter & hostes_.
In this Passage _Virgil_ uses _Deus_ in speaking of a _Goddess_, for
no other Reason imaginable but to enrich his Verse with Rhyme.
3. Of the _scanning conclusive Rhyme_ the following are Instances.
"_Sylvestrem tenui musam medi--taris [=a]--ven[=a]_.
"_Nudus in ignota pali--nure j[=a]--cebis [=a]--ren[=a]_.
From whence it appears that _Virgil_'s Poetry is almost all Rhyme of
one kind or other; and it is evident beyond Dispute that he generally
concludes his strong, sounding, majestick Paragraphs with a full
Rhyme, for which I refer to that fine Line already more than once
mentioned, which sums up the Praises of _Italy_.
"_Totaque thuriferis Panchaia pinguis arenis._
And to the Conclusion of his finest work.
"_Hic vero subitum, ac dictu mirabile monstrum
Aspiciunt: liquefacta boum per viscera toto
Stridere apes utero, & ruptis effervere costis,
Immensasque trahi nubes; jamque arbore summa
Confluere, & lentis uvam demittere ramis._
And to this I will add the last Line of the Epilogue to the
_Georgicks_.
"_Tytyre te patulæ cecini sub tegmine fagi._
Where the two several Hemisticks or Parts of the Verse Rhyme each to
itself.
I would observe here that both _Ovid_ and _Lucan_, for want of
Judgment, begin with a full Rhyme; the consequence of which is, that
the Conclusion of the Paragraph is less sonorous than the Beginning,
which must needs have a bad Effect.
"_In nova fert animus muta_tas _discere for_mas.
Ovid.
"_Bella per Æmath_ios _plus quam Civilia Cam_pos.
Lucan.
But a modern Writer, and a much better Composer of _Latin_ Verses than
either _Ovid_ or _Lucan_, has with great Judgment taken care to follow
_Virgil_'s Example in this and many other Particulars. I mean
_Vanerius_. There are a great Number of Lines in his _Prædium
Rusticum_ which are worthy of _Virgil_ himself: I shall entertain you
with some of them.
In his Kitchen-Garden, the following Passage is a Description of all
the numerous Family of Colworts, or the Cabbage-kind.
"_Quid dicam quanta jactat se Brassica laude?
Sive volubilibus redit in se frondibus, Orbesque
Orbibus agglomerans, capitis sub mole laborat;
Tornato similes Ebori seu candida Flores
Ediderit, seu Coniacas imitata Cupressus,
Seque suas plicat in frondes, & acumen in album
Desinit, & tenui venit haud ingloria Mensæ.
Sive hieme in media cum cætera frigore torpent
Loeta viret, Boreamque trucem, Caurosque malignos
Despiciens, vacuis ultro Dominatur in hortis._"
In his Description of the Farm-yard, he paints the following several
Sorts of Fowls in this Manner:
"_Se pictæ cervicis_ Anas | _& Garulus_ Anser
_Tarda mole movent: | habitu_ Gallina _modesto
Progreditur: | Caudam_ Gallus _Cristasque rubentes
Erigit, | & motis sibi plaudit Lætior alis_."
And I cannot omit this most charming Verse which describes the
Courtship of a Pigeon.
"_Sæpe solum verrens Pennâ pendente rotatur._"
"Oft with his trailing Wing the wanton Dove
Brushes the Ground, and wheels about his Love.
Such Verse as this must please in all Ages, and in all Countries,
where the Readers have any Taste and Delicacy of Ear. All the Beauties
of _Virgil_'s Poetry are in these Lines; and you may observe in the
four last mentioned,
1. How curiously the _Pause_ is varied.
In the first Line it is upon the first Syllable of the fourth Foot.
In the second Line it is upon the first Syllable of the third Foot.
In the third Line it is upon the first Syllable of the second Foot.
In the fourth Line it is upon the last Syllable of the first Foot.
2. Observe the _initial Alliteration_ in the first, second and third
Lines.
In the first, _Anas_ and _Anser_.
In the second, _Mole_, _Movent_, and _Modesto_.
In the third, _Caudam_, _Cristasque_.
The mixt Alliteration in the first Line where _Garrulus_ is placed
betwixt _Anser_ and _Anas_, makes the Verse very sonorous; but the
mixt Alliteration in the last Line where the Vowel _i_ is repeated
eight times in seven Words, is a very masterly Stroke;
"_Er_i_g_i_t, & mot_i_s s_i_b_i _plaud_i_t loet_i_or al_i_s_."
--I_lle h_i_nc concentus_ i_n omn_i
_Carm_i_ne D_i_v_i_n_i _vat_i_s_.--
Which _extempore_ Remark is itself an Instance of what I am taking
notice of as imitated from _Virgil_.
3. You will perceive the _Allusio Verborum_ to have a very good Effect
in the second Line.
"_Tarda m_o_le m_o_vent, habitu gallina m_o_dest_o."
4. The mixing the singular and plural Numbers in the third Line is
very judicious.
"_Caudam_ Cristasque _rubentes_.
_Ovid_ would have said,
"_Caudam_ Cristamque--
Lastly, The full Rhyme in the fourth Line makes the whole Paragraph
very harmonious. It is not improper to produce here the Conclusion of
the Description of _Æolus_'s Cave, which is one of the finest Passages
in the _Æneid_.
"_Sed pater omnipotens spelunc_is _abdidit at_ris
_Hoc metuens_, mo_lemque &_ mo_ntis insuper altos
Imposu_it, _regemque ded_it, _qui foedere certo
Et premere, & lax_as _sciret dare jussus haben_as.
Would not any body think that _Vanerius_ intended to vie with _Virgil_
in this Place?
October 2. 1736.
_I am_, SIR, _&c._
* * * * *
_P.S._
The Examples I have given in this Letter of _plain direct Rhyme_ are
only in _long_ or _heroic_ Verse, but I might have instanc'd in _Lyric
Lines_. _Horace_ abounds in Rhyme. In the first Ode we find
_Metaque fervidis
Evitata rotis
Palmaque nobilis
Illum si proprio
Condidit horreo_
and several others.
In two of his finest Odes the following Lines are as full Rhymes as
can possibly be made,
_Nec venenatis
Gravida sagittis
Pone me Pigris
Ubi nulla campis
Arbor æstiva
Recreatur Aura
Aut in umbrosis
Heliconis Oris
Aut super Pindo
Gelidove in Hæmo._
The two last are doubly rhym'd.
LETTER V.
_SIR,_
I am now to consider _Milton_'s Versification under the same Heads as
I have considered _Virgil_'s, so far as there is Opportunity of doing
it.
I. To begin with _The Varying of the Pause_, which is the Soul of all
Versification in all Languages. Verse is Musick, and Musick is more or
less pleasing as the Notes are more or less varied, that is, raised or
sunk, prolonged or shortned. In order to judge of the varying of
_English_ Versification, I first endeavour'd (as I have already said,
with respect to the _Latin_) to find out the common Pause in _English_
Verse, that is, where the Voice naturally makes some sort of Stop when
a Verse is read. To this purpose I look'd into Mr. _Cowley_'s
_Davideis_ (for it would be of no use to quote such Authors as
_Quarles_ and _Ogilby_, who never had any Reputation for Poetry; but
this Gentleman has been stil'd, and is at present recorded in
_Westminster-Abbey_, as _Anglorum Pindarus_, _Maro_, _Flaccus_) and
there I soon found the common Pause to be upon the last Syllable of
the second Foot. For Example:
"I sing the Man | who _Judah_'s Sceptre bore
In that Right-hand, | which held the Crook before;
Who from best Poet, | best of Kings _did_ grow:
The two chief Gifts | Heav'n could on Man bestow.
Much Dangers first, | much Toil did he sustain,
Whilst _Saul_ and Hell | crost his strong Fate in vain.
Nor did his Crown | less painful Work afford--
Here we have seven Lines, and all of them, except the third, paus'd in
the same place.
Thus I discovered from _Cowley_ in _English_ what I perceived from
_Ovid_ in _Latin_. I then turned to the _Paradise Lost_, and there I
found _Milton_ even surpasses _Virgil_ in this particular. _Virgil_
uses the common Pause at the fifth Line of the _Georgicks_, but
_Milton_ does not use it till he comes to the sixth Line in his
_Paradise Lost_.
"Of Man's first Disobedience | and the Fruit
Of that forbidden Tree | whose mortal Taste
Brought Death into the World | and all our Woe,
With Loss of _Eden_ | 'till one greater Man
Restore us | and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heavenly Muse |--
It would be needless to produce more Examples to this purpose; and I
believe I may venture to affirm that the Verse is varied at least with
as much Skill in the _Paradise Lost_, as even in the _Georgick_
itself: I am inclinable to think with more, because in this respect
the _English_ Language surpasses the _Latin_, by reason of its
Monosyllables, of which I have said enough for any body at all versed
in these Matters, to be able to make out what is here advanc'd. But
before I quit this Article, I will observe that it is to the artful
and uncommon varying the Pause, that the Harmony is owing in those two
celebrated Lines of Sir _John Denham_.
"Tho' deep | yet clear; | tho' gentle | yet not dull.
Strong | without Rage, | without o'erflowing | full.
This is one of those Mysteries in Versification which the late Duke of
_Bucks_ would not suffer Mr. _Dryden_ to communicate to the Publick.
To the same Art is owing the Delicacy of two of the finest Lines in
all the _Latin_ Tongue.
"_Te | dulcis conjux | te | solo in littore | secum,
Te | veniente die | te | decedente | canebat._
Of the same Nature are many Lines in _Milton_, of which this is one:
"Him first | Him last | Him midst | and without End.
II. I come now to the second Particular: _The Inversion of the
Phrase_. Every Page affords Instances of this Nature.
"--Him the Almighty Pow'r
Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal Sky.
Again,
"--Up stood the Corny Reed
Embattell'd in her Field.--
Again,
"--Him the most High
Rapt in a balmy Cloud with winged Steeds
Did, as thou saw'st, Receive.
And in one of _Milton_'s juvenile Poems we have
"Trip the pert Fairies.--
And,
"Revels the spruce jocund Spring.
_Comus._
III. The third thing to be consider'd, is, _The adapting the Sound to
the Sense_.
Who does not hear the Warbling of a _Brook_, the Rustling of _Wings_,
the rough Sound of _Trumpets_ and _Clarions_, and the soft one of
_Flutes_ and _Recorders_ in the following Lines?
"Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow
Melodious Murmur warbling, tune his Praise.
Again,
"--But Chief the spacious Hall
Thick swarm'd, both on the Ground and in the Air,
_Brush'd with the Hiss of rustling Wings_.
Again,
"Then strait commands, that at the warlike Sound
Of _Trumpets_ loud and _Clarions_, be uprear'd
His mighty Standard.--
Again,
"--Nor with less Dread, the loud
Ethereal Trumpet from on High _'gan blow_.
Again,
"--Thus they
Breathing united Force with fixed Thought
Mov'd on _in Silence to soft Pipes_.
Who does not see Porpoises and Dolphins tumbling about in the Ocean
when he reads this Line?
"--On smooth the Seal,
And bended Dolphins play: part huge of Bulk,
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their Gate,
Tempest the Ocean.--
How variously the Rivers run in these Verses?
"--So the watry Throng
Wave rowling after Wave, where way they found,
If steep, with Torrent rapture, if through plain
Soft Ebbing.--
How is the Verse extended where the Whale lies at length upon the
Ocean!
"--There Leviathan
Hugest of living Creatures, on the Deep
Stretch'd like a Promontory sleeps.--
How does the Line labour when the Elephant is working himself through
the stiff Clay, whilst the lesser Animals sprout up as it were in an
Instant!
"--Scarce thro' his Mould
_Behemoth_, biggest born of Earth, upheav'd
His Vastness.--
And,
"--Fleec'd the Flocks and bleating, rose
As Plants.--
But I shall have occasion to take notice of this Subject hereafter.
IV. The fourth thing to be enquir'd into is, _The mixing of singular
and plural Numbers_, in which _Milton_ excels.
"--Flowers were the Couch
Pansies, and Violets, and _Asphodel_,
And _Hyacinth_, Earth's freshest softest Lap.
Again,
"--Through many a dark and dreary Vale
They pass'd, and many a Region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and
Shades of Death.
Again,
"Sporting the _Lion_ ramp'd, and in his Paw
Dandled the _Kid_; Bears, Tigers, Ounces, Pards,
Gambol'd before them.--
Again,
"--Sweet Interchange
Of Hill and Valley, Rivers, Woods and Plains,
Now Land, now Sea, and Shores with Forest crown'd
Rocks, Dens and Caves.
Again,
"The glittering Guard he pass'd, and now is come
Into the blissful Field, thro' Groves of Myrrh,
And flow'ry Odours, _Cassia_, _Nard_, and _Balm_.
V. As to the fifth Remark upon _Virgil_, which relates to his using
the Particles _Que_ and _Et_ in his Verse, there can be nothing of
that nature in _Milton_. So that I proceed to
VI. The sixth thing to be observed, which is, _The Collocatio
Verborum_.
_Milton_ often places the Adjective after the Substantive, which very
much raises the Stile.
"Strait he commands that at the warlike Sound
Of Trumpets _loud_, and Clarions, be uprear'd
His mighty Standard. That proud Honour claim'd
_Azazel_, as his Right; a Cherub _tall_.--
Again,
"Thy Goodness beyond Thought and Pow'r _Divine_.--
And again,
"Then from the Mountain hewing Timber _tall_.
But the utmost of his Art in this respect consists in his removing the
Adjective, the Substantive, and even the Verb, from the Line or Verse
in which the Sense is previously contained, and the grammatical
Construction inverted, to the Beginning of the next Line. This has a
wonderful Effect; especially when the Word is a Monosyllable.
"Here finish'd he, and all that he had made
_View'd_--and behold all was entirely good.
Again,
"Over their Heads triumphant Death his Dart
_Shook_--But refus'd to strike.
This artful Collocation commands the Attention, and makes the Reader
feel and see what is offer'd to him.
That this Effect is owing to the Collocation will appear by
considering any one of the Instances now produc'd. For Example:
"Over their Heads triumphant Death his Dart
_Shook_.--
This Passage makes the Reader see Death with his Dart in his Hand,
making it over the Heads of the unhappy Creatures describ'd in the
_Lazar-house_, as plainly as if the whole was painted upon Canvas. But
let this Line be alter'd thus:
"Over their Heads Death shook his dreadful Dart.
How much of the Fire and Spirit of this Passage is lost, will be
easily perceiv'd.
I was long of Opinion that _Milton_ had invented this Art himself, for
I knew he had it not from _Virgil_: The _Latin_ Language is hardly
capable of it. But by Accident I found _Milton_ learn'd it from
_Homer_, though it is plain what is _Art_ in the former was _Chance_
in the latter; which cannot be disputed when it is considered that in
so many thousand Lines that we have of _Homer_'s, there is I believe
but one single Instance of this Monosyllable Collocation; but in
_Milton_ there are many, both Substantives, Adjectives and Verbs. The
single Instance in _Homer_ is in _Odysse_ 9. in the Story of
_Polyphemus_.
[Greek: Sun de duô marpsas, hôs te phulakas poti gaiê / Kopt']
_Hom._ Odyss. _&c._
"Two of my hapless Friends with all his Pow'r,
Like Dogs, the Monster on the rocky Floor
DASH'D.--
Can any body be insensible of the Power of this Word, _Dash'd_, as it
is here plac'd.
I remember an Instance of this Monosyllable Collocation at the
Beginning of a Line in rhym'd Verse, which is very well worth
inserting here. It is at the Conclusion of Mr. _Pit_'s 4th _Æneid_,
when _Juno_ sends _Iris_ from Heaven in haste to relieve _Dido_ from
the Agonies of Death.
_"Tum Juno Omnipotens, longum miserata dolorem,
Difficilesque obitus, Irim_ Demisit Olympo
_Quæ luctantem animam, nexosque resolveret artus_.
"Then mighty _Juno_ with a melting Eye,
Beheld her dreadful Anguish from the Sky;
And bade fair _Iris_ from the starry Pole,
_Fly_, and enlarge her agonizing Soul.
How is the Verse animated by the placing that Monosyllable, _Fly_, at
the Beginning of the last Line.--The Reader sees all the Concern of
_Juno_, and all the Hurry she is in to get the unhappy Queen released
from the Pangs of Death.
_Milton_ likewise uses his Monosyllables very artfully in placing them
at the Conclusion of a Line, so as to divide the last Foot of the
Verse, which has a very extraordinary Effect.
"Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou, _Deep_,
Peace.
Again he divides the last Foot by making a Monosyllable the Beginning
of a new Sentence, which is very pleasing.
"--Up flood the Corny Reed
Imbattled in his Plain, the humble Furz
And Bush with frisled Hair implicit. _Last_
Rose as in Dance the stately Trees.
_Milton_ also sometimes places two Monosyllables at the End of the
Line, stopping at the 4th Foot, to adapt the Measure of the Verse to
the Sense; and then begins the next Line in the same manner, which has
a wonderful Effect.
"Now at their shady Lodge arriv'd, _both stopt_,
_Both turn'd_, and under open Sky ador'd
The God who made, _&c._
This artful Manner of writing makes the Reader see them _Stop_ and
_Turn_ to worship God before they went into their Bower. If this
Manner was alter'd, much of the Effect of the Painting would be lost.
"And now arriving at their shady Lodge
_Both stopt, both turn'd_, and under open Sky
Ador'd the God, _&c._
This falls very short of the Original. So in _Latin_,
"_Jamq; domûs ventum est umbrosæ ad limina_: sistunt
Ambo, ambo vertunt, & _aperto numen adorant
Sub Coelo._--
Alter these Lines, thus,
"_Et nunc Arborei ventum est ad limina tecti_;
Sistunt Ambo, Ambo vertunt, & _numen Adorant
Sub Coelo._--
There is here just the same Difference in the _Latin_ as in the
_English_.
I cannot omit two other Instances of _Milton_'s wonderful Art in the
Collocation of Words, by which the Thoughts are exceedingly
heighten'd.
"Under his forming Hands a Creature grew
Manlike, but different Sex, so lovely fair,
That what seem'd fair in all the World, seem'd now
_Mean_, or in her summ'd up.--
What a Force has that Word _mean_, as it is plac'd!
Again,
"I turn'd my Thoughts, and with capacious Mind
Considered all Things visible in Heav'n,
Or Earth, or Middle, all Things fair and good;
But all that Fair and Good, in thy Divine
_Semblance_, and in thy Beauty's heav'nly Ray
United I beheld--
I presume there is no other Language in which Perfection equal to this
is to be found: And I could give many more Instances of the same kind
out of the _Paradise Lost_.
VII. The seventh Particular in _Virgil_ was his _Varying the Common
Pronunciation_, in which _Milton_ has imitated him in several Places;
the following is one Instance.
"--Thus to his Son au--[=di]--bly spake.
For so it must be read, and not after the common manner.
Again,
"Hoarse Murmur eccho'd to his Words Applause
Thro' the in--[=fi]--nite Host--
And the like in many other Places.
VIII. _His Verses contrary to the Common Measure._ The following is an
Example of this kind.
"Drove headlong down to the Bottomless Pit.--
Those who may be apt to find fault with such Arts as these (for Arts
they are in _Virgil_ and _Milton_) little think what it is to write 10
or 12 thousand Lines, and to vary the Sound of them in such manner as
to entertain the Ear from the Beginning to the End of the Work.
IX. I come now to the _Alliteratio_.
And 1. To speak of the single _Alliteratio_. This is so common in
_Milton_, that you need but begin the Poem, or open any Page of it,
and you will meet with it.
"Of Man's _first_ Disobedience, and the _Fruit_
Of that forbidden _Tree_, whose mortal _Taste_
Brought Death into the _World_, and all our _Woe_.
Again,
"_Restore_ us, and _Regain_ the blissful Seat.
And
"_Sing_ Heav'nly Muse! that on the _Secret_ Top.
And a little lower,
"That _Shepherd_ who first taught the chosen _Seed_.
But I will produce an Example or two of this kind out of our Author's
juvenile Poems. His Verses upon the Circumcision are addressed to the
Angels that appear'd to the Shepherds, and begin thus,
"Ye flaming Pow'rs, and _winged Warriors_ bright,
That erst with Musick and triumphant Song
Through the _soft Silence_ of the listning Night
_So sweetly sung_ your Joy the Clouds along.
All the Masters of Verse from _Chaucer_ to _Milton_, and from _Milton_
to this time, were sensible of this Art. _Dryden_ attends to it more
than any thing else.
"_Beneath_ the Shade which _Beechen Boughs_ diffuse,
_You Tityrus_ entertain _your_ Sylvan Muse:
_Round_ the _wide World_ in Banishment _we roam_,
_Forc'd from_ our pleasing _Fields_ and native Home.
Again,
_Arms and_ the Man I sing, who _forc'd_ by _Fate_
And _haughty_ Juno's unrelenting _Hate_,
_Expell'd_ and _Exil'd_, left the _Trojan_ Shore:
_Long Labours_, both by Sea and _Land_ he bore.
Mr. _Pope_ begins his Poems with this Delicacy.
"_First_ in these _Fields_ I try the _Sylvan Strains_,
Nor _blush_ to sport on _Windsor's blissful_ Plains.
_Fair_ Thames _flow_ gently _from_ thy _Sacred Spring_,
While on thy Banks _Sicilian_ Muses _Sing_;
Let Vernal Airs _thro' tre_mbling Osiers play,
And _Albion_'s Cliffs _resound_ the _rural_ Lay.
You, that too wise for _Pride_, too good for _Pow'r_
Enjoy the _Glory_ to be _great_ no more.
Mr. _Pitt_ has the following Lines in his 2d _Æneid_.
"So when an _aged Ash_, whose Honours rise
From some _steep_ Mountain tow'ring to the _Skies_,
With many _an Axe_ by _shouting Swains_ is ply'd,
_Fierce_ they repeat the _Strokes from_ every _Side_;
_The tall Tree trembling_, as the Blows go round,
Bows the _high Head_, and nods to every Wound.
Sir _Philip Sidney_, who was very unhappy in Versification, seems to
have despised this Beauty in Verse, and even to have thought it an
Excellence to fix the Pause always in one Place, namely at the End of
the second Foot: So that he must have had no more Ear for Poetry than
Mr. _Cowley_. Not but that I am apt to think some Writers in Sir
_Philip Sidney_'s time carried this matter to a ridiculous Extreme.
Others thought this Beauty a Deformity, and concluded it so from two
or three silly _Latin_ Lines of _Ennius_ and _Tully,_ such as,
_O Tite, Tute, Tati_, &c.
And,
_O Fortunatam, natam_, &c.
without ever attending to _Virgil_ in the least.
_Spencer_ every where abounds in all his Works with _Alliterations_; I
will produce but one, which is exceeding beautiful.
"The _Lilly, Lady_ of the _Flow'ry Field_.
Here is a double initial Alliteration, and a continual mix'd
Alliteration of the liquid _L_, which makes the Verse so very musical
that there are few such Lines in our, or any other Language.
_Fairfax_, who was one of the first curious Versifyers amongst us,
embellishes his Lines continually with this Ornament.
In his Description of a Troop of fighting Monks, in his first Book of
his Translation of _Tasso_, are these Lines.
"Their jolly Notes, they _Chanted_ loud and _Clear_:
And _horrid Helms high_ on their _Heads_ they bear.
Than which Verses nothing can be more truly poetical.
But to go farther back than either _Fairfax_ or _Spencer_, those
celebrated Lines in our antient Translation of the _Psalms_ owe their
greatest Beauty to their _Alliteration_.
"The Lord descended from above,
And bow'd the _Heavens high_,
And underneath his Feet he cast
The Darkness of the Sky.
"On _Cherubs_ and on _Cherubims_
Full _royally_ he _rode_,
And on the _Wings_ of mighty _Winds_
Came flying _all abroad_.
A Line of _Chaucer_'s just now offers itself to my Memory, which has
almost all the Arts of Poetry in it.
"A _Sheffield_ Whittle bare _he_ in _his Hose_.
There is a fine Alliteration in the Conclusion of the Line, Bare _he_
in _his Hose_, and a mix'd one at the Beginning of it. The _h_ in the
first Syllables of the second and third Words mixes the Sound very
agreeably; and lastly, the Inversion of the Phrase (where the
Nominative is put immediately after the Verb) is extremely poetical.
_Bare he._ _Chaucer_ seems (to me) by the help of a delicate Ear, and
a curious Judgment, to have learnt all his Graces from _Virgil_. 1.
His Rhyme. 2. His Inversion of the Phrase: And 3. His Alliteratio. The
Varying of the Pause he does not seem to have attended to. But to
return to _Milton_.
Having spoken sufficiently of the _Initial_, I come now to the _mix'd
Alliteration_. And this latter is almost as common as the former, and
is to be found in all such Lines as these.
"--And now is come
Into the _blissful Field_.--
Every Ear must perceive how the _f_ and the _l_ are mingled in the two
last Words.
Again,
"--Th[r=]o' G[r=]oves of My[rr=]h.--
Here the rough _r_ predominates as much as the soft _l_ did in the
first Part of the Verse.
Again,
"And _Flow'r_y O_dours_.--
Here the _Allusio Verborum_ is introduc'd. _Flow'r_ at the Beginning
of the first Word, and _Dour_ at the End of the second, make a most
agreeable Harmony. The Line concludes with what may be call'd the
_Assultus_, or the Attack upon the Ear.
"--_C[=a]ssi[=a], N[=a]rd [=a]nd B[=a]lm._--
These five _A_'s in four Words at the End of the Line must make
themselves perceiv'd if Words can do it. 'Tis of the same kind as
_Virgil_'s,
"--_Tumid[=a] æquor[=a] pl[=a]c[=a]t._
But it may be proper to add another Instance or two of the _Allusio
Verborum_.
"So talk'd the _spirited sly Snake_, and _Eve_
Yet more amaz'd.--
Again,
"When from the _Boughs_ a savoury Odour _blown_.
Again,
"Immediately the Mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their _broad bare Backs_ upheave
Into the Clouds.--
Again,
"--Scarce from his Mould
_Behemoth, biggest born_ of Earth, upheav'd
His Vastness.--
Spirited sly Snake.--Boughs blown.--Broad bare Backs.--_Behemoth_
biggest born.
All these Passages are in the same Stile of Sound as _Virgil_'s--
_Metuens_, _Molem_, _Montis_.
"_Hoc metuens, molemque & montis insuper altos
Imposuit._--
Observe how the _molemque_ & _montis_ labour in the
|
North, for in that most blessed land every Jack has his Jill and found
no difficulty in keeping her. No! it was never in this latitude.
I went to two hotels before I could find a room. I should have
registered at once instead of loitering at the station. In the first
hotel they could eat me, but to sleep me was out of the question. In
the second, a stout well-looking German--or, as I prefer to call him, a
coming Canadian--took possession of me, remarking in one breath, but
with an air of great punctilio, "You would in my house put up? Der
conductor-man he so told me you to me might come. This my wife is.
You should become to each other known. She a bed for you will
get--water!--towels!--whatsoever Madam she may desire."
"Urbanity" is the one word that fits the German, my host. His Frau,
who is of the pure Teutonic type, has a heart of great goodness, with
emotions that lie close under the exterior.
All might have been well with me at this hotel, but, unfortunately, in
descending the closed-in stairway, I stepped on a sleeping cat and
plunged headforemost to the bottom.... "Der drouble mit you," says my
host, "a crick in der back is." The cat's "drouble" seems to be
paralysis.
Some one has said that reserve is a sign of great things behind. Sweet
Christians! this is entirely true; I realized it to the full while
holding back the tears and assuring the assembled household I was not
even jarred. I am proud of the way I behaved, and sorry my own folk
were not there to see. Now, they will never believe it.
One of the maids brought me brandy which I did not drink, but after
awhile, my hostess fed it to me in what she called canards. You dip a
lump of sugar into the cognac and transfer the lump to your mouth--that
is all. You could never believe how nice they taste, or how curative
they are for "crick" in the back.
Before long I am able to limp down the street and call on the doctor.
I used to know him in days when we both lived farther south. But any
way, a previous acquaintanceship would have made no difference. We do
not need introductions at a frontier post like this, for there is an
undercurrent of good fellowship which understands that the stranger who
talks to you is not necessarily a scalawag, with subtle designs on your
purse or your person. Any one who fails to grasp this plainly obvious
fact is either a newcomer or a solemn humbug.
This doctor has charge of the hospital car that lies in the station
yard, and most of his time is spent travelling from camp to camp down
the line of construction. I saw the car to-day, or rather I nosed it,
for the smell of iodoform came siftingly through like dry cold. It is
owned and operated by the railway company for the benefit of their
employees. At certain stations along the line, the company have placed
cottage hospitals where emergency cases are treated. Those who have
fevers or require major operations, are usually taken to the city.
Long ago, when the earlier railroads were being constructed it was not
possible to supply such life-saving appurtenances, so that nothing
remained for the wretched fellows but to drag themselves away and die
like hurt dogs. There is a current aberration that the golden age was
"once upon a time," but, in my opinion, it is here and now, or at least
it will be when every municipality has instituted classes to teach
policemen the difference between drunkenness and a fit. I will say a
prayer about this some of these days. One must be business-like.
As he builds up and smokes a cigarette, the doctor tells me that the
navvies and teamsters have a singularly critical taste in the matter of
medicine. They do not like tablets or medicine with an innocent
flavour. Unless it be distinctly pungent, they feel cheated.
"Do you accede to their demand?" ask I.
"I do, Good Lady," says he. "It is modesty that prevents my describing
to you the excellency of my flavours" (and here he assumed a truly
sagacious air): "my medicines have 'nip' to them and a body that is
really desirable. They are indescribable, but most they approach the
little girl's definition of salt--'that which makes potatoes taste bad
when you do not eat it with.'
"I see, Dear Lady, you are still of inquisitive mind," says this Man of
Medicine. "Yes! I can see that and I dare say you will put me in a
book, so I shall not rise to your questions--not I! Let us prefer to
talk of how we shall invest our money when we sell our lots, and things
like that."
"Real-estate is a valuable asset in this place," continues he, "if you
buy it 'near in' on the original town site, but three miles out of the
subdivisions, it is equal in value to a pop-corn prize. And yet who
can say? Who knows? In these new places, the bread we cast on the
sub-divisions has a way of returning to us in meat and pie and cake.
It is often the height of wisdom to be foolish. That singularly
unattractive person on the doorstep across the way--the shrunken,
hollow-stomached one--has made much money in buying and selling."
"Do you believe me?" he asks with some trace of heat; "then pray heaven
speak!" For I have fallen into silence. But I will not speak--not one
word--but only smile in an enigmatical way, for the stop I am pulling
out is one of intended indifference. It is about the navvies and
teamsters I would talk and not of hollow-stomached men who gather much
money.
The doctor rolls up two cigarettes and offers me one.
"You will smoke?" asks he.
"No!" says I, "not till I am sixty."
"Let me see your palm and your nails. Humph! Lady, you had better
start now as a mere matter of expediency. Why not try this one?
Where's the use of a mouth and an index finger if you do not smoke?"
Now, I cannot say why I do not smoke, except that there are so many
reasons why I should, and so I return to our first topic and ask, "Does
your medicine make the men well again?"
"No, no, decidedly no!" he replies--"they allow me to hold no such
illusion. The talismans they carry, work the cure--a bear's tooth, a
lucky penny, or the image of a calendar saint. A snake's rattle is a
panacea for anything but a broken heart. Time was when men only choked
on grape seeds as did the old poet chap, Anacreon, but in these days,
the navvies get appendicitis from them. It would be offensive to
suggest other causes, in spite of the fact that most of them never
taste grapes. No! it would not be right for me to put my patients in
the wrong and shockingly poor policy."
"Have you much trouble with drunkenness?" I query.
"Not a great deal!" he makes answer, "for the Mounted Police have a
disconcerting habit of probing into bales of hay and of finding false
floors in wagons. They have fifty-fox power, these police fellows,
although I have heard tell that a gallon or more of whisky has been
within roping distance of them and escaped. A bottle that gets by them
is worth ten dollars, but the navvies declare whatever it costs it is
worth it. But, dear me, there are other liquids for inordinate and
uncritical thirsts, such as----"
"Your medicine?" I suggest, whereupon our conversation abruptly ends,
for he will be no longer beset by me; and he will not give me a bottle
of liniment for "crick" in the back; no, not if I die in Edson, without
even a graveyard started wherein to bury me. He supposes Providence
knows his business, but how ever woman came to be made is a mystery far
beyond his wit's end.
Huh! Huh! I am tingling to scratch this man's eyes out, but I only
call him a brown pirate.
Do you think I care so much as a snap of the fingers for the medicine
of this spiteful doctor of the countryside? Not a bit of it! One of
the navvies will give me a talisman if I cannot find the cordial tree
for which I search. It grows in the North, and the fruit gives life to
strong people and faintness to the weak. It was Théophile Tremblay who
told me about it. He lives always in the woods. Once, he found the
tree but he was afraid to eat of it, for how could he know whether he
was strong or weak? He has heard tell that, in the tree, there is a
wood's-woman and that sometimes she laughs aloud, but he thinks it may
be a soul or something like that.
* * * * *
The only drawback to happiness is the peculiar impermanence of its
character. Happiness is a large, comely person, but, withal, as
elusive as the smallest sprite. Such hours of pain as I spent last
night on this wretched sagging bed--I who was so happy only
yesterday--with nothing to look at save a little lamp with a flame like
a bleary red eye. Truth to tell, it was the eye that looked at me. It
stared till I became hypnotized, when by the blessing of God, I fell
asleep.
This morning, I am consumed between a desire to get up and one to lie
still. In all such crises of the will, it is better to follow the line
of least resistance, and so I lie in bed. My hostess brings me an
amazingly pungent liniment which she calls "Herr the Doctor's
medisome." It came last night, but Daisy, who is a waitress, neglected
to deliver it. Perhaps the sarcastic advice which the doctor set down
for me under the word "Poison," may have frightened Daisy.
"She a lump is, that Daisy!" says the Frau. "Believe me, Madam, for I
know. I tell her a thing to do and she doing it keeps on, till I to
stop tell her. Then I to her explain that she is not for ever to stop,
nor for ever on to go, and all the time, about everything, I have her
so to tell."
The Frau pours on the liniment with generous measure and rubs me till I
prickle with it, and feel for all the world like a wet newspaper caught
in a wire fence. She rubs me with a used-to-things way until I beg her
to desist. I should not be surprised if Herr the Doctor took this
means of venting his spitefulness on me.
The Frau tells me she had a vision once. I wish to experience a
vision, or a miracle, but nothing comes to me save presentments which
have their terrible plain origin on the basis of cause and effect. Her
vision was about heaven. She saw heaven quite distinctly and the
streets were really made of gold. There were no children there, but
only men and women, so that there must be a special Paradise for boys
and girls. The Frau believes heaven will be a failure because there is
no division of the sexes provided for. How, she would like to know,
could a woman enjoy heaven with men there all the time looking at
everything she does. It would be an impossible situation.
After awhile, Daisy brings me a meal. There is a tremendous finality
about the way she sets down a tray. Daisy, in spite of her name, is
not so much a housemaid as what they used to call a stout serving
wench. She is courtly neither in figure nor manners. Her hair is
puffed out over her ears and drawn down low, till her head looks like
the husk of a hazel nut. But what odds? Daisy is splendidly plebeian
and really of more value to the community than a writing person who
falls downstairs. She cannot see for the life of her how I happened to
come out here, and so I am apologetic and find it necessary to explain.
She asks permission to try on my hat and tells me she has ordered a new
one from Edmonton. It is to have three "ostridge" feathers.
To assure me that the cat I stepped upon is not dead, she descends to
the kitchen and returns with it. The cat seems all right except that
it sags in the middle, but Daisy says this is because it has just been
fed. I am glad I did not kill it, in that I always associate a cat
with Diana Bubastis, the Egyptian goddess who presided over childbirth,
and who was represented with a feline head. Indeed, Bubastis is said
to have transformed herself into a cat when the gods fled from Egypt--a
play of gods and women and cats that has continued even to this very
day.
After dinner, I am able to go down to the sidewalk where I fribble away
the hours agreeably enough. It is a sun-shot afternoon, but the air is
cool to one's skin, and grateful after the scorching heat of yesterday.
Some civil engineers who came in on the train with me are playing
baseball on the road. These are no æsthetic feeblings, these merry
gentlemen, but a sturdy breed, upstanding and handsome, with skin like
the colour of well-seasoned saddles and a smell of burnt poplar in
their hair. I think the rough clothes they wear throw their good looks
into relief. Or it may be that the people _are_ better looking in the
North and have better physiques. It must be so, for the South has in
all ages drawn upon the northern blood for rejuvenation just as, in
these days, they need hard wheat to tone up their softer varieties.
I write of them as merry gentlemen because this fornight agone I had
been watching them make ducks and drakes of their savings. When they
come to Town, which they do once or twice a year, they cannot be
accused of nearness. Each mother's son holds to the amended maxim of
this country, "Hard come, easy go." "Jack ashore," I called one the
other day. "Possibly so! Possibly," answered the delicious boy, "but
I prefer to think of myself as March--in like a lion and out like a
lamb."
The whole Town is a foraging pasture for the engineers on vacation.
They buy everything they do not need, from gramaphone records and
swearing parrots to Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.
They yell into the telephones as if it were a lung tester, and it makes
their hearts dance like daffodils to hire taxicabs for the day, boxes
at the theatre, and to give suppers and dances to all and sundry of
their acquaintances. Neither are they laggards in love. They are
vastly appreciative of the girls, and I am told go sweethearting with a
directness there is no possibility of misunderstanding. It is well the
girls do not take them too seriously, for they are roving bachelors
all, and would seem to be as faithful as the poet who vows his love for
Kate, and Margaret and Betty and Sweet Marie.
Yet, once in a blue moon, an engineer and a girl make decision "to be
man and wife together," and to live in a shack on the Residency, much
to the annoyance of the townsmen, who dislike the engineers, being
inordinately jealous of them.
The game of baseball which the engineers carry forward on the highway
is strenuous rather than scientific. Things that are considered
important in the league matches have no significance here. As I watch
the pitch and toss of the ball, it occurs to me that this game has
filtered down the ages from the primeval woods where orang-outangs
threw nuts from tree to tree. They pitch them that the young lady
'rangs might admire their cleverness and good form. You may credit me
this was the way of it.
A Chinaman and some Indians are also watching the game. The Indians
think it fine fun, and fetch and carry the lost balls like spaniels
retrieving sticks. I like the Indian men for several reasons, but
chiefly because they are shrewd riders; have a sovereign indifference
to appearance, and never quarrel over theology.
The game of ball was not completed, the interest of the players being
diverted by a blindly vindictive fight between a staghound and a
bulldog. I did not see the conclusion of the fight, but the honours
lay with the bulldog. "For you must know, Dear Lady," explains one of
the engineers, "that all things considered, the grip on the throat is
an eminently practical one."
CHAPTER III
TO THE BUILDERS
To the builders of the highway, that skirt the canyon's brink,
To the men that bind the roadbed fast,
To the high, the low, the first and last,
I raise my glass and drink!--EVELYN GUNNE.
As yet, there is no passenger service from Edson to the End of Steel.
Several day coaches are run, but they are chiefly for the use of the
engineers and workmen. This is how I happen to be the only woman
aboard pulling out for the mountains across this newly-made trail.
Do not misunderstand me; it is the railroad that is new. The trail
that runs by its side was an old one when Columbus discovered America,
and beaten deep with feet, and also it is a long trail, for it leads
through to the Pacific Ocean. For centuries, it was the only mark of
human interference in this waste that is world-old. It is a trail of
lean hunger and bleeding feet, one that has ever been prodigal of
promise, but wary of accomplishment. Surely this is so, for once over
it stumbled and swore those half-mad men known as the Caribou
Stampeders--these, and other unwept, unhonoured fellows who fared into
the wilderness for what reasons even the wise Lord knoweth not. If the
bones of the red and white folk who have travelled this long, long
street were stood upright, I doubt not they would make a fence of
pickets for us all the way.
I have no sooner thought this thing than it happens there is a dry
stirring and, in an eye-wink of time, the dead men have taken on flesh
and colour. They must have been keenly near. Grim, plainish fellows
are they, not unlike the gang around me, but rougher-clad and more
hairy. They are powerful and full-lifed men, I can see that, and the
rough-necked one with the trail stride and mop of curly hair is
Alexander MacKenzie, a Scotchman from Inverness, but late of Messrs.
Gregory & Co.'s counting-house. He is "down North" endeavouring to
open out a trade with the Indians, obtaining a foothold they doubtless
call it; his masters, the Nor'-West Fur Company--for monopolists are
always sensitive to terms. His is a continental errand (mark this
well), for he is the first white man to cross the Rockies, and to tell
us what lies over and beyond the hills where the sun goes down. Honour
to Alexander MacKenzie, Esq., of Inverness, say I! Some day, when
Messrs. the Publishers give me fuller royalties, I shall surely build a
cairn to him on the height of land e'er it falls away to the Western
Sea.
This man lived more than a century ago, and yet, as his figure fades
back into nothingness, we see this other figure close by. It is David
Thompson, the Welshman, who has recently discovered a river, and has
called it by his own name. Also, he has captured the Astoria
fur-trade, and has established a trading post, which future generations
will know as Kamloops.
And here is Sir George Simpson, Resident Governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company. He likes to travel with pipers who go before him, piping as
he enters a fort in order that Lo, the Red Man, may be properly
impressed.
The ugly person with the harshly aggressive features is Sir James
Douglas. He looks as fully open to convincement as a stone pavement.
This spalpeen near by is none other than young Lieutenant Butler of
Ireland. He is gathering material for a volume he proposes to call
_The Great Lone Land_. I like the way he carries his head. Who runs
may read him for a fighter with a fighter's build.
But on they go, and on, this long procession of pioneers, till we can
only call out their names as they file by--Dr. Hector, Daniel Harmon,
Viscount Milton, Alexander Henry, Dr. Cheadle, and other lean,
laborious fellows, long since passed into the shadows. Dead men do
tell tales. You may hear if you care to listen.
And what a strange thing has come to pass in these latter months! The
tenuous, twisting trail--that very old trail--has been superseded by a
clean white road that is like to a long bowstring. Its impotent,
creeping life has given way before the gallant onslaught of pick and
spade, chain and transit, and before monstrous lifting machines which
have other names, but which are really leviathans.
Hitherto, it may be said of this land what was once said of Rome, that
the memory sees more than the eye. This is no longer true. Before we
realize it, Baedeker will be setting down a star opposite the name of a
fashionable hotel in the Athabaska Valley, and the whole of this
morning world, from end to end, will be spotted with a black canker of
towns. Right glad am I to go through it this day with a construction
party, and for my own satisfaction to mentally tie together the threads
of the Past and Present. And who knows but in a century from now some
curious boy in one of these towns may find this record in an attic
rubbish-heap, and may rejoice with me over the knotted threads. (I
love you, boy! you must know this.)
My fellows of the Way, who are young engineers, tell me the peculiarity
of each cut and grade and the difficulties they encountered. They do
not speak of stations but of "Mile 48" or "Mile 60," by which they mean
48 miles from Wolf Creek. The railway, when completed, will measure
3,556 miles. They talked of other matters mathematical, much to my
bewilderment, but from which I, for myself, ultimately deducted that
while the genie who built Aladdin's palace in a night was the champion
contractor of fairy-tale countries, he is not to be mentioned in the
same breath as these master-men who blaze out this metal highway
towards the sea.
Each engineer lives on a residency which is twelve miles long, and it
is his duty to supervise the work of grading in his division. This
duty occupies about eighteen months, when he is moved on to another
residency.
The men placed in a residency camp are an engineer, an instrument man,
a rod man, two chain men and a cook. Over these camps, there are
placed the chief engineer at Winnipeg; the divisional engineer at the
End of Steel; and assistant divisional engineers, who may locate at
different points from fifty or sixty miles apart.
The grading itself is built by contractors, and sub-contractors, down
to station men, who with the aid of spades, picks and wheelbarrows,
built a hundred feet. All these are paid by the yard and according to
the nature of the soil or rock. The station men work from five in the
morning until nine or ten at night, and make from five to ten dollars a
day each. The blasters are known by the uneuphemistic title of
"rock-hogs."
The first engineers who scouted had a hard time in their unsplendid
isolation, but now that the rails are catching up, life on the
residencies is more pleasant than one might imagine. The shack is
fairly warm and comfortable and the Powers that Be supply to the men an
abundance of the best food procurable, with a reasonable portion of
dainties. The Powers doubtless recognize the distant advisability of
keeping the engineers and their assistants in health and temper, for
after all, nothing is so expensive as sickness. Still, the men are by
no means petted. It is true that one engineer has a pair of sheets,
but these are the talk, and possibly the envy, of all the residence's
on the line. When visitors come to his residency they sleep between
the sheets, while their chivalric host betakes himself to the long desk
that is built for map work.
Each residency has a gramophone, and some of them have small
menageries, including pet bears. In the summer, after hours, the men
have outdoor games such as baseball and tennis. They have been able on
several occasions to secure a sufficiently large attendance of women to
have a dance. It may happen that the engineer is married and that his
wife has girl-visitors, which party may be augmented by a visiting
contingency from the residency twelve miles further down the grade, or
some such fortunate happening as this. It is a heyday, I can tell you,
when this happens.
They do not quarrel in the residencies as missionaries do at their
posts, although a man sometimes gets moody. All through the winter
they talk over everything they did when last in town, and what every
one else did. Between times, they can watch the married engineers and
declare how much better the bachelors are situated. Purple grapes were
ever sour. They told me about other things, but I forget them;
besides, they are secrets.
One of the engineers gathers me some flowers at a wayside station,
concerning which the others, with full-throated laughter, propounded
riddles.
"When did he ast-er?" "How much did the rose raise?" "Who gave Susan
her black eye?" These, and other problems of peculiar interest to
young bloods, the solution of which we shall never know till flowers
learn to speak plainer.
The riddle, "Why does the willow weep?" elicits a discussion on music,
and on the sound of the wind in the pines. One man says he has read
somewhere that violin makers construct their instruments out of the
north sides of trees. He does not know if this be true, but I think it
must be, for the urging of the north wind in the trees and the soft
calling of the violin, are one and the same. They both allure to a
land where no one lives. You must have observed this yourself.
One rueful rascal with no civic conscience, and an overweening
appreciation of his sex, gives it as his opinion that this is an
ill-reasoned theory. He declares the sound to be a screeching
crescendo that has its origin in an implacable quarrel between the wind
and the pines. The wind is a suffragette, a woman of determined
grievance, who would be better of bit and bridle and possibly of gag.
She makes the pine a butt for her insult and ridicule and a target
against which she lashes the hail and drives her shrewish snow. When
not grappling his throat with her plaguing, pestilent fingers, it is
only because she is recoiling to strike again. She calls this "a spell
o' weather."
It is a bitter monologue this leather-fleshed, lathy-framed fellow
gives me, and I takes it as a body blow, but I answer not a word, for I
have heard it said, or perhaps I have read it, that the meek will own
the earth; besides--you can try it yourself--nothing so puzzles the
understanding of mortal man as a woman who refuses to go on defence.
Her silence fills him with a gnawing uneasiness similar to that one
feels when he has swallowed a tack.
And yet I would like to tell him he has overstated his case; to point
out that the trees are cross-grained to the wind; that their green
spectacles prevent their seeing things in proper perspective, and that
they are deep-rooted in obsolete prejudices. Sir Pine cannot escape
being an intractable old person, seeing that woman's suffrage was not
the rule seventy-five years ago, or more, when he was born. Yes! I
should have liked to say this, but it is almost as equal satisfaction
to score a verbal chicane.
I think, perhaps, the men felt my silence more than I intended, for
they argue the anti-suffragist out of countenance, although I have no
doubt they secretly and sincerely agree with him. To change the
subject, one of them brings me a caged squirrel he is taking to his
residency. Punch is a well-groomed squirrel and has an immoderate
tongue. His owner says that in the mountains these red squirrels
collect and dry mushrooms. They group them on a rock, or fix them in
the forks of young trees, ultimately banking them in hollow logs. He
is trying to tame Punch, but then we have all heard of the American who
tried to tame an oyster.
Punchinello is as active as pop-corn in a pan. He is a squirrel with a
job, and not nearly so light-minded as he looks. His job is to go
round and round on a wheel but never to make progress, for the wheel is
so swung that it revolves with him. I am appalled by the absolute
inutility of it. What a life! What a life! Wearing out a wheel and
himself at one and the same time. "Let him go when you get to the
woods," say I, "it will be kinder. You have heard of those Eastern
folk, who, when they wish to praise Allah, buy birds and set them free."
"No! I have not heard," he replies; "tell me about them."
"There is no more to the story, that is all."
"But I don't see the application when a fellow does not want to render
praises. I invested part of my savings at the races and the tenor of
my success was markedly uneven. I bought town lots, hoping to sell
before the second payment--'Stung'--Yes! it's as good a word as any.
The father of my best girl has cursed me to the tenth generation."
"For what?"
"Oh! for a newspaper item which concerned me. I will allow it would
have been just as well had it not appeared, but there it was! There it
was! No! I cannot see any special reason why I should set the
squirrel free. Besides" (and here he speaks softly and with a kindly
persuasiveness, as if he had butter in his mouth), "this Punchinello is
a sweet-toothed fellow, and the cook will feed him daintily; he has no
store set by for the winter; no drey, no mate; he is not properly
furred for exposure, and he would not know how to protect himself
against the hawks and stoats. Surely, you would not have him go free?
I tell you the thing would be cruelty itself, and I will not do it."
You see, he does not know this matter is a personal one with me, I mean
the wheel that goes round and never gets anywhere. If he did it would
probably make no difference, for the peculiarity about his arguments
are their sincerity and wisdom. I always did suspect that Providence
was a large serene young man with a strain of steel in him.
At Bickerdike, all the engineers I knew got out. Some are stationed
here; some await orders, but most of them go down the branch line that
is under construction from this point. Bickerdike is largely a tent
town, although, as yet, it is the metropolis of the Grade. I heard one
man on the train tell another it was "one of these here high-society
places where folks dance on a plank floor and don't call off the
figures." I promise to visit at Bickerdike on my return trip with some
friends I have not seen for years. No matter where you come from, it
would be almost impossible to drop off at any of these little frontier
posts without meeting some one you knew elsewhere, so representative is
the population of this Northern country.
At each post the same question is asked the newly-arrived passenger.
"Well, what's the news along the road?" To-day the news concerns a
wash-out near the End of Steel, and doubts are expressed as to the
possibility of our getting through.
At Marlboro, the people are talking of their cement industry, and at
the next station lumber is the topic. They are making the lumber out
of spruce. The small logs have been converted into railway ties. Some
of them are crossed. If ever you have "taken out" ties you know what
this means. As you likely haven't, I'll tell you. The railroad
contractor, when he rejects a tie, crosses the end of it with a blue or
red pencil. Once an acquaintance of mine, by name Jerry Dalton, took
out a cut of ties in the Province of Saskatchewan. One day Jerry--an
accurate man rather than a placid one--was stamping about somewhat more
rampageous than a baited bull.
"What is the matter now, Man Jerry!" I asked; "you are always having a
big sorrow."
"Sorrow ith it?" lisped Jerry at the top of his tall voice. "Look at
them d---- ties (begging your pardon, ma'am). Look at them ties! Does
that turkey-faced, muddle-headed idjit of a contractor think I'm
running a Catholic themetery? Crosses ith it? It's crosses he's after
giving Jerry! Troth! an' it's a crown I'll be puttin' on him."...
And so as I look at this pile of crossed logs by the wayside, I am
wondering who is the rascal responsible for the Catholic themetery.
These mills belong to a Northern timber chief whose large holdings have
made them turbulent. They have called him a timber-wolf, and other
names that are smart rather than polite. As a matter of fact, any man
who pays the government dues and converts the trees into lumber for the
use of the settlers, deserves all the emoluments that can possibly
accrue. On account of floods and fires, lumbering is a precarious
industry, and the majority of operators fail thereat or carry a
nerve-grinding overdraft at the bank.
And did you ever stand on the heights and watch a rising, ripping flood
bear out your booms and incidentally the year's logs? If you have, my
good little man, you'll be sensible to something closely approximating
a tender regard for the timber-wolves. This play of lamb and wolf is
frequently disastrous to the wolf.
I would like to rest off here to see the whip-saw bite into the logs;
to watch the long white boards as they fall from the carriage, and to
drink in their refreshing odour, for the whole essence of the North is
concentrated in the odour of the spruce.
Big Eddy takes its name from the whirlpool formed by the confluence of
the McLeod River and the Sun Dance Creek. The creek is an impetuous,
capering stream that leaps to the McLeod as a little laughing girl
would throw herself into the arms of her father. This is the fairest
tarrying place I have seen this way, and fit for a ball-room of the
dryads. Down in
|
ly,
when the church had the power, such a man was either hacked to pieces,
or burned to cinders; to-day, even, he is persecuted as much as public
opinion will permit. It is a matter of history that in the name of
this Jewish-Christian volume, which people do not read and are but
superficially acquainted with, nearly a hundred millions of lives have
been destroyed in Europe alone. Could anything be more appalling? In
modern times, the church can no longer do to the unbelievers in the
bible what it did to them for over seventeen hundred years, but it does
to them as much as public sentiment will allow.
The reader will be interested in examining with me the book in the
defense of which, I regret to say, nearly every imaginable crime has
been committed. It gives me pain to say this, but who can hide the
truth? Moreover, my sole purpose in telling the plain truth is not to
offend, or give pain, but to encourage everybody to approach the book
without fear. I am not going to praise the bible; but I am not going to
denounce it either; I am going to explain it.
It is my desire not so much to talk about the bible--when, and where,
and by whom, it was compiled; how it was lost and discovered; burned in
the destruction of the temple, and later restored by the scribe Ezra;
how it has been edited and revised again and again * --but to lift the
veil and show the book to the world.
* These questions are discussed in the author's pamphlet,
_How the Bible Was Invented._
What Makes a Book Inspired?
|BEFORE proceeding to read the book, may I explain that an _inspired_
book must be different from uninspired books. If it has excellences and
defects like other books, then it is in no sense different from any of
the works of man. An inspired book must be a perfect book, else what
advantage is there in being inspired? Again, an inspired book must
contain original matter, to justify its inspiration. If the bible
needed the help of inspiration to say what other books have said without
inspiration, then, instead of being a greater, it must needs be a more
ordinary book. Is there anything in the bible which can not be found
elsewhere? While there is not a single idea in the bible which was not
known before, there are many glorious truths of science and philosophy
in other books which can not be found in the bible. Wherein, then, is
the bible inspired?
Let me also explain that an argument, or the presentation of important
facts, produces an impression only upon the unprejudiced. The soundest
reasoning will no more convince a partisan than the most copious shower
will give nourishment to the sand. But an argument is never addressed to
a biased mind. The appeal of reason is to the fairminded and the free.
When, for instance, it is shown that certain passages are in one bible,
and not in another; or how passages, regarded as divine at one time,
have been dropped or altered in more recent revisions, a telling point
is made against an infallible book, in the opinion of all honest minds.
Or, when it is shown that the bible positively teaches falsehood and
immorality, the question of inspiration is at once closed for all
self-respecting and impartial judges. But, as intimated, nothing can
satisfy prejudice, or conquer wilful ignorance. Prejudice on the one
hand, and stupidity on the other, are as impervious to argument as a
duck's back is to water.
The present book is not for minds that are closed. When we go to court
to have a case tried, the value of the evidence we present does not
depend upon the appreciation of our adversary's counsel. However
convincing our testimony, he will never admit that it proves his client
guilty. It is the impartial judge, and it is, again, the open-minded
jury, that must pass upon the evidence. In the same way, what we say
here about the bible will not convert the priests or the rabbis. We do
not write for them. Our book will have no effect upon the pope; it is
not meant to change _his_ views. This book is for those who can afford
the truth.
In conclusion, the bible is a very _delicate_ subject to handle. The
material in hand is so prodigious, and of such a nature, that I am at a
loss to know what to say and what to omit. There are many things in the
bible to which I would like to call attention but which
I am debarred from so doing because good taste will not allow it. Yet
not to be able to refer to these matters places me in the position of an
attorney who has his best witnesses and evidence thrown out by a ruling
of the court. The church people are permitted to go on and print in
every language the texts and stories of the bible which I am not allowed
even to read in public--much less to comment on them. They can sell the
book by the millions, containing absurdities and atrocities which, by
order of the court (that is to say, of public opinion, or of good
taste), I am prohibited from referring to in my argument against the
authority of the book. The reader can have no idea what a protection
that is to the bible. The defendant, as it were, has gagged the
prosecution. It needs no effort to realize how much the bible is
indebted to this fact for its being tolerated at all in the twentieth
century. Courtesy prevents the exposure which would completely change
the world's opinion of the book.
But one can be a little freer in a book than on a public platform. Many
of the texts quoted in this volume could not have been read from the
platform. But there are numerous passages in the bible which would cause
even cold print to blush. We shall not disturb those.
The Sects and Their Bibles
|THE Jews deny that the second half of the bible is inspired; the
Christians admit that the first part of the bible is not as binding as
the second part.
The Jew fails to observe that, in denying inspiration to the New
Testament, he is also depriving the Old of its inspiration. The
arguments by which he disproves the New Testament are the same which
disprove the Old, and all other "inspired" documents.
The Christian, by admitting that the Old Testament is no longer as
binding upon the conscience of man as it was at one time, or as the New
Testament is now, surrenders the whole question of inspiration. If the
Old Testament has been superseded, the New might be, too. If what God
says in one part of the book can be ignored by the Christians, what he
says in another part of the book may just as reasonably be ignored by
the Jews, and--this is important--what God says in either part of
the book may be ignored by the _Rationalist_. In other words, the
Rationalist agrees with the Christian that the Old Testament is
_passé_, and with the Jews, that the New Testament is nothing more than
ecclesiastical literature. The Rationalist uses the arguments of the Jew
against the New Testament, and the arguments of the Christian against
the Old, with the result that practically both Testaments fall by the
blows of the sectarians themselves. Both Jew and Christian seem to be
unable to perceive, or if they do, they are unwilling to admit, that not
only has each destroyed the position of the other, but also his own.
All the objections which the Jew brings against Christianity are equally
valid against his own Judaism. Does he object to the Christian trinity?
There is a trinity also in his religion. In Genesis we read that
the Lord appeared unto Abraham in three persons. He entertained and
worshiped the three men as one Lord. * Does the Jew object to the dogma
of incarnation? In the Old Testament, God repeatedly appears in flesh
and blood. Is it the immaculate conception that the Jew can not accept?
In Judaism, too, that miracle was of frequent occurrence. Maidens in
the Old Testament, as in the New, see an angel of the Lord and become
pregnant. Is it the doctrine of hell to which the Jew objects? Jesus,
in all probability, borrowed it from the Talmud. Is it an exclusive
salvation that the Jew rejects? But the _extra ecclesia non est solus_
of the Catholic is but another version of the "Outside Israel there
is no salvation" of the Old Testament. Is it the doctrine of blood
atonement in the New Testament which offends him? The Old Testament is
as _red_ as the New. The difference between Judaism and Christianity is
one of name, largely. Is it not remarkable how people will subscribe
to the very doctrines which they reject, if presented to them under a
different name? Jew and Christian have persecuted one another in the
past. Why? Only for a name. The pity of it! Judaism is Christianity,
and Christianity is Judaism. They are called by different names--that is
all.
To the Jew we say: "You will not take upon you the yoke of the New
Testament; cast down also the yoke of the Old." And to the Christian we
say: "You have already emancipated yourself from the authority of the
Old Testament to a great extent; free yourself also from the authority
of the New."
Catholic and Protestant Bibles
|THE Catholics do not believe in the Protestant bible; the Protestants
do not trust the Catholic bible. Each tells the truth about the bible of
the other, but not of his own.
As in the case of the Jew and the Christian, neither the Catholic nor
the Protestant seems to realize that in condemning each other's bible as
untrustworthy, or as a manipulated copy, they are condemning also each
his own bible. If the Catholics have tampered with the Word of God, as
the Protestants claim they have; and if the Protestants have a defective
bible, as the Catholics charge, then the claim that God has preserved
his revelation from human error falls to the ground. If God did not
protect the Protestant bible from corruption, he is liable to be equally
unconcerned about the Catholic bible, from which it follows that the
Word of God can be, and has been, corrupted, which, if true--and both
Catholics and Protestants say it is--then there is no incorruptible Word
of God.
The Rationalist shares with the Catholic the latter's opinion of the
Protestant bible; and of the Catholic bible, it doubts its reliability
just as the Protestants do. Putting what the Protestants and Catholics
say of each other's bible side by side, the Rationalist arrives at the
conclusion that both bibles are untrustworthy.
Let us now consider another phase of the Catholic-Protestant position
on the bible. The Protestants are apparently very anxious to make
the reading of the bible in the home and the school imperative; the
Catholics, on the other hand, seek to make it equally imperative _not_
to read the bible. It is well known that the popes of Rome, as heads of
the church and vicars of Christ, have repeatedly forbidden the reading
of the bible by the people. An index of forbidden books is kept in Rome
for the guidance of the faithful, and, surprising as it may seem,
the bible was placed upon this _Index Expurgatorius_ by the popes
themselves. The bull of Pius IV. reads: "Whosoever shall dare to own a
copy of this book (bible) and read it without having procured a special
dispensation shall not receive absolution for his sins."
Similar prohibitions were given by Pius VI., Leo II, XII., Gregory XVI.,
Pius IX. in his Syllabus, and Clement XI. in his famous bull,
_Unigenitus_. In the _Index_ of forbidden books of Pope Innocent XI.,
1704, one of the books forbidden is "the bible in any of the popular
languages."
This prohibition was not against the Protestant bibles only, for the
fourth clause in the _Index_ is a warning against Catholic bibles as
well, _"bibliorum Catholicis autoribus versorum_."
My sympathies in this matter are with the Catholics; if the bible is
an infallible book, we ought to have an infallible reader. To say that
everybody may interpret the bible as he pleases is to say that the bible
has no meaning at all, except what the readers themselves _read_ into
it. But if it has an infallible meaning, only an infallible interpreter
can pronounce upon it. And when it is remembered that an erroneous
interpretation might be the means of damning the souls of many, it
becomes a positive duty not to read the book for one's self. The Pope
may read it, because being infallible, he can not misread it. I admire
the logic of the Catholic church in this respect. Grant the premises
that the bible is a special revelation--and infallible--and all the
arguments of the Protestants against the Catholic position shatter to
pieces, like the waves against a rock.
But, as already intimated, the Protestants believe in putting the
bible in every house, hotel and school. They want every man to carry
a pocket-bible; and if women had pockets they would be urged to do the
same. From all this one would suppose that they were very anxious to
get everybody acquainted with the contents of the bible. The different
ministerial assemblies, at their annual gatherings, recently attacked
by official resolutions the decision of the Supreme Court of
Illinois, which made the reading of the bible in the public schools
unconstitutional. The Protestant churches do not seem to care at all
about the constitution--they want the bible in the schools, constitution
or no constitution. In the twentieth century the supreme court rules the
bible out of the people's schools! Had not Greece fallen before the wave
of Asiatic mysticism, the bible would have been ruled out of Europe two
thousand years ago. The Supreme Court of Illinois is doing now what
the supreme court of Europe should have done in the year one.
Notwithstanding protests to the contrary, I am of the opinion that the
Protestants are at heart as opposed to the reading of the bible as the
Catholics. Indeed, they would have everybody read the bible, but they
must not read it with their own eyes, but as Calvin, or Wesley, or
Luther read it. But that is not different from the Catholic position
that the Pope must read the bible for the people. If the Protestants
really permit each to read and interpret the bible according to his best
thought, why are there heresy trials among them? That is a searching
question. Heresy trials prove beyond a doubt that the Protestants do not
wish anybody to read the bible for himself. See what the church did to
me for reading the bible with my own eyes. At the age of twenty-five,
myself, my wife and baby were dispossessed of church, position and
support. What was done to me for reading the bible with my own eyes has
been done to thousands of others?
"Let _me_ read the bible for you," says the Catholic.
"Read the bible with _my_ eyes," says the Protestant.
What is the difference?
Catholics Make Their Own Bible
|ONE of the significant facts about the bible is that no two copies of
it are exactly alike. There are nearly as many versions of it as
there are sects. The most important variations are to be found between
Catholic and Protestant bibles. As I write I have before me a copy of
the Catholic "Holy Bible," on the title-page of which are these words:
````HOLY BIBLE.
```Translated from the Latin Vulgate.
`_This edition of the Holy Catholic Bible, having been duly
```examined, is hereby approved of._
Then follows a long list of the names of bishops and archbishops. It
is thus intimated that no bible is the "Word of God" unless it has the
endorsement of these Catholic dignitaries. Only after these men have
examined the bible and given it their sanction does the book become
"divine." No layman can tell for himself, unaided by a priest, the "Word
of God" from the word of man. In fact, it is the priest who changes the
word of man into the "Word of God" by the same process that he converts
ordinary bread into a God.
There is given also in the "Holy Catholic Bible," before me, a list of
the books which are pronounced to be "inspired" by the Council of Trent.
To introduce into the bible any book not contained in this list, or to
exclude from the bible any one of the books which the Council of Trent
has decided to be "inspired," is to be guilty of blasphemy. This is what
it says:
_Now if any one reading over these books in all their parts, as they
are usually read in the Catholic Church... does not hold them sacred and
canonical... and does industriously contemn them let him be anathema._
To be _anathema_ means to be accursed. In other words, there is no
choice; it is the Catholic bible or a curse. No man has any right
to choose for himself, or decide according to his own conscience and
knowledge, which is the "Word of God," or how much in the various
bibles is actually "the Word of God." He must, then, choose between
the priest's bible or--his curse. To try to prove a book "inspired" by
threatening to _curse_ all those who may tell the truth about it, is a
sure sign that the makers of the bible themselves do not believe in
its inspiration. It is impossible to think that if the priests really
believed the bible to be "divine," they would have undertaken to hedge
it about with anathemas. But they curse to conceal their own unbelief.
There is not another book that had to curse its readers to make them
believe in it.
The most effective argument against the bible is furnished by the church
itself. For nearly fifteen hundred years it hanged and burned people
alive to make them believe in the bible. That is a good way to prove
one's unbelief, not one's faith. It shows what little confidence the
Catholics had in the ability of "the Word of God" to defend itself
against a Giordano Bruno, when they burned him at the stake; and how
dubious the Protestants were of _their_ bible, when they burned Michael
Servetus at the stake. The long list of terrible crimes committed in
defense of the bible is a conclusive proof, first, of the unbelief of
the Christians themselves in the ability of the bible to win men by the
beauty and truth of its teachings; and, second, of the evil influence of
the book upon those who accepted its authority.
The preface to the Catholic bible offers a further proof of the lack
of confidence of Christians in "the Word of God." It forbids people,
as already shown, to read the Word of God without first securing the
consent of a priest. It is a heinous thing, according to the church
authorities, to undertake to read the bible on one's own responsibility.
"To prevent and remedy this abuse" (namely, that of reading the bible,
and interpreting it for one's self), says this same preface, "it was
judged necessary to forbid the reading of the scriptures in the vulgar
tongues." Of course, ''there is no prohibition against reading it
in Latin, or Hebrew, or Greek, or in any language that one does not
understand, but it is forbidden to read it in the _vulgar_, that is
to say, in any language that the reader is familiar with, "without the
advice and permission of the pastors and spiritual guides whom God has
appointed to govern his church." To prove this authority of the priest
to forbid the reading of the bible, the following text is quoted: "He
that will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the
publican." *
* Matthew xviii, 17, Catholic Bible.
The church _must_ be obeyed. The commandment says nothing about
obeying the church only when she is in the right, or only when she is
reasonable, or even only when she is scriptural--she must be obeyed
because she is the church. And this, too, is quite consistent with the
claims of an infallible revelation. If everybody is to be given the
liberty to decide when the church is right, reasonable, or scriptural,
and when she is not, then it is not the church, but the individual, who
is infallible. If the bible is "inspired," there is no escape from the
conclusions of the Catholic church. Did not Jesus say to the Apostles,
and, therefore, to the priests: "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven"? * Does not this make everybody the slave of the
church?
* Matthew xviii, 18, Catholic Bible.
The Catholic bible contains nearly a dozen more "inspired" books than
the Protestant bible, and many of the texts in the books which are
common to both are differently translated. By comparing the list of
books in the Catholic bible with the books in the Protestant bible, we
find that the Protestants are "accursed" by the decision of the Council
of Trent, inasmuch as they deny the inspiration of, and exclude from
their bible, about twelve of the books in the Catholic bible. Now, what
is a layman to do when infallible churches disagree? We are commanded
by the bible to hear the church, but which church? If we could decide
ourselves which is the true church, we would then be greater than the
church, as it would need our approval before it could exercise any
authority over us. But if we can not decide which is the true church,
what are we going to do? This is an important question, because unless
we belong to the true church we can not have the true bible.
The Catholics "curse" the Protestant bible. This is the literal truth.
The Protestants, on the other hand, call the Catholic bible "a popish
imposture." While they are wrangling about it, what becomes of the Word
of God?
But the most interesting part in the preface to the Catholic bible is
the warning which the church gives to the reader of the bible, not to be
shocked, or scandalized, by the immoral and impossible stories contained
therein. The reader is cautioned against applying to the bible the
standard of morality by which other books are judged. To scare the
reader into praising in the bible what he would unreservedly and
sweepingly condemn in other books, the following biblical text is
quoted:
_My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are my ways as your ways,
saith the Lord; for as the heavens are exalted above the earth even
so are my ways exalted above your ways and my thoughts above your
thoughts._ *
Well, of course, that being the case, the reader shall start with his
mind made up that he must not understand anything he reads. The better
and much safer thing to do is not to read the bible at all. And that is
honestly what both Catholics and Protestants would like to say, if
they could. The Catholic bible in its preface comes as near giving that
advice as it dares, as the following will show:
_How then shall any one, by his private reason, pretend to judge, to
know, to demonstrate, the incomprehensible and unsearchable ways of
God?_
What is the use of reading an "incomprehensible" and "unsearchable"
book? The Word of God could not have been meant for man. Let it pass.
* Isaiah lv, 8-9, Catholic Bible; same in Protestant bible.
PART II.
I. The Tercentenary of the English Bible
|JUST at present there is a revival of interest in the bible. The three
hundredth anniversary of the King James' version of the Holy Bible was
recently celebrated in the great cities of Christendom. All the pulpits
have been heard from in praise of the book. It will be noticed, however,
that almost every one of the preachers confined himself to glittering
generalities about the bible. Judging by the reports of their sermons,
there was not a single speaker who attempted a careful and instructive
study of the book--its origin, its growth, or the character of its
contents. Although the book was eloquently praised as the best ever
written, no effort was made to point out wherein, or in what respect,
the bible deserved the honor and the worship demanded in its behalf. The
preachers spoke of the bible with the same confidence, or conceit, that
the Moslem displays when he is praising his bible. One of the well-known
speakers, W. J. Bryan, challenged the world, at the bible-meeting in
Chicago, to produce a better book than the Jewish-Christian scriptures.
The celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the publication
of the authorized version presented also an opportunity to many of the
defenders of the bible to praise the translators of the bible under
King James of England. An idea of the moral and intellectual standing
of these divines may be had by reading the preface which is attached to
every bible printed in Great Britain. In this, they dedicate the work to
the king, whom they exalt as a paragon of virtue. James I.
was, by universal consent, one of the meanest and most worthless
pedants that ever wore a crown. Yet, even as the divines who formulated
the Nicene creed addressed to Constantine, who had murdered the members
of his own household in cold blood, the words, "You have established the
faith, exterminated the heretics. That the king of heaven may preserve
the king of earth is the prayer of the church and clergy," the English
authors of the authorized version looked upon James, the meanest of the
Stuarts, as the vicar of God on earth, and presented him the following
address:
_To the Most High and Mighty Prince James, by the grace of God, King
of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, the
translators of the Bible wish Grace, Mercy and Peace, through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which
Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon us, the people
of England, when first he sent Your Majesty's Royal Person to rule and
reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation of many, who wished
not well unto our Sion, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental
Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory, some thick and palpable
clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this Land that men should
have been in doubt which way they were to walk; and that it should
hardly be known who was to direct the unsettled State; the appearance
of Your Majesty, as of the Sun of strength, instantly dispelled those
supposed and surmised mists and gave unto all that were well affected
exceeding cause of comfort; especially when we beheld the Government
established in Your Highness, and Your hopeful Seed, by an undoubted
Title, and this also accompanied with peace and tranquillity at home and
abroad._
And much more, in this same strain, concluding with these words:
_The Lord of heaven and earth bless Your Majesty with many and happy
days, that, as his heavenly hand hath enriched Your Highness with many
singular and extraordinary graces, so You may be the wonder of the world
in this latter age for happiness and true felicity, to the honour of
that great God and the good of his Church, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord and only Saviour._
What made these "divines" so proud of James? He was their king. What
makes the "divines" of to-day praise the bible so effusively? It is
their bible. We regret to say that the "divines" of to-day no more speak
the truth about the bible than the "divines" of three hundred years ago
spoke the truth about King James.
Some Lay Defenders of the Bible--Bryan's Challenge
|ONE of the speakers at the tercentenary celebration was William
Jennings Bryan. Though not a "divine" as yet, he may become one,
according to reports, in the near future. Bryan was invited to deliver
the principal address at a mass meeting of the Christian churches of
Chicago (the Catholic church not included), in Orchestra Hall. In this
address, the oft-time presidential candidate openly challenged the
critics of his bible and of its divine origin "to produce a book equal
in wisdom and teachings to the volume which has stood the test of
centuries."
After I made sure that Mr. Bryan had really made the challenge, as will
appear by the quotations from his paper, _The Commoner_, which will be
given later, a telegram was addressed to him, signed by myself, in which
I accepted his challenge and invited him to state the terms on which
he would join me in the discussion of this timely and most important
subject, at the Auditorium, which seats six thousand people. Receiving
no reply, a telegram was forwarded to the proprietor of the Lincoln
_Star_--Lincoln being the home town of Mr. Bryan--requesting the
publisher to please interview Mr. Bryan about this matter. To the
courtesy of this gentleman I am indebted for the following message from
Lincoln:
_Charles Bryan has forwarded letter to W. J. Bryan, who returns here
June 3. Will hand Mr. Bryan your telegram when he reaches Lincoln._
The "Charles Bryan" in the dispatch is, I am told, the secretary, as
well as the brother, of William Jennings Bryan. He says he has forwarded
letter, ostensibly about my telegram, to W. J. Bryan. Why did he not
send him the telegram, itself? If his letter merely informed Bryan that
there was a telegram for him from Chicago, without either enclosing the
same in his letter, or telling him of its contents, Mr. Bryan had good
reason to discharge such a secretary. But if he enclosed the telegram,
or, which is more likely, informed Mr. Bryan of its import, why does
he say that he will hand the telegram to Bryan "when the latter reaches
Lincoln"? Why keep a telegram a whole month before giving it to the
person to whom it is addressed? But if his letter had already advised
Bryan of my acceptance of his challenge, and my offer to let him dictate
his own terms, why pretend that the telegram will remain sealed until
Mr. Bryan returns to Lincoln on the third of June?
Evidently, all that the two Bryans wanted was to postpone the day of
reckoning. The third day of June arrived, but no answer came from Bryan.
Another appeal was made to the Lincoln _Star_:
_If no trouble, would you mind finding if Bryan is at home; and what he
expects to do about Mangasarian's acceptance of his challenge._
And as promptly as in the former instance, the answer came:
_Bryan says he will take no action re challenge._
But it was Mr. Bryan who made the challenge in the first place. His
challenge was not only made in public, but it is now in print, as the
following from the report of his Orchestra Hall address, as it appeared
in Bryan's own paper, fully shows:
_The Christian world has confidence in the bible; it presents the book
as the Word of God, but the attacks made upon it by its enemies continue
in spite of the growth of the bible's influence. The Christian world
by its attitude presents a challenge to the opposition, and this is an
opportune moment to emphasize the challenge._
How does the distinguished Nebraskan get over these words? If "_The
Christian world... presents a challenge to the opposition, and this is
an opportune moment to emphasize the challenge_," why did not Mr. Bryan
promptly and gladly accept an offer which placed one of the greatest
halls in the country at his disposal, without any expense whatever to
himself or to the Christian world? To say the least, it is significant
that a successful orator and popular lecturer like Mr. Bryan, with his
implicit confidence in the bible as the best book in all the world,
would even hesitate, much less decline, to accept so great an
opportunity as was placed at his disposal. Moreover, if he were
not going to make "the action suit the word," why did he speak of a
challenge at all? Was this only an oratorical display on his part? Was
it mere bravado? If he were talking on the same subject again, would he
repeat his challenge to the "opposition"? If our little episode with
him will prevent him from ever using the word "challenge" again in his
religious speeches, we shall consider our services well rewarded.
But the real reason for Bryan's collapse as a bible champion will
be seen in perusing the following comments on his address at the
tercentenary celebration.
Bryan's Defense of the Bible
|AS reported in _The Commoner_ * Bryan began his address by saying that
the critics of the bible _... have disputed the facts which it sets
forth and ridiculed the prophesies which it recites; they have rejected
the account which it gives of the creation and scoffed at the miracles
which it records. They have denied the existence of the God of the Bible
and have sought to reduce the Savior to the stature of a man. They have
been as bold as the prophets of Baal in defying the Living God and in
heaping contempt upon the Written Word. Why not challenge the atheists
and the materialists to put their doctrines to the test? When Elijah was
confronted by a group of scorners who mocked at the Lord whom he
worshiped, he invited them to match the power of their God against the
power of his, and he was willing to concede superiority to the one who
would answer with fire. When the challenge was accepted he built an
altar, prepared a sacrifice, and then, to leave no room for doubt, he
poured water upon the wood and the sacrifice--poured until the water
filled the trenches round about. So firm was his trust that he even
taunted his adversaries with their failure while his proofs were yet to
be presented. The prophets of Baal, be it said to their credit, had
enough confidence in their God to agree to the test, and their
disappointment was real when he failed them--they gashed themselves with
knives when their entreaties were unanswered.
Why not a bible test?_
* May 12, 1911.
Mr. Bryan does not tell the rest of the story, although as much of it as
he gives is bad enough.
Elijah had no desire to convert his rivals to the true faith; he wanted
to kill every one of them, which he did:
_And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of
them escape.... And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and
slew them there._ *
* There were 450 of them.
This is the same Elijah who prayed for a drought, and for the space
of three years not a drop of rain fell upon the land. If there is an
educated man who can admire such a prayer, or the Being who answered it,
or who can believe that for three years, men, women, children, plants
and animals went thirsty--he is really beyond hope.
Mr. Bryan did not accept our invitation, because, I believe, he felt
that he would not have the courage to repeat this story of Elijah
before any other kind of an audience than one composed strictly of such
Christian or Jewish believers who dare not think straight.
What, for instance, would Bryan have answered if he were asked why
Elijah did not leave to the deity the killing of the four hundred and
fifty priests of an alien faith? If God could send down fire from
heaven to burn up the bullock, he could just as easily send down fire
to destroy the whole priesthood of Baal--as he sent down fire to destroy
Sodom and Gomorrah. But Elijah executed his critics himself; he did not
believe, evidently, that his God could get rid of them
without his help. In this he was more infidel than the priests he
killed. Murder was Elijah's intent from the first. In the history of
religious persecution was there ever a priest who believed enough in God
to leave to him the burning, or the quartering of heretics alive? How
much nobler was the example of the Roman emperor who refused to give
his sanction to religious persecution on the ground that the gods could
avenge their own wrongs.*
* Deorum injurias deis curae.
And does Bryan really believe that, once upon a time, the only way the
Deity could hold his own was by giving pyrotechnic exhibitions, which
ended in wholesale bloodshed? Is that the kind of a test Bryan desires?
The fact that there are even more unbelievers to-day than in Elijah's
time is a proof that the "fire and
|
LA CURÉE lay side by side; eight
substantial volumes of Gibbon's famous History were not perhaps
inappropriately prolonged by a fine edition of the DECAMERON; the
ORIGIN OF SPECIES rested by the side of a black-letter Bible; THE
REPUBLIC maintained an equilibrium with VANITY FAIR and the HISTORY OF
EUROPEAN MORALS. A volume of Macaulay's Essays lay on the
writing-table itself; it was open, and that sublime passage whereby the
genius of one man has immortalised the genius of another was marked in
pencil. _And history, while for the warning of vehement, high, and
daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately
pronounce that among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely
one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name_.
A half-empty box of cigarettes stood on a small table near a low
leathern armchair, and by its side lay a heavy army-revolver, against
the barrel of which the ashes of many cigarettes had been removed. In
the corner of the room stood a small but exquisite Capitoline Venus,
the cold chastity of its colour reproaching the allurements of its
form. It was the chamber of a philosopher, but of no frigid, academic
recluse; it was the chamber of a man, a human man, who appreciated all
earthly pleasures, appraised them at their proper worth, enjoyed, and
despised them.
There were still some papers and telegrams lying unopened on the table,
but Savrola was tired; they could, or at any rate should wait till the
morning. He dropped into his chair. Yes, it had been a long day, and
a gloomy day. He was a young man, only thirty-two, but already he felt
the effects of work and worry. His nervous temperament could not fail
to be excited by the vivid scenes through which he had lately passed,
and the repression of his emotion only heated the inward fire. Was it
worth it? The struggle, the labour, the constant rush of affairs, the
sacrifice of so many things that make life easy, or pleasant--for what?
A people's good! That, he could not disguise from himself, was rather
the direction than the cause of his efforts. Ambition was the motive
force, and he was powerless to resist it. He could appreciate the
delights of an artist, a life devoted to the search for beauty, or of
sport, the keenest pleasure that leaves no sting behind. To live in
dreamy quiet and philosophic calm in some beautiful garden, far from
the noise of men and with every diversion that art and intellect could
suggest, was, he felt, a more agreeable picture. And yet he knew that
he could not endure it. 'Vehement, high, and daring' was his cast of
mind. The life he lived was the only one he could ever live; he must
go on to the end. The end comes often early to such men, whose spirits
are so wrought that they know rest only in action, contentment in
danger, and in confusion find their only peace.
His thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of the old woman with a
tray. He was tired, but the decencies of life had to be observed; he
rose, and passed into the inner room to change his clothes and make his
toilet. When he returned, the table was laid; the soup he had asked
for had been expanded by the care of his house-keeper into a more
elaborate meal. She waited on him, plying him the while with questions
and watching his appetite with anxious pleasure. She had nursed him
from his birth up with a devotion and care which knew no break. It is
a strange thing, the love of these women. Perhaps it is the only
disinterested affection in the world. The mother loves her child; that
is material nature. The youth loves his sweetheart; that too may be
explained. The dog loves his master; he feeds him; a man loves his
friend; he has stood by him perhaps at doubtful moments. In all there
are reasons; but the love of a foster-mother for her charge appears
absolutely irrational. It is one of the few proofs, not to be
explained even by the association of ideas, that the nature of mankind
is superior to mere utilitarianism, and that his destinies are high.
The light and frugal supper finished, the old woman departed with the
plates, and he fell to his musings again. Several difficult affairs
impended in the future, about the conduct of which he was doubtful. He
dismissed them from his mind; why should he be always oppressed with
matters of fact? What of the night? He rose, walked to the window,
and drawing the curtains looked out. The street was very quiet, but in
the distance he thought he heard the tramp of a patrol. All the houses
were dark and sullen; overhead the stars shone brightly; it was a
perfect night to watch them.
He closed the window and taking a candle walked to a curtained door on
one side of the room; it opened on a narrow, spiral stair which led to
the flat roof. Most of the houses in Laurania were low, and Savrola
when he reached the leads overlooked the sleeping city. Lines of
gas-lamps marked the streets and squares, and brighter dots indicated
the positions of the shipping in the harbour. But he did not long look
at these; he was for the moment weary of men and their works. A small
glass observatory stood in one corner of this aerial platform, the nose
of the telescope showing through the aperture. He unlocked the door
and entered. This was a side of his life that the world never saw; he
was no mathematician intent on discovery or fame, but he loved to watch
the stars for the sake of their mysteries. By a few manipulations the
telescope was directed at the beautiful planet of Jupiter, at this time
high in the northern sky. The glass was a powerful one, and the great
planet, surrounded by his attendant moons, glowed with splendour. The
clock-work gear enabled him to keep it under continual observation as
the earth rolled over with the hours. Long he watched it, becoming
each moment more under the power of the spell that star-gazing
exercises on curious, inquiring humanity.
At last he rose, his mind still far away from earth. Molara, Moret,
the Party, the exciting scenes of the day, all seemed misty and unreal;
another world, a world more beautiful, a world of boundless
possibilities, enthralled his imagination. He thought of the future of
Jupiter, of the incomprehensible periods of time that would elapse
before the cooling process would render life possible on its surface,
of the slow steady march of evolution, merciless, inexorable. How far
would it carry them, the unborn inhabitants of an embryo world?
Perhaps only to some vague distortion of the vital essence; perhaps
further than he could dream of. All the problems would be solved, all
the obstacles overcome; life would attain perfect developement. And
then fancy, overleaping space and time, carried the story to periods
still more remote. The cooling process would continue; the perfect
developement of life would end in death; the whole solar system, the
whole universe itself, would one day be cold and lifeless as a
burned-out firework.
It was a mournful conclusion. He locked up the observatory and
descended the stairs, hoping that his dreams would contradict his
thoughts.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEPUTATION.
It was the President's custom to rise early, but before doing so he
invariably received the newspapers and read such remarks as dealt with
the policy of the Government or criticised its actions. This morning
his literature was exceptionally plentiful. All the papers had leading
articles on the restriction of the franchise and the great riot which
had followed its announcement. He first opened THE HOUR, the organ of
orthodox mediocrity, which usually cautiously supported the Government
in consideration of occasional pieces of news with which it was from
time to time favoured. In a column and a half of print THE HOUR gently
regretted that the President had been unable to restore the franchises
unimpaired; it thus gratified the bulk of its readers. In a second
column it expressed its severe disapproval--(_unqualified condemnation_
was the actual term)--of the disgraceful riot which had led to such
_deplorable consequences_; it thus repaid the President for sending
round the text of the English note, which had arrived the night before,
and which it printed _verbatim_ with pomp and circumstance as coming
from Our Special Correspondent in London.
THE COURTIER, the respectable morning journal of the upper classes,
regretted that so unseemly a riot should have taken place at the
beginning of the season, and expressed a hope that it would not in any
way impair the brilliancy of the State Ball which was to take place on
the 7th. It gave an excellent account of the President's first
ministerial dinner, with the _menu_ duly appended, and it was concerned
to notice that Señor Louvet, Minister of the Interior, had been
suffering from an indisposition which prevented his attending the
function. THE DIURNAL GUSHER, a paper with an enormous circulation,
refrained from actual comments but published an excellent account of
the _massacre_, to the harrowing details of which it devoted much
fruity sentiment and morbid imagination.
These were practically the organs on which the Government relied for
support, and the President always read them first to fortify himself
against the columns of abuse with which the Radical, Popular, and
Democratic Press saluted him, his Government, and all his works. The
worst result of an habitual use of strong language is that when a
special occasion really does arise, there is no way of marking it. THE
FABIAN, THE SUNSPOT, and THE RISING TIDE had already exhausted every
epithet in their extensive vocabularies on other and less important
incidents. Now that a severe fusilade had been made upon the citizens
and an ancient privilege attacked, they were reduced to comparative
moderation as the only outlet for their feelings. They had compared
the Head of the State so often and so vividly to Nero and Iscariot,
very much to the advantage of those worthies, that it was difficult to
know how they could deal with him now. They nevertheless managed to
find a few unused expressions, and made a great point of the
Ministerial dinner as being an instance of his "brutal disregard of the
commonest instincts of humanity." THE SUNSPOT was thought by its
readers to have been particularly happy in alluding to the ministers
as, "Indulging in a foul orgie of gluttony and dipping their
blood-stained fingers in choice dishes, while the bodies of their
victims lay unburied and unavenged."
Having finished his perusal the President pushed the last paper off the
bed and frowned. He cared nothing for criticism, but he knew the power
of the Press and he knew that it reflected as well as influenced public
opinion. There could be no doubt that the balance was rising against
him.
At breakfast he was moody and silent, and Lucile tactfully refrained
from irritating him by the laboured commonplaces of matutinal
conversation. By nine o'clock he was always at work and this morning
he began earlier than usual. The Secretary was already at his table
busily writing when Molara entered. He rose and bowed, a formal bow,
which seemed an assertion of equality rather than a tribute of respect.
The President nodded and walked to his table on which such parts of
correspondence as needed his personal attention were neatly arranged.
He sat down and began to read. Occasionally he uttered an exclamation
of assent or disapproval, and his pencil was often employed to express
his decisions and opinions. From time to time Miguel collected the
papers he had thus dealt with and carried them to the inferior
secretaries in the adjoining room, whose duty it was to elaborate into
the stately pomposity of official language such phrases as "Curt
Refusal" "Certainly not" "Apply to War Office" "Gushing Reply" "I do
not agree" "See last year's Report."
Lucile also had letters to read and write. Having finished these she
determined to take a drive in the park. For the last few weeks, since,
in fact, they had returned from their summer residence, she had
discontinued what had been in former years her usual practice; but
after the scenes and riots of the day before she felt it her duty to
display a courage which she did not feel. It might help her husband,
for her beauty was such that an artistic people invariably showed her
respect. It could at least do no harm, and besides she was weary of
the palace and its gardens. With this intention her carriage was
ordered and she was about to enter it, when a young man arrived at the
door. He saluted her gravely.
It was the boast of the citizens of the Republic of Laurania that they
never brought politics into private life or private life into politics.
How far they justified it will appear later. The present situation had
undoubtedly strained the principle to the full, but civilities were
still exchanged between political antagonists. Lucile, who had known
the great Democrat as a frequent visitor at her father's house before
the Civil War, and who had always kept up a formal acquaintance with
him, smiled and bowed in return and asked whether he came to see the
President.
"Yes," he replied. "I have an appointment."
"Public matters I suppose?" she inquired with the suspicion of a smile.
"Yes," he repeated somewhat abruptly.
"How tiresome you all are," she said daringly, "with your public
businesses and solemn looks. I hear nothing but matters of State from
morning till night, and now, when I fly the palace for an hour's
relaxation, they meet me at the very door."
Savrola smiled. It was impossible to resist her charm. The admiration
he had always felt for her beauty and her wit asserted itself in spite
of the watchful and determined state of mind into which he had thrown
himself as a preparation for his interview with the President. He was
a young man, and Jupiter was not the only planet he admired. "Your
Excellency," he said, "must acquit me of all intention."
"I do," she answered laughing, "and release you from all further
punishment."
She signed to the coachman and bowing, drove off.
He entered the palace and was ushered by a footman resplendent in the
blue and buff liveries of the Republic, into an ante-room. A young
officer of the Guard, the Lieutenant who had commanded the escort on
the previous day, received him. The President would be disengaged in a
few minutes. The other members of the deputation had not yet arrived;
in the meantime would he take a chair? The Lieutenant regarded him
dubiously, as one might view some strange animal, harmless enough to
look at, but about whose strength, when roused, there were
extraordinary stories. He had been brought up in the most correct
regimental ideas: the people (by which he meant the mob) were "swine";
their leaders were the same, with an adjective prefixed; democratic
institutions, Parliament, and such like, were all "rot." It therefore
appeared that he and Savrola would find few topics in common. But
besides his good looks and good manners, the young soldier had other
attainments; his men knew him as "all right" and "all there," while the
Lancers of the Guard polo team regarded him as a most promising player.
Savrola, whose business it was to know everything, inquired respecting
the project lately mooted by the Lauranian Cavalry of sending a polo
team to England to compete in the great annual tournament at
Hurlingham. Lieutenant Tiro (for that was his name) addressed himself
to the subject with delight. They disputed as to who should be taken
as "back." The discussion was only interrupted by the entrance of the
Mayor and Renos, and the Subaltern went off to inform the President
that the deputation waited.
"I will see them at once," said Molara; "show them up here."
The deputation were accordingly conducted up the stairs to the
President's private room. He rose and received them with courtesy.
Godoy stated the grievances of the citizens. He recalled the protests
they had made against the unconstitutional government of the last five
years, and their delight at the President's promise to call the Estates
together. He described their bitter disappointment at the restriction
of the franchise, and their keen desire that it should be fully
restored. He dilated on their indignation at the cruelty with which
the soldiers had shot down unarmed men, and finally declared that, as
Mayor, he could not vouch for their continued loyalty to the President
or their respect for his person. Renos spoke in the same strain,
dwelling particularly on the legal aspect of the President's late
action, and on the gravity of its effects as a precedent to posterity.
Molara replied at some length. He pointed out the disturbed state of
the country, and particularly of the capital; he alluded to the
disorders of the late war and the sufferings it had caused to the mass
of the people. What the State wanted was strong stable government. As
things became more settled the franchise should be extended until it
would ultimately be completely restored. In the meanwhile, what was
there to complain about? Law and order were maintained; the public
service was well administered; the people enjoyed peace and security.
More than that, a vigorous foreign policy held the honour of the
country high. They should have an instance.
He turned and requested Miguel to read the reply to the English note on
the African Dispute. The Secretary stood up and read the paper in
question, his soft, purring voice, proving well suited to emphasising
the insults it contained.
"And that, Gentlemen," said the President, when it was finished, "is
addressed to one of the greatest military and naval powers in the
world."
Godoy and Renos were silent. Their patriotism was roused; their pride
was gratified; but Savrola smiled provokingly. "It will take more than
despatches," he said, "to keep the English out of the African sphere,
or to reconcile the people of Laurania to your rule."
"And if stronger measures should be necessary," said the President,
"rest assured they will be taken."
"After the events of yesterday we need no such assurance."
The President ignored the taunt. "I know the English Government," he
continued; "they will not appeal to arms."
"And I," said Savrola, "know the Lauranian people. I am not so
confident."
There was a long pause. Both men faced each other, and their eyes met.
It was the look of two swordsmen who engage, and it was the look of two
bitter enemies; they appeared to measure distances and calculate
chances. Then Savrola turned away, the ghost of a smile still
lingering on his lips; but he had read the President's heart and he
felt as if he had looked into hell.
"It is a matter of opinion, Sir," said Molara at last.
"It will soon be a matter of history."
"Other tales will have to be told before," said the President, and then
with great formality, "I am obliged to you, Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,
for representing the dangerous elements of disorder which exist among
certain classes of the people. You may rely on every precaution being
taken to prevent an outbreak. I beg you will keep me further informed.
Good morning."
The only course open appeared to be the door, and the deputation
withdrew, after Savrola had thanked the President for his audience and
had assured him that he would lose no opportunity of bringing home to
him the hostile attitude of the citizens. On the way down-stairs they
were met by Lucile, who had returned unexpectedly early from her drive.
She saw by the expression of their faces that a heated discussion had
taken place. Godoy and Renos she passed unnoticed, but she smiled
merrily at Savrola, as if to convey to him that she was uninterested by
politics and could not understand how people ever managed to get
excited about them. The smile did not deceive him; he knew too much of
her tastes and talents, but he admired her all the more for her acting.
He walked home. The interview had not been altogether unsatisfactory.
He had never hoped to convince the President; that indeed was hardly
likely; but they had expressed the views of the people, and Godoy and
Renos had already sent copies of their remarks to the newspapers, so
that the party could not complain of their leaders' inaction at such a
crisis. He thought he had frightened Molara, if indeed it were
possible to frighten such a man; at any rate he had made him angry.
When he thought of this he was glad. Why? He had always hitherto
repressed such unphilosophic and futile emotions so far as possible,
but somehow to-day he felt his dislike of the President was invested
with a darker tinge. And then his mind reverted to Lucile. What a
beautiful woman she was! How full of that instinctive knowledge of
human feelings which is the source of all true wit! Molara was a lucky
man to have such a wife. Decidedly he hated him personally, but that,
of course, was on account of his unconstitutional conduct.
When he reached his rooms, Moret was awaiting him, much excited and
evidently angry. He had written several long letters to his leader,
acquainting him with his unalterable decision to sever all connection
with him and his party; but he had torn them all up, and was now
resolved to tell him in plain words.
Savrola saw his look. "Ah, Louis," he cried, "I am glad you are here.
How good of you to come! I have just left the President; he is
recalcitrant; he will not budge an inch. I need your advice. What
course shall we adopt?"
"What has happened?" asked the young man, sulkily but curiously.
Savrola related the interview with graphic terseness. Moret listened
attentively and then said, still with great ill humour, "Physical force
is the only argument he understands. I am for raising the people."
"Perhaps you are right," said Savrola reflectively, "I am half inclined
to agree with you."
Moret argued his proposition with vigour and earnestness, and never had
his leader seemed so agreeable to the violent measures he proposed.
For half an hour they discussed the point. Savrola still appeared
unconvinced; he looked at his watch. "It is past two o'clock," he
said. "Let us lunch here and thrash the matter out."
They did so. The luncheon was excellent, and the host's arguments
became more and more convincing. At last, with the coffee, Moret
admitted that perhaps it was better to wait, and they parted with great
cordiality.
CHAPTER V.
A PRIVATE CONVERSATION.
"That," said the President to his confidential secretary, so soon as
the door had closed on the retiring deputation, "is over, but we shall
have plenty more in the future. Savrola will most certainly be elected
for the Central Division, and we shall then have the pleasure of
listening to him in the Senate."
"Unless," added Miguel, "anything should happen."
The President, who knew his man well, understood the implication. "No,
it is no good; we cannot do that. Fifty years ago it might have been
possible. People won't stand that sort of thing now-a-days; even the
army might have scruples. So long as he keeps within the law, I don't
see how we can touch him constitutionally."
"He is a great force, a great force; sometimes, I think, the greatest
in Laurania. Every day he grows stronger. Presently the end will
come," said the Secretary slowly and thoughtfully, who, as the partner
of Molara's dangers, no less than of his actions, had a claim to be
heard. "I think the end is coming," he continued; "perhaps quite
soon--unless----?" he paused.
"I tell you it can't be done. Any accident that happened would be
attributed to me. It would mean a revolution here, and close every
asylum abroad."
"There are other ways besides force, physical force."
"None that I can see, and he is a strong man."
"So was Samson, nevertheless the Philistines spoiled him."
"Through a woman. I don't believe he has ever been in love."
"That is no reason against the future."
"Wanted a Delilah," said the President dryly. "Perhaps you will find
one for him."
The Secretary's eyes wandered round the room artlessly, and paused for
a moment on a photograph of Lucile.
"How dare you, Sir! You are a scoundrel! You have not an ounce of
virtue in you!"
"We have been associated for some time, General." He always called him
_General_ on these occasions, it reminded the President of various
little incidents which had taken place when they had worked together
during the war. "Perhaps that is the cause."
"You are impertinent."
"My interests are concerned. I too have enemies. You know very well
how much my life would be worth without the protection of the Secret
Police. I only remember with whom and for whom these things were done."
"Perhaps I am hasty, Miguel, but there is a limit, even between----"
He was going to say _friends_ but Miguel interposed _accomplices_.
"Well," said Molara, "I do not care what you call it. What is your
proposition?"
"The Philistines," replied Miguel, "spoiled Samson, but Delilah had to
cut his hair first."
"Do you mean that she should implore him to hold his hand?"
"No, I think that would be useless, but if he were compromised----"
"But she, she would not consent. It would involve her."
"She need not necessarily know. Another object for making his
acquaintance might be suggested. It would come as a surprise to her."
"You are a scoundrel--an infernal scoundrel," said the President
quietly.
Miguel smiled, as one who receives a compliment. "The matter," he
said, "is too serious for the ordinary rules of decency and honour.
Special cases demand special remedies."
"She would never forgive me."
"The forgiveness would rest with you. Your charity would enable you to
pardon an uncommitted crime. You have only to play the jealous husband
and own your mistake later on."
"And he?"
"Fancy the great popular leader. Patriot, Democrat, what not,
discovered fawning to the tyrant's wife! Why, the impropriety alone
would disgust many. And more than that,--observe him begging for
mercy, grovelling at the President's feet,--a pretty picture! It would
ruin him; ridicule alone would kill him."
"It might," said Molara. The picture pleased him.
"It must. It is the only chance that I can see, and it need cost you
nothing. Every woman is secretly flattered by the jealousy of the man
she loves, even if he be her husband."
"How do you know these things?" asked Molara, looking at the ugly
pinched figure and glistening hair of his companion.
"_I_ know," said Miguel with a grin of odious pride. The suggestion of
his appetites was repulsive. The President was conscious of disgust.
"Mr. Secretary Miguel," he said with the air of one who has made up his
mind, "I must request you not to speak to me of this matter again. I
consider it shows less to the advantage of your heart than of your
head."
"I see by Your Excellency's manner that further allusion is
unnecessary."
"Have you the report of the Agricultural Committee for last year?
Good,--please have a _précis_ made of it; I want some facts. The
country may be kept, even if we lose the capital; that means a good
part of the army."
Thus the subject dropped. Each understood the other, and behind lay
the spur of danger.
After the President had finished the morning's business, he rose to
leave the room, but before he did so he turned to Miguel and said
abruptly: "It would be a great convenience for us to know what course
the Opposition intends to pursue on the opening of the Senate, would it
not?"
"Assuredly."
"How can we induce Savrola to speak? He is incorruptible."
"There is another method."
"I tell you physical force is not to be thought of."
"There is another method."
"And that," said the President, "I directed you not to speak of again."
"Precisely," said the Secretary, and resumed his writing.
The garden into which Molara walked was one of the most beautiful and
famous in a country where all vegetation attained luxuriant forms. The
soil was fertile, the sun hot, and the rains plentiful. It displayed
an attractive disorder. The Lauranians were no admirers of that
peculiar taste which finds beauty in the exact arrangement of an equal
number of small trees of symmetrical shape in mathematical designs, or
in the creation of geometrical figures by means of narrow paths with
box-hedges. They were an unenlightened people, and their gardens
displayed a singular contempt for geometry and precision. Great blazes
of colour arranged in pleasing contrasts were the lights, and cool
green arbours the shades of their rural pictures. Their ideal of
gardening was to make every plant grow as freely as if directed by
nature, and to as high perfection as if cultivated by art. If the
result was not artistic, it was at least beautiful.
The President, however, cared very little for flowers or their
arrangement; he was, he said, too busy a man to have anything to do
with the beauties of colour, harmony, or line. Neither the tints of
the rose nor the smell of the jasmine awakened in him more than the
rudimentary physical pleasures which are natural and involuntary. He
liked to have a good flower garden, because it was the right thing to
have, because it enabled him to take people there and talk to them
personally on political matters, and because it was convenient for
afternoon receptions. But he himself took no interest in it. The
kitchen garden appealed to him more; his practical soul rejoiced more
in an onion than an orchid.
He was full of thought after his conversation with Miguel, and turned
down the shady path which led to the fountains with long, hasty
strides. Things were looking desperate. It was, as Miguel had said, a
question of time, unless,--unless Savrola were removed or discredited.
He refrained from precisely formulating the idea that had taken
possession of his mind. He had done many things in the rough days of
the war when he was a struggling man, the memory of which was not
pleasant. He remembered a brother officer, a rising man, the colonel
of a regiment, who had been a formidable rival; at a critical moment he
had withheld the supports, and left it to the enemy to remove one
obstacle from his path. Then another tale came into his mind which
also was not a pretty one, a tale of a destroyed treaty, and a broken
truce; of men, who had surrendered to terms, shot against the wall of
the fort they had held so long. He also recalled with annoyance the
methods he had adopted to extract information from the captured spy;
five years of busy life, of success and fortune, had not obscured the
memory of the man's face as it writhed in suffering. But this new idea
seemed the most odious of all. He was unscrupulous, but like many men
in history or modern life, he had tried to put away a discreditable
past. Henceforth, he had said when he obtained power, he would abandon
such methods: they would no longer be necessary; and yet, here was the
need already. Besides, Lucile was so beautiful; he loved her in his
hard way for that alone; and she was such a consort, so tactful, so
brilliant, that he admired and valued her from a purely official
standpoint. If she ever knew, she would never forgive him. She never
should know, but still he hated the idea.
But what other course remained? He thought of the faces of the crowd
the day before; of Savrola; of the stories which reached him from the
army; of other tales of a darker and more mysterious kind,--tales of
strange federations and secret societies, which suggested murder, as
well as revolution. The tide was rising; it was dangerous to tarry.
And then the alternative presented itself; flight, abdication, a
squalid existence in some foreign country, despised, insulted,
suspected; and exiles always lived to a great age he had heard. He
would not think of it; he would die first; nothing but death should
drag him from the palace, and he would fight to the last. His mind
returned to the starting point of his reflections. Here was a chance,
the one solution which seemed possible; it was not an agreeable one,
but it was that or none. He had reached the end of the path and
turning the corner saw Lucile seated by the fountain. It was a
beautiful picture.
She saw his preoccupied look and rose to meet him. "What is the
matter, Antonio? You look worried."
"Things are going wrong with us, my dear. Savrola, the deputation, the
newspapers, and, above all, the reports I receive of the people, are
ominous and alarming."
"I noticed black looks this morning when I drove. Do you think there
is danger?"
"I do," he answered in his precise official manner, "grave danger."
"I wish I could help you," she said, "but I am only a woman. What can
I do?" He did not answer and she continued: "Señor Savrola is a kind
man. I used to know him quite well before the war."
"He will ruin us."
"Surely not."
"We shall have to fly the country, if indeed they allow us to do that."
She turned paler. "But I know what men look like; there is a sympathy
between us; he is no fanatic."
"There are powers behind and beneath him of which he knows little,
which he cannot control, but which he has invoked."
"Can you do nothing?"
"I cannot arrest him; he is too popular, and besides he has broken no
law. He will go on. In a fortnight are the elections; he will be
returned in spite of my precautions; then the trouble will begin." He
paused, and then speaking as if to himself continued: "If we could
learn what he means to do, perhaps we might defeat it."
"Can I not help you?" she asked quickly. "I know him; I think he likes
me. He might whisper to me what he would not tell to others." She
thought of many victories in the past.
"My darling," said Molara, "why should you spoil your life by mixing in
the darker side of politics? I would not ask you."
"But I want to. I will try if it would help you."
"It might do much more."
"Very well, I will find out for you; in a fortnight you shall know. He
must come to the State Ball; I will meet him there."
"I am loth to let you talk to such a man, but I know your wit, and the
need is great. But will he come?"
"I will write him a note with the invitation," she said, "laugh at
politics and advise him to keep his private life at least free from
them. I think he will come; if not, I will find some other way of
seeing him."
Molara looked at her with admiration. At no time did he love her more
than when he realised of what use she was to him.
|
who was in a position to know, the details of the
savage tyranny which masqueraded under the forms of law, it is appended,
with some condensation, to this article.
After stating the fact "that everything about the German judicial
organisation in Belgium is contrary to the principles of law," and after
showing that Belgian civilians were punished for the violations of law
which had never been proclaimed and of which, therefore, they knew
nothing, the distinguished President of the Order of Advocates says:
"_This absence of certainty is not only the negation of all the
principles of law; it weighs on the mind and on the conscience; it
bewilders one, it seems to be a permanent menace for all, and the
danger is all the more real, because these courts permit neither
public nor defensive procedure, nor do they permit the accused to
receive any communication regarding his case, nor is any right of
defense assured him._
"This is arbitrary injustice; the Judge left to himself, that is,
to his impressions, his prejudices, and his surroundings. This is
abandoning the accused in his distress, to grapple alone with his
all-powerful adversary.
"This justice uncontrolled, and consequently without guarantee,
constitutes for us the most dangerous and oppressive of
illegalities. _We cannot conceive justice as a judicial or moral
possibility without free defense._
"Free defense, that is, light thrown on all the elements of the
suit; public sentiment being heard in the bosom of the judgment
hall, the right to say everything in the most respectful manner,
and also the courage to dare everything, these must be put at the
service of the unfortunate one, of justice and law.
"It is one of the greatest conquests of our history. It is the
keystone of our individual liberty.
"_What are your sources of information?_
"Besides the judges, the men of the Secret Service and the
denouncers (in French: 'délateurs').
"The Secret Service men in civilian clothes, not bearing any
insignia, mixing with the crowds in the street, in the cafés, on
the platforms of street cars, listen to the conversations carried
on around them, ready to grasp any secret, on the watch not only
for acts but for intentions.
"These denouncers of our nation are ever multiplying. _What
confidence can be placed in their declarations, inspired by hate,
spite, or low cupidity?_ Such assistants can bring to the cause of
justice no useful collaboration.
"If we add to this total absence of control and of defense, these
preventive arrests, the long detentions, the searches in the
private domiciles, _we shall have an almost complete idea of the
moral tortures to which our aspirations, our convictions, and our
liberties are subjected at the present time_. * * *
"Will it be said that we are living under martial law: that we are
submitting to the hard necessities of war: that all should give way
before the superior interests of your armies?
"_I can understand martial law for armies in the field. It is the
immediate reply to an aggression against the troops, repression
without words, the summary justice of the commander of the army
responsible for his soldiers._
"_But our armies are far away; we are no longer in the zone of
military operations. Nothing here menaces your troops, the
inhabitants are calm._
"The people have taken up work again. You have bidden them do it.
Each one devotes himself, Magistrates, Judges, officials of the
provinces and cities, the clergy, all are at their post, united in
one outburst of national interest and brotherhood.
"However, this calm does not mean that they have forgotten.
"The Belgian people lived happily in their corner of the earth,
confident in their dream of independence. They saw this dream
dispelled, they saw their country ruined and devastated, its
ancient hospitable soil has been sown with thousands of tombs where
our own sleep; the war has made tears flow which no hand can dry.
_No, the murdered soul of Belgium will never forget._
"But this nation has a profound respect for its duty. It will
always respect it.
"Has not the hour come to consider as closed the period of invasion
and to substitute for the measures of exception the rules of
occupation as defined by international law and the treaty of The
Hague, which sets a limit to the occupying power and imposes
obligations on the country occupied?
"Has not the hour arrived to restore the Court House to the
judiciary corps? The military occupation of the Court House is a
violation of the treaty of The Hague.
"Among the moral forces does one exist that is superior to justice?
Justice dominates them all. _As ancient as humanity itself, eternal
as the need of man and nations to be and to feel protected, it is
the basis of all civilization._ The arts and sciences are its
tributaries. Religious creeds live and prosper in its shadow. Is it
not a religion in itself?
"Belgium raised a magnificent temple to Justice in its capital.
"This temple, which is our pride, has been converted into barracks
for the German soldiers. A small part of it, becoming smaller every
day, is reserved for the courts. The Magistrates and lawyers have
access to it by a small private staircase.
"Sad as are the conditions under which they are called to
administer justice, the Judges have decided, nevertheless, to sit.
The Bar has co-operated with them. Accustomed to live in an
atmosphere of deference and of dignity, they do not recognize
themselves in this sort of guard-room, and, in fact, justice
surrounded with so little respect, is it still justice?"
As this dignified and noble protest did not lead to any amelioration of
the harsh conditions, a month later the same brave jurist, M. Léon
Théodor, appeared in Brussels before the so-called "German Court of
Justice" and, in behalf of the entire Magistracy of Belgium, addressed
to the Prussian Military Judges the following poignantly pathetic and
nobly dignified address, which met with the same reception as the
preceding communication.
The address reads as follows:
"I present myself at the Bar, escorted by the Counsel of the Order,
surrounded by the sympathy and the confidence of all my colleagues
of Brussels, and I might add of all the Bars of the country. The
Bars of Liège, Ghent, Charleroi, Mons, Louvain, Antwerp have sent
to that of Brussels the expression of their professional solidarity
and have declared that they adhere to the resolutions taken by the
Counsel of the Order of Brussels. * * *
"We are not annexed. We are not conquered. We are not even
vanquished. Our army is fighting. Our colors float alongside those
of France, England and Russia. The country subsists. She is simply
unfortunate. More than ever, then, we now owe ourselves to her body
and soul. To defend her rights is also to fight for her.
"We are living hours now as tragic as any country has ever known.
All is destruction and ruin around us. Everywhere we see mourning.
Our army has lost half of its effective force. Its percentage in
dead and wounded will never be obtained by any of the belligerents.
There remains to us only a corner of ground over there by the sea.
The waters of the Yser flow through an immense plain peopled by the
dead. It is called the Belgian Cemetery. There sleep our children
by the thousands. There they are sleeping their last sleep. The
struggle goes on bitterly and without mercy.
"Your sons, Mr. President, are at the front; mine as well. For
months we have been living in anxiety regarding the morrow.
"Why these sacrifices, why this sorrow? _Belgium could have avoided
these disasters, saved her existence, her treasures, and the life
of her children, but she preferred her honor._"
Not long after this second protest, M. Léon Théodor was arrested,
deported to Germany and if now living, is suffering imprisonment for the
offense of defending the oppressed civilian population from a system of
espionage, drumhead courts-martial and secret executions, which in their
malignity should excite the professional jealousy of Danton, Marat and
Robespierre. It was in this manner that the lofty promise of the German
Chancellor that his country would make good the wrong done to Belgium
has been kept.
Such was the condition of affairs in Belgium when Edith Cavell was
arrested on August 5th, 1915.
About the same time some thirty-five other prisoners were similarly
arrested by the military authorities, _two-thirds of whom were women_.
The arrest was evidently a secret one for it is obvious that for a time
Miss Cavell's friends knew nothing of her whereabouts. Even the American
Legation, which had assumed the care of British citizens in Belgium,
apparently knew nothing of Miss Cavell's whereabouts until it learned
after a second inquiry the fact of her arrest and the place of her
imprisonment from the German Civil Governor of Belgium on September
12th, 1915.
As Miss Cavell was a well-known personage in Brussels, it is altogether
unlikely that the fact of her arrest and imprisonment would have been
unknown to the American Legation in Brussels if the fact of her arrest
had been a matter of public information on August 5th or shortly
thereafter. In other words, if the arrest had been an open and notorious
one, it seems to me unlikely that the American Embassy would have been
wholly without information on the subject and when the friends of Miss
Cavell found an opportunity to send some information as to her
disappearance to the British Foreign Office, it seems unlikely that they
would not have given more specific details.
Evidently some information had reached the Foreign Office as to Miss
Cavell's disappearance, for on August 26th Sir Edward Grey requested the
American Ambassador in London to ascertain through the American Legation
in Brussels whether it was true that Miss Cavell had been arrested, and
it seems clear from the diplomatic correspondence that the American
Legation at Brussels knew nothing of the matter until it received this
inquiry from the American Ambassador in London. The fact of her arrest
by the German military authorities must have been known, but the place
of her imprisonment and the nature of the charges against her were
apparently withheld.
This feature of the case and the manner in which Mr. Brand Whitlock, the
American Minister, was prevented from rendering any effective aid to
Miss Cavell, presents one aspect of the tragedy which especially
concerns the honor and dignity of the United States and should receive
its swift and effectual recognition.
Her secret trial and hurried execution was a studied affront to the
American Minister at Brussels, and therefore to the American nation. It
is true that in all he did to save her life he was acting in behalf of
and for the benefit of Great Britain, whose interests the United States
Government has taken over in Belgium; but this cannot affect the fact
that when Brand Whitlock intervened in behalf of the prisoner, sought to
secure her a fair trial, and prevent her execution, and especially when
he asked her life as a favor in return for the services our country had
rendered Germany and German subjects in the earlier days of the war, _he
spoke as an American and as the diplomatic representative of the United
States_.
So secret was Miss Cavell's arrest and so sinister the methods whereby
her end was compassed, that the American Minister in Belgium was obliged
to write on August 31st to Baron von der Lancken, the German Civil
Governor of Belgium, and ask whether it was true that she was under
arrest. _To this the German Military Governor did not even deign to make
a reply, although it was clearly a matter of life and death._
The discourtesy of such silence to a great and friendly nation needs no
comment, and will simply serve to remind the American people that
Germany has never yet replied to another request of the United States
that Germany disavows the massacre of nearly 200 American men, women,
and children on the Lusitania.
Not hearing from Baron von der Lancken, our Minister on September 10th
again wrote to him and again asked for a reply. He asked for the
opportunity "_to take up the defense of Miss Cavell with the least
possible delay_." To this, Baron Lancken deigned to reply by an ex parte
statement that Miss Cavell had admitted
"having concealed in her house various English and French soldiers,
as well as Belgians of military age, all anxious to proceed to the
front. She also acknowledged having supplied these soldiers with
the funds necessary to proceed to the front and having facilitated
their departure from Belgium by finding guides to assist them in
clandestinely crossing the frontier."
The Baron further answered that her defense had been intrusted to an
advocate by the name of Braun, "_who is already in touch with the proper
German authorities_," and added:
"In view of the fact that the Department of the Governor General
_as a matter of principle_ does not allow accused persons to have
any interviews whatever, I much regret my inability to procure for
M. de Leval permission to visit Miss Cavell as long as she is in
solitary confinement."
It will thus be seen and will hereafter appear more fully that in
advance of her trial Miss Cavell was kept in solitary confinement and
was denied any opportunity to confer with counsel in order to prepare
her defense. Her communication with the outside world was wholly cut
off, with the exception of a few letters, which she was permitted to
write under censorship to her assistants in the school for nurses, and
it is probable that in this way the fact of her imprisonment first
became known to her friends.
The fact remains that the desire of the American Minister to have
counsel see her with a view to the selection of such counsel as Miss
Cavell might desire, was refused, and even the counsel whom the German
Military Court permitted to act, was denied any opportunity to see his
client until the trial. The counsel in question was a M. Braun, a
Belgian advocate of recognised standing, but for some reason, which does
not appear, he was unable or declined to act for Miss Cavell and he
secured for her defense another Belgian lawyer, whose name was Kirschen.
According to credible information, Kirschen was a German by birth,
although a naturalized Belgian subject and a member of the Brussels bar,
but it will hereafter appear that the steps which he took to keep the
American Legation--the one possible salvation for Miss Cavell--advised
as to the progress of events, were to say the least peculiar.
Except for the explanations made by the German Civil Governor, we know
very little as to what defense, if any, Miss Cavell made. From one of
the inspired sources comes the statement that she freely admitted her
guilt, and from her last interview with the English clergyman it would
appear that she probably did admit some infraction of military law. But
from another German source we learn the following:
"During the trial in the Senate Chamber the accused, almost without
exception, gave the impression of persons _cleverly simulating
naïve innocence_. It was not a mere coincidence that two-thirds of
the accused were women.
"The Englishwoman, Edith Cavell, who has already been executed,
declared that she had believed as an Englishwoman that she ought to
do her country service _by giving lodgings in her house to soldiers
and recruits who were in peril_. She naturally denied that she had
drawn other people into destruction by inducing them to harbor
refugees when her own institute was overtaxed."
From this meagre information we can only infer that Miss Cavell did
admit that she had sheltered some soldiers and recruits who were in
peril, and while this undoubtedly constituted a grave infraction of
military law, yet it does not present in a locality far removed from the
actual war zone a case either of espionage or high treason, and is of
that class of offenses which have always been punished on the highest
considerations of humanity and chivalry and with great moderation.
The difficulty is that the world is not yet fully informed what defense,
if any, Miss Cavell made, or whether an adequate opportunity was given
her to make any. The whole proceeding savours of the darkness of the
mediaeval Inquisition.
We have already seen that even if Miss Cavell's counsel, M. Kirschen,
endeavored in good faith to make an adequate defense in her behalf, it
was impossible for him to see her in advance of the trial, and M.
Kirschen admitted this when he explained to the legal counsel of the
American Embassy that
"lawyers defending prisoners before a German Military Court were
not allowed to see their clients before trial and were not
permitted to see any document of the prosecution."
It is true that M. Kirschen so far defends the trial accorded to Miss
Cavell as to say
"that the hearing of the trial of such cases is carried out very
carefully and that in his opinion, although it was not possible to
see the client before the trial, in fact the trial itself developed
itself so carefully and so slowly that it was generally possible to
have a fair knowledge of all the facts and to present a good
defense for the prisoner. This would especially be the case of Miss
Cavell, because the trial would be rather long, _as she was
prosecuted with 34 other prisoners_."
This explanation of M. Kirschen is amazing to any lawyer who is familiar
with the defense of men who are charged with a crime. Here was a case
of life and death and the counsel for the defense intimates that he can
adequately defend the prisoner at the bar without being previously
advised as to the nature of the charges or obtaining an opportunity to
confer with his client before the testimony begins.
Still more remarkable is his explanation that as his client was to be
tried with 34 others, the opportunity for a defense would be especially
ample. As the writer had the honor for some years to be a prosecuting
attorney for the United States Government and therefore has some
familiarity with the trial of criminal causes, his opinion may possibly
have some value in suggesting that the complexity of different issues
when tried together, and the difficulty of distinguishing between
various testimony, naturally increases with the simultaneous trial of a
large number of defendants. Where each defendant is tried separately,
the full force of the testimony for or against him can be weighed to
some advantage, but where such evidence is intermingled and confused by
the simultaneous trial of 34 separate issues, it is obvious, with the
fallibility of human memory, that the separate testimony against each
particular defendant cannot be fully weighed.
The trial was apparently a secret one in the sense that it was a closed
and not an open Court. Otherwise how can we account for the poverty of
information as to what actually took place on the trial? The court sat
for two days in the trial of the 35 cases in question, and the American
Legation had been most anxious, in view of the nature of the case and
the urgency of the inquiries, to ascertain something about the trial.
The outside world apparently knew little or nothing of this wholesale
trial of non-combatants, most of them being women, until some days
thereafter, and the only intimation that the American Legation
previously had was a letter of "a few lines" from M. Kirschen, stating
that the trial would take place on October 7th. Notwithstanding the
assurance of M. Kirschen that he would keep the American Legation fully
advised and would even disclose to it in advance of the trial "the exact
charges that were brought against Miss Cavell and the facts concerning
her that would be disclosed at the trial," yet no further information
reached the American Legation from Miss Cavell's counsel, who for some
reason did not advise the American Legation that the trial had commenced
on the 7th and had been concluded on the 8th. The American Legation only
learned the fact of the trial from "an outsider," and it at once
proceeded to look for M. Kirschen. Unfortunately he could not be
located, and thereupon the counsel for the American Legation wrote him
on Sunday, October 10th, and asked him to send his report to the
Legation or to call on the following day.
Having no word from M. Kirschen as late as October 11th (his last
communication with the American Legation being on October 3rd), the
counsel for the Legation twice called at his house and again failed to
find him in or to receive any message from him. It is clear that if M.
Kirschen had advised the American Legation as to the developments of the
trial on October 7th and 8th and had further advised the Legation
promptly as to the conclusion of the trial and its probable outcome,
there is a reasonable possibility that Miss Cavell's life might have
been saved; but for some reason, as to which M. Kirschen certainly owes
an explanation to the civilized world, he failed to keep his positive
promise to keep the American Legation fully advised, and in view of this
fact his assurance to the American Legation "that the Military Court of
Brussels was always perfectly fair, and that there was not the slightest
danger of any miscarriage of justice," must be taken with a very large
"grain of salt."
The significant fact remains that the American Legation never heard that
the trial had taken place until the day after, and then only learned it
from "an outsider." Had the American Legation sent a representative to
the trial, the world would then have a much clearer knowledge upon which
to base its judgment; but when M. Deleval suggested his intention to
attend the trial, as a representative of the Legation, he was advised by
M. Kirschen that such an act "would cause great prejudice to the
prisoner because the German judges would resent it."
What an indictment of the court! Even to see a representative of the
American Government at the trial, in the interests of fair play, would
prejudice the minds of the Judges against the unfortunate woman who was
being tried for a capital offense without any previous opportunity to
confer with counsel. There may be a satisfactory explanation for M.
Kirschen's conduct in the matter, but it has not yet appeared. It
should, however, be added, in fairness to him, that the anonymous
"outsider," from whom the American Legation got its only information as
to the developments of the trial, stated that Kirschen "made a very good
plea for Miss Cavell, using all arguments that could be brought in her
favor before the court."
This does not give the lover of fair play a great deal of comfort, for
if the anonymous informant was not a lawyer, the value to be attached to
his or her estimate of Kirschen's plea must be regarded as doubtful.
The same unknown informant told the American Legation that Miss Cavell
was prosecuted "for having helped English and French soldiers as well as
Belgian young men to cross the frontier and to go over to England." It
is stated on the same anonymous authority that Miss Cavell acknowledged
the assistance thus given and admitted that some of them had "thanked
her in writing when arriving in England."
From the same source the world gets its only information as to the exact
law which Miss Cavell was accused of violating. Paragraph 58 of the
German Military Code inflicts a sentence of death upon
"any person who, with the intention of helping the hostile power,
or of causing harm to the German or allied troops, is guilty of one
of the crimes of paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code,"
and the only pertinent section of paragraph 90, according to the same
informant, is the specific offence of
"guiding soldiers to the enemy" (in German--"Dem Feinde
Mannschaften zuführt").
I affirm with confidence that under this law Miss Cavell was innocent,
and that the true meaning of the law was perverted in order to inflict
the death sentence upon her.
I admit that a general and strained construction of the language above
quoted might be applicable to a defendant who gave refuge to hostile
soldiers in Brussels and thus enabled them to escape across the frontier
into Holland and thence into a belligerent country, but every penal law
must receive a construction that is favorable to the defendant and
agreeable to the dictates of humanity. Every civilized country construes
its penal laws in favour of the liberty of the subject, and no
punishment, especially one of death, is ever imposed unless the offence
charged comes indubitably within a rigid construction of the law.
Keeping in mind this elementary principle, it is obvious that the
offense of guiding soldiers to the enemy refers to the physical act of
guiding a fugitive soldier back into his lines. A soldier becomes
detached from his lines. He finds shelter in a farm house. The farmer,
knowing the roads, secretly guides him back into his lines, and this
obviously is the offence which paragraph 90 had in mind, for the German
word "zuführt" refers to a personal guidance.
Miss Cavell simply gave shelter to soldiers and in some way facilitated
their escape to Holland. Holland is a neutral country, and it was its
duty to intern any fugitive soldiers who might escape from any one of
the belligerent countries. The fact that these soldiers subsequently
reached England is a matter that could not increase or diminish the
essential nature of Miss Cavell's case. She enabled them to get to a
neutral country, and this was not a case of "guiding soldiers to the
enemy," for Holland was not an enemy of Germany.
This fact must have impressed the Military Court, for according to the
same informant it did not at once agree upon either the verdict of
"Guilty" or the judgment of death, and it is stated that the Judges
would not have sentenced her to death if the fugitive soldiers, who had
crossed into Holland, had not subsequently arrived in England. But it
will astound any lawyer to learn that the subsequent escape of these
same prisoners from Holland to England could be reasonably regarded as a
guidance by Miss Cavell of these soldiers _to England_. In all
probability Miss Cavell had little or nothing to do with these soldiers
after they left Brussels, but even assuming that she provided the means
and gave the directions for their escape across the frontier between
Belgium and Holland, that was "the head and front of her offending," and
it does not come within the law under which she was sentenced to death.
When she was asked by her Judges as to her reasons for sheltering these
fugitives, "she replied that she thought that if she had not done so
_they would have been shot by the Germans_ and that therefore she
thought she only did her duty to her country in saving their lives."
This fairly states what she did, and perhaps this brave and frank reply
caused her death. She gave a temporary shelter to men who were in danger
of death, and, as previously stated, in so doing yielded to a
humanitarian impulse which all civilized nations have recognized as
worthy of the most lenient treatment.
When, therefore, Herr Dr. Albert Zimmermann, speaking for the German
Foreign Office, expressed its "surprise" that Miss Cavell's execution
should "have caused a sensation," it is well to remind Dr. Zimmermann
that to offer a refuge to the fugitive is an impulse of humanity. It is
likely that these soldiers were her wounded patients; at all events,
they had found a refuge in her hospital. They claimed the protection of
her roof and she gave it to them.
In the first act of Walkyrie--which is not overburdened with the
atmosphere of morality--even the black-hearted Hunding says to his
blood-enemy,
"Heilig ist mein herd;
Heilig sei dir mein haus."
(Holy is my hearth!
Holy will be to them my house!)
It must be remembered that all this did not take place in the zone of
actual warfare. A spy caught in the lines of armies is summarily dealt
with of necessity. But Brussels was miles away from the scene of actual
hostilities. Its civil courts were open and a civil administration ruled
its affairs of such reputed beneficence and efficiency as to evoke the
ungrudging admiration of a distinguished college professor who bears the
honored name of George B. McClellan. There was therefore no possible
excuse under international law for a court-martial, as this trial
plainly was. In the American civil war a similar military commission
once sought to hold a similar trial in Indianapolis over civilians
accused of treason, but the United States Supreme Court, in the case of
ex parte Milligan, sternly repudiated this form of military tyranny.
In that case the Supreme Court said:
"There are occasions when martial rule can be properly applied. If,
in foreign invasion or civil war, _the courts are actually closed_,
and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to
law, then, _on the theatre of active military operations, where war
really prevails_, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for
the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the
army and society; * * * As necessity creates the rule, so it limits
its duration; for, if this government is continued _after_ the
courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial
rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper
and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. _It is also
confined to the locality of actual war._"
All civilized countries, including Germany, have always recognized a
difference between high treason, punishable with death, and ordinary
treason. The German Strafgesetzbuch thus distinguishes between high
treason (hochverrat) and the lesser crime of landesverrat. High treason
consists in murdering or attempting to murder a sovereign or Prince of
Germany or an attempt by violence to overthrow the Imperial Government
or any State thereof. This alone is punishable with death.
While this distinction of the German Civil Code may have no application
when military law is being enforced, yet it illustrates a distinction,
which all humane nations have recognized, between the treason which
seeks to overthrow a State by rebellion and lesser offenses against the
authority of a State.
Assuming that Miss Cavell's offense could be regarded in any sense as
treasonable, it certainly constituted the lesser offense under the
distinction above quoted.
The fact is that Miss Cavell was tried, condemned, and executed for her
sympathy with the cause of Belgium and her willingness to save her
compatriots from suffering and death. Military necessity--ever the
tyrant's plea--demanded a victim further to terrorize the subjugated
people. They chose Miss Cavell.
Notwithstanding the request of the American Legation in its letter of
October 5th that it be advised not only as to the charges, but also as
to the sentence imposed upon Miss Cavell, and the express promise of M.
Kirschen to inform it of all developments, it was kept in ignorance of
the fact that sentence of death had been passed upon her. Minister
Whitlock only heard this on October 11th, and he at once addressed a
letter to Baron von der Lancken in which, after stating this fact, he
appealed "to the sentiment of generosity and humanity in the Governor
General in favor of Miss Cavell," with a view to commutation of the
death sentence, and at the same time addressed a similar letter to Baron
von Bissing, the Military Governor of Belgium, who did not deign to give
to the American Government even the cold courtesy of a reply.
On the morning of October 11th our Minister heard--not from the German
authorities, but from unofficial sources--that the trial had been
completed on the preceding Saturday afternoon, and he at once
communicated with the Political Department of the German Military
Government, and was expressly assured
"that no sentence had been pronounced and that there would probably
be a delay of a day or two before a decision was reached."
The Director of the Political Department (Herr Conrad) gave a further
"_positive assurance that the [American] Legation would be fully
informed as to the developments in the case._"
Notwithstanding this direct promise and further "repeated inquiries in
the course of the day," no further word reached our Legation, and at
6.20 p.m. it again inquired as to Miss Cavell's fate, and the Director
of the Political Department again
"_stated that sentence had not yet been pronounced_,"
and he specifically renewed his assurance. Two hours later our Minister
_from unofficial sources_ heard that all that had been told him by the
Political Department was untrue, and that the sentence had been passed
at 5 o'clock p.m.; _before his last conversation with the Director_, and
that the execution was to take place that night.
Accordingly the Secretary of the American Legation proceeded at once to
Baron von der Lancken, and again asked as a favor to this Government
that clemency be extended. He brought with him a letter from the
American Minister, which reads as follows:
"My dear Baron:
"I am too ill to put my request before you in person, but once more
I appeal to the generosity of your heart. Stand by and save from
death this unfortunate woman. Have pity on her. Your devoted
servant,
"BRAND WHITLOCK."
Accompanying this purely personal note were two substantially similar
communications, the one directed to Baron von Bissing and the other to
Baron von der Lancken. These communications run as follows:
"I have just heard that Miss Cavell, a British subject, and
consequently under the protection of my Legation, was this morning
condemned to death by court-martial.
"If my information is correct, the sentence in the present case is
more severe than all the others that have been passed in similar
cases which have been tried by the same Court, and, without going
into the reasons for such a drastic sentence, I feel that I have
the right to appeal to your Excellency's feelings of humanity and
generosity in Miss Cavell's favour, and to ask that the death
penalty passed on Miss Cavell may be commuted and that this
unfortunate woman shall not be executed.
"Miss Cavell is the head of the Brussels Surgical Institute. She
has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and her
school has turned out many nurses who have watched at the bedside
of the sick all the world over, in Germany as in Belgium. At the
beginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her care as freely on the
German soldiers as on others. Even in default of all other reasons,
her career as a servant of humanity is such as to inspire the
greatest sympathy and to call for pardon. If the information in my
possession is correct, Miss Cavell, far from shielding herself,
has, with commendable straightforwardness, admitted the truth of
all the charges against her, and it is the very information which
she herself has furnished, and which she alone was in a position to
furnish, which has aggravated the severity of the sentence passed
on her.
"It is then with confidence, and in the hope of its favourable
reception, that I have the honour to present to your Excellency my
request for pardon on Miss Cavell's behalf."
This note was read aloud to Baron von der Lancken, the very official who
had refused to answer the first communication of the Legation with
reference to the matter, and he
"expressed disbelief in the report that sentence had actually been
passed and manifested some surprise that we should give credence to
any report not emanating from official sources. He was quite
insistent in knowing the exact source of our information, but this
I did not feel at liberty to communicate to him."
Baron von der Lancken proceeded to express his belief "that it was quite
improbable that sentence had been pronounced," and that in any event no
execution would follow. After some hesitation he telephoned to the
Presiding Judge of the Court-Martial and then reported that the
embassy's unofficial information was only too true.
His attention was further called to the express promise of the German
Director of the Political Department to inform the American Legation of
the sentence, and he was asked to grant the American Government the
courtesy of a "delay in carrying out the sentence."
To this appeal for mercy Baron von der Lancken replied that the Military
Governor (von Bissing) was the supreme authority and that he "had
discretionary power to accept or to refuse acceptance of an appeal for
clemency." He thereupon left the representative of the American Legation
and apparently called upon von
|
by
Kirkleavington, 610, Dam Belladonna, by Holyoke, 580,--
2d dam Stella, by Fabius 2d, 487, 3d--Arabella 2d,
by Fabius, 60, 4th--Arabella, by Agate 2, 5th--Dew
Drop, by Charles, (878) 6th--Dulcibella, by
Frederic, (1060) 7th--Delicia by Major, (2252),
&c.
=_{*}34 2d Hiawatha, 1667=
Light roan, bred by WELLS LATHROP, South Hadley Falls, Mass.; property
of TIMOTHY MATHER, Hartford, Conn.: calved September 29th, 1856; got by
Kirkleavington, 610, Dam Yarico, by North American, 116,--
2d dam Young Miranda, by Frederic, (2038)
3d--Miranda, by Young Denton, (963) 4th--Arabella,
by North Star, (460) 5th--Aurora, by Comet, (155)
6th------ by Henry, (301) 7th-- ---- by Danby,
(190).
=_{*}35 Humboldt,=
Red, bred by S. T. TABER, Dover Plains, Duchess County, N. Y.; property
of STATE REFORM SCHOOL, Meriden, Conn.: calved May, 1859; got by
Highflyer, _{*}37, 578, Dam Laura 3d, by Prince Leopold, 869,--
2d dam Laura, by North American, 116, 3d--Louisa,
by Boston, (1735) 4th--Cow Boston, by Sir Charles,
(1440) 5th--Duchess, by Wellington, (683)
6th------ by Admiral, (4) &c., &c.
=_{*}36 6th Hiawatha, 2971.=
Red and white, bred by WELLS LATHROP, South Hadley Falls, Mass.;
property of H. G. WHITE, South Framingham, Mass.: calved September 17th,
1857; got by Kirkleavington, 610, Dam Yarico 3d, by East Windsor, 56,--
2d dam Yarico, by North American, 116, 3d--Young
Miranda, by Frederic, (2038) 4th--Miranda, by
Young Denton, (963) 5th--imported Arabella, by
North Star, (460) 6th--Aurora, by Comet, 155, &c.
=_{*}37 Highflyer, 578.=
Red, bred by SAMUEL THORNE; property of A. C. & J. G. WOOD, Grass Hill,
Millbury, Mass.: calved December 14th, 1854; got by Duke of Gloster,
(11382) Dam imported Diana Gwynne, by Duke of Lancaster, (10929),--
2d dam Dolly Varden, by Ribblesdale, (7422)
3d--Dorothy Gwynne, by Conservative, (3472)
4th--Cripple, by Marmion, (406) 5th--Daphne, by
Merlin, (430) 6th--Nelle Gwynne, by Layton, (366)
7th--Nelle Gwynne, by Phenomenon, (491)
8th--Princess, by Favorite, (252) 9th-- ---- by
Favorite, (252) 10th------ by Hubback, (319)
11th-- ---- by Snowdon's Bull, (612) 12th--by
Weistel's Bull, (669) 13th-- ---- by Masterman's
Bull, (422) 14th-- ---- by the Studley Bull,
(626.)
=_{*}38 Honest Abe, 4026.=
Red and white, bred by E. C. ELY, Longmeadow, Mass.; property of CHARLES
H. BARBER, East Windsor, Conn.: calved May 12th, 1860; got by Brother
Jonathan, 2570, Dam Ruth, by Uncle Tom, 1056,--
2d dam Stella 2d, by Rollo, 152, 3d--Stella, by
North American, 116, 4th--Stately, by North Star,
(4592) 5th--Princess, by Splendid, (5292)
6th--Flora by Patriot, (2412) 7th--Nonpariel, by
Young Denton, (963) 8th--Arabella, by North Star,
(460) 9th--Aurora, by Comet, (155).
=_{*}39 John Bell, 4068.=
Red roan, bred and owned by A. C. & J. G. WOOD, Grass Hill, Millbury,
Mass.; calved January 12th, 1861; got by Highflyer, _{*}37, 578, Dam
Lady Chesterford 2d, by Kirkleavington, 610,--
2d dam imported Lady Chesterford, by Earl Ducie,
(12799) 3d--Lady Jane, by Red Roan Kirtling,
(10691) 4th--Lady Ann, by Pam, (6272)
5th--Countess, by Vanguard, (5545) 6th--Dodona, by
Alabaster, (1616) 7th--No. 6, by Dr. Syntax (220)
8th-- ---- by Charles, (127) 9th-- ---- by Henry,
(301) 10th--Lydia, by Favorite, (252) 11th--Nell,
by the White Bull, (421) 12th--Fortune, by
Bolinbroke, (86) 13th-- ---- by Foljambe, (263)
14th-- ---- by Hubback, (319).
=_{*}40 John Bull, 3025.=
Red and white, bred by FREDERIC W. STONE, Guelph, C. W.; property of
PAOLI LATHROP, South Hadley Falls, Mass.: calved July 6th, 1857; got by
John O'Gaunt, (13089) Dam imported Bianca, by Minstrel, (11818)--
2d dam Banksie, by Shepherds Purse, (10804)
3d--Raspberry, by Mozart (11830) 4th--Cherry, by
Sterling, (5330) 5th--Wide 2d, by Frederic, (3836)
6th--Old Wide, by Favorite, (3768) 7th-- ---- by
Fathwell Studley, (5401) 8th-- ----by Son of
Waddingworth, (668).
=_{*}41 John P. Hale,=
Red, bred and owned by S. W. BUFFUM, Winchester, N. H.: calved April
28th, 1862; got by Duke of Carlisle, _{*}17, 3850, Dam Dawn, by Earl of
Warwick, 465,--
2d dam Luna, by Nebraska, 738, 3d--Aurora 2d, by
East Windsor, 56, 4th--Aurora, by North American,
116, 5th--Atalanta, by Enchanter, (3729)
6th--Adeline, by Young Comet, (3437) 7th--Emma, by
Wellington, (683) 8th--Anabella, by Major, (398)
9th--Ada, by Denton, (198) 10th--Aurora, by Comet,
(155) 11th-- ---- by Henry, (301) 12th-- ---- by
Danby, (190).
=_{*}42 Leonidas, 4094.=
Red roan, bred and owned by AARON M. WINSLOW, Putney, Vt.: calved August
17th, 1860; got by 2d Prince of Orange, _{*}59, 2183, Dam Pocahontas
4th, by Kirkleavington, 610,--
2d dam Pocahontas 2d, by Tam O'Shanter, 168,
3d--Pocahontas, by North American, 119,
4th--Princess, by Washington, (1566) 5th--Pansy,
by Blaize, (76) 6th--Primrose, by Charles, (127)
7th-- ---- by Blythe Comet, (85) 8th-- ----by
Prince, (521) 9th-- ---- by Patriot, (486).
=_{*}43 Lucifer,=
Red, bred and owned by MILO J. SMITH & Son, Northampton, Mass.: calved
September 9th, 1861; got by Marmion, _{*}44, 1843, Dam Colona, by Earl
of Warwick, 465,--
2d dam Atalanta 3d, by Logan 2d, 652,
3d--Atalanta, by Enchanter, (3729) 4th--Adeline,
by Young Comet, (3427) 5th--Emma, by Wellington,
(683) 6th--Anabella, by Major, (398) 7th--Ada, by
Denton, (198) 8th--Aurora, by Comet, (155).
=_{*}44 Marmion, 1843.=
Roan, bred by N. J. BECAR, property of PAOLI LATHROP, South Hadley
Falls, and MILO J. SMITH & SON, Northampton, Mass.: calved October 2d,
1855; got by Duke of Gloster, (11382) Dam Zoe, by 5th Duke of York,
(10168),--
2d dam Janetta, by Lycurgus, (7180) 3d--Jacosta,
by Friar Tuck, (3848) 4th---L. Junta, by Warden,
(5595) 5th--Joyance, by Javelin, (4093) 6th--Joy,
by Blythe, (797) 7th--Jeanette, by Wellington,
(684) 8th-- ---- by Phenomenon, (491) 9th-- ----
by Favorite, (252) 10th-- ---- by Favorite, (252)
11th-- ----by Hubback, (319) 12th-- ---- by
Snowdon's Bull, (612) 13th-- ---- by Weistel's
Bull, (669) 14th-- ---- by Masterman's Bull, (422)
15th-- ---- by the Studley Bull, (626).
=_{*}45 Marmion,=
Roan, bred and owned by PHINEAS STEDMAN, Chicopee, Mass.: calved August
1st, 1862; got by Marmion, _{*}44, 1843, Dam White Rose, by
Kirkleavington, 610,--
2d dam Rose 2d, by Dan O'Connell, 407, 3d--Rose,
by Splendid, (5297) 4th--Romp, by Enchanter,
(3729) 5th--Rachel, by Washington, (1566)
6th--Pansy, by Blaize, (76) 7th--Primrose, by
Charles, (127).
=_{*}46 Marmion 2d,=
Red, bred and owned by S. W. BUFFUM, Winchester, N. H.: calved February
21st, 1862; got by Marmion, _{*}44, 1843, Dam Dianna Gwynne, by Duke of
Lancaster, (10929),--
2d dam Dolly Varden, by Ribblesdale, (7422)
3d--Dorothy Gwynne, by Conservative, (3472)
4th--Cripple, by Marmion, (406) 5th--Daphne, by
Merlin, (430) 6th--Nell Gwynne, by Layton, (366)
7th--Nell Gwynne, by Phenomenon, (491)
8th--Princess, by Favorite, (252) 9th-- ---- by
Favorite, (252) 10th-- ---- by Hubback, (319)
11th-- ---- by Snowdon's Bull, (612) 12th--by
Weistel's Bull, (669) 13th-- ---- by Masterman's
Bull, (422) 14th-- ---- by the Studley Bull,
(626).
=_{*}47 Major Anderson,=
Red roan, bred and owned by S. W. BUFFUM, Winchester, N. H.: calved
February 4th, 1861; got by Kirkleavington, 610, Dam Dianna Gwynne, by
Duke of Lancaster, (10929),--
2d dam Dolly Varden, by Ribblesdale, (7422)
3d--Dorothy Gwynne, by Conservative, (3472)
4th--Cripple, by Marmion, (406) 5th--Daphne, by
Merlin, (430) 6th--Nell Gwynne, by Layton, (366)
7th--Nell Gwynne, by Phenomenon, (491)
8th--Princess, by Favorite, (252) 9th-- ---- by
Favorite, (252) 10th-- ---- by Hubback, (319)
11th-- ---- by Snowdon's Bull, (612) 12th-- ----by
Weistel's Bull, (669) 13th-- ---- by Masterman's
Bull, (422) 14th-- ----by the Studley Bull, (626).
=_{*}48 Monarch,=
Red and white, bred by A. H. BEACH, Merwinsville, Conn.; property of
BURDETT LOOMIS, Suffield, Conn.: calved June 23d, 1860; got by Duke of
Ash Grove, 2745, Dam Belle 3d, by the Count, 1028,--
2d dam imported Belle, by Monarch, (7249)
3d--Barmaid, by Hurricane, (4061) 4th--Spotted
Boughton, by Crusader, (7939) 5th--Bombazine, by
Regent, (544).
=_{*}49 Middlesex,=
Red and white, bred and owned by H. G. WHITE, South Framingham, Mass.:
calved June 30th, 1862; got by Thorndyke, _{*}68, 4422, Dam Laurestina
2d, by John Bull, _{*}40, 3025,--
2d dam Laurestina, by Earl of Warwick, 465,
3d--Laura 3d, by Prince Leopold, 869, 4th--Laura,
by North American, 116, 5th--Louisa, by Boston,
(1735) 6th--Cow Boston, by Sir Charles, (1440)
7th--Duchess, by Wellington, (683) 8th-- ----by
Admiral, (4) 9th-- ---- by Sir Harry, (1444)
10th-- ---- by Colonel, (152) 11th-- ---- by
Grandson of Hubback, 319, 12th-- ---- by Hubback,
(319).
=_{*}50 Neptune,=
Light roan, bred by JOHN BOOTH, Killerby, England; imported by SAMUEL
THORNE, owned by WILLIAM HURST, Albany, N. Y.; got by Water King,
(11024) Dam Bloom, by Buckingham, (3239),--
2d dam Hawthorn Blossom, by Leonard, (4210)
3d--Blossom 3d, by Young Red Rover, (4905)
4th--Blossom, by Isaac, (1129) 5th--Blossom, by
Pilot, (496) 6th--Twin Cow, by Albion, (14).
=_{*}51 Napier,=
Dark roan, bred and owned by WILLIAM HURST, Albany, N. Y.: calved March
10th, 1861; got by imported Neptune, _{*}50, 3192, Dam imported Finella,
by Grand Duke, (10284),--
2d dam Fay, by Foig-a-Ballagh, (8082) 3d--Fame, by
Raspberry, (4875) 4th--Farewell, by Young Matchem,
(4422) 5th--Flora, by Isaac, 1129, 6th-- ---- by
Young Pilot, (497) 7th-- ---- by Pilot, (496)
8th-- ---- by Julius Cæsar, (1143.)
=_{*}52 Nonesuch, 1935½.=
Red and white, bred by D. C. COLLINS, Hartford, Conn.; property of DAVID
MOSELY, Westfield, Mass.: calved April 2d, 1853; got by Monarch, 718,
Dam Novice, by Coxcomb, 382,--
2d dam Nina, by Bertram 2d, 21, 3d--Nannette, by
Patriot, (2412) 4th--Nonpariel, by Young Denton,
(963) 5th--Arabella, by North Star, (460)
6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155.)
=_{*}53 Osceola,=
Red and white, bred and owned by S. W. BUFFUM, Winchester, N. H.: calved
May 24th, 1861; got by Duke of Winchester, 2792½, Dam Lucky, by
Kirkleavington, 610,--
2d dam Aurelia, by Osceola, 789, 3d--Adeliza, by
Agate 2, 4th--Adeline, by Young Comet, (3427)
5th--Emma, by Wellington, (683) 6th--Anabella, by
Major, (398) 7th--Ada, by Denton, (198)
8th--Aurora, by Comet, (155) 9th--by Henry, (301)
10th-- ---- by Danby, (190).
=_{*}54 Prince of Wales, 4275.=
Red roan, bred and owned by A. C. & J. G. WOOD, Millbury, Mass.: calved
October 11th, 1860; got by Highflyer, _{*}34, 587, Dam Lady Chesterford,
by Earl Ducie, (12799,)--
2d dam Lady Jane, by Red Roan Kirtling, (10691)
3d--Lady Anna, by Pam, (6272) 4th--Countess, by
Vanguard, (5545) 5th--Dodona, by Alabaster, (1616)
6th--No. 6, by Dr. Syntax, (220) 7th-- ---- by
Charles, (127) 8th-- ---- by Henry, (301)
9th--Lydia, by Favorite, (252) 10th--Nell, by the
White Bull, (421) 11th--Fortune, by Bolingbroke,
(86) 12th-- ---- by Foljambe, (263) 13th-- ----by
Hubback, (319.)
=_{*}55 Pluto,=
Red and white, bred by WILBUR WILSON, Agawam, Mass.: calved June 4th,
1860; got by Frank Forrester, 2868, Dam Eva 3d, by Duke of Windsor,
451,--
2d dam Eva, by Logan, 95, 3d--Agatha, by Fabius,
60, 4th--Young Agatha, by imported Boston, (1735)
5th--Dorcas, by imported Boston, (1735)
6th--imported cow Boston, by Sir Charles, (1440)
7th--Duchess, by Wellington, (1683), &c.
=_{*}56 Prince Albert,=
White, bred by GEORGE VAIL, Troy, N. Y.; property of JOHN HOWITT,
Guelph, C. W.: calved June 19th, 1846; got by Meteor, 104, Dam Splendor,
by Symmetry, (2723),--
2d dam Pomona, by Bedford, Jr., (1701) 3d-- ----
by Isaac, 1129, 4th-- ----by Whitworth, (1584)
5th-- ---- by White Comet, (1582) 6th-- ---- by
Son of Kitt, (2179.)
=_{*}57 Prince of Oxford, 3308.=
Red roan, bred by SAMUEL THORNE, Duchess Co., N. Y.; property of NEWTON
CARTER, Hartford, Conn.: calved July 3d, 1857; got by Duke of Gloster,
(11382) Dam Maid of Oxford, by Lord of Eryholme, (12205),--
2d dam Oxford 13th, by 3d Duke of York, (10166)
3d--Oxford 5th, by Duke of Northumberland, (1940)
4th--Oxford 2d, by Short Tail, (2621) 5th--Matchem
Cow, by Matchem, (2281) 6th-- ---- by Young
Wynyard, (2859.)
=_{*}58 Planet,=
Red and white, bred by WILBUR WILSON, Agawam, Mass.; property of CHARLES
H. BARBER, East Windsor, Conn.: calved August 15th, 1861; got by
Hamilcar, _{*}33, Dam Fancy, by Berlin Hero, (257,)--
2d dam Letty, by Fabius 2d, 478, 3d--Lilac 8th, by
Superior, (5360) 4th--Lilac 4th, by North Star,
(4592) 5th--Lilac, by Whisker, (5639) 6th--Lilac,
by Frederic, (2038) 7th--Lilac, by Young Denton,
(963) 8th--Arabella, by North Star, (460)
9th--Aurora, by Comet, (155.)
[Illustration: PRINCE OF OXFORD, 2 Years Old, 3308. Vol. 4, A. H. B.
THE PROPERTY OF NEWTON CARTER, HARTFORD, CONN.]
=_{*}59 2d Prince of Orange, 2183.=
Light roan, bred by PAOLI LATHROP, South Hadley Falls, Mass.; property
of AARON M. WINSLOW, Putney, Vt.: calved May 24th, 1856; got by Prince
of Orange, 872, Dam Novice, by Coxcomb, 382,--
2d dam Nina, by Bertram 2d, 21, 3d--Nannette, by
Patriot, (2412) 4th--Nonpariel, by Young Denton,
(963) 5th--Arabella, by North Star, (460)
6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155).
=_{*}60 Red Duke, 4295.=
Red, bred by PHINEAS STEDMAN, Chicopee, Mass.; property of SAMUEL W.
BARTLETT & SON, East Windsor, Conn.: calved June 2d, 1859; got by Double
Duke, 1451½, Dam Young Dorothy, by Windsor Comet, 1105,--
2d dam Dorothy, by East Windsor, 56, 3d--Red Romp,
by Agate 2, 4th--Romp, by Enchanter, (3729)
5th--Rachel, by Washington, (1566) 6th--imported
Pansy, by Blaize, (76) 7th--Primrose, by Charles,
(127) 8th-- ---- by Blythe Comet, (85) 9th-- ----
by Prince, (521) 10th-- ---- by Patriot, (486).
=_{*}61 Red Blaize, 3325.=
Red, bred by D. W. BARTLETT, East Windsor, Conn.; property of NORMAN
PORTER, Berlin, Conn.: calved May, 1857; got by Powhatan, 829, Dam Lilac
4th, by North Star, (4592),--
2d dam Lilac, by Whisker, (5639) 3d--Lilac, by
Frederic, (2038) 4th--Lilac, by Young Denton,
(963) 5th--Arabella, by North Star, (460)
6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155).
=_{*}62 Rising Star,=
Red roan, bred and owned by MILO J. SMITH & SON, Northampton, Mass.:
calved August 21st, 1861; got by Marmion, _{*}44, 1843, Dam Starlight,
by Earl of Warwick, 465,--
2d dam Aurora 2d, by East Windsor, 56, 3d--Aurora,
by North American, 116, 4th--Atalanta, by
Enchanter, (3729) 5th--Adeline, by Young Comet,
(3427) 6th--Emma, by Wellington, (683)
7th--Anabella, by Major, (398) 8th--Ada, by
Denton, 198, 9th--Aurora, by Comet, (155) 10th--
---- by Henry, (301) 11th-- ----by Danby, (190).
=_{*}63 Roan Duke,=
Red roan, bred and owned by A. C. & J. G. WOOD, Grass Hill, Millbury,
Mass.; got by Highflyer, _{*}34, 578, Dam imported Lady Chesterford, by
Earl Ducie, (12799),
2d dam Lady Jane, by Red Roan Kirtling, (10691)
3d--Lady Ann, by Pam (6272) 4th--Countess, by
Vanguard, (5545) 5th--Dodona, by Alabaster, (1616)
6th--No. 6, by Dr. Syntax, (220) 7th-- ---- by
Charles, (127) 8th-- ---- by Henry, (301)
9th--Lydia, by Favorite, (252) 10th--Nell, by the
White Bull, (421) 11th--Fortune, by Bolingbroke,
(86) 12th-- ---- by Foljambe, (263) 13th-- ----by
Hubback, (319) 14th-- ---- bred by Mr. Maynard.
=_{*}64 Rebel, 3023.=
Red and white, bred and owned by JOSIAH FOGG, Deerfield, Mass.: calved
March 2d, 1862; got by John Bright, 3023, Dam Madonna, by imported
Wolviston, 1109,--
2d dam Marchioness, by imported Yorkshireman, 189,
3d--Narcissus, by Bertram 2d, 21, 4th--Nonpareil,
by Young Denton, (963) 5th--Arabella, by North
Star, (460) 6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155).
=_{*}65 Star,=
Red, star in the face, bred and owned by WILBUR WILSON, Agawam, Mass.:
calved April 9th, 1862; got by Buncomb, _{*}4, 1302, Dam Rose, by Young
America, 2404,--
2d dam Rose 2d, by Dan O'Connell, 407, 3d--Rose,
by Splendid, (5297) 4th--Romp, by Enchanter,
(3729) 5th--Rachel, by Washington, (1566)
6th--Pansy, by Blaize, (76) 7th--Primrose, by
Charles, (127) 8th--by Blythe Comet, (85) 9th--
---- by Prince, (521) 10th-- ---- by Patriot,
(486).
=_{*}66 Son of Highflyer,=
Red, bred by A. O. CUMMINS, Grass Hill, Millbury, Mass.; property of J.
H. GOODELL & CO., Millbury, Mass.: calved February 2d, 1862; got by
Highflyer, _{*}34, 578, Dam Jessie, by Double Duke, 1451½,--
2d dam Regetta, by Prince Albert 3d, 858,
3d--Lydia, by Walter, 1072, 4th--Arabella, by
Victory, (5565) 5th--Sally, by Major, (401)
6th--Old Sally, by grandson of Favorite, (252)
7th-- ---- by Punch, (530) 8th-- ---- by Hubback,
(319).
=_{*}67 Stephenson,=
Red and white, bred by TIMOTHY MATHER, Hartford, Conn.; property of J.
S. ALLEN, East Windsor, Conn.: calved June 7th, 1859; got by Red Rover,
2109, Dam Nymph 5th, by imported Lord Vane Tempest, 669½,--
2d dam Nymph, by Bertram 2d, 21, 3d--Nannette, by
Patriot, (2412) 4th--Nonpareil, by Young Denton,
(963) 5th--Arabella, by North Star, (460)
6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155) 7th-- ---- by Henry,
(301) 8th-- ---- by Danby, (190).
NOTE.--This is a three-fourth Stephenson and
one-fourth Bates blood Bull. J. S. A.
=_{*}68 Thorndyke, 4422.=
Light roan, bred at the STATE LUNATIC ASYLUM, Worcester, Mass.; property
of SAMUEL BOYD, Marlboro', Mass.: calved January 15th, 1861; got by
Young Monarch, 3605, Dam Yarico 2d, by East Windsor, 56,--
2d dam Yarico, by North American, 116, 3d--Young
Miranda, by Frederic, (2038) 4th--Miranda, by
Young Denton, (963) 5th--imported Arabella, by
North Star, (460) 6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155)
7th-- ---- by Henry, (301) 8th-- ----by Danby,
(190).
=_{*}69 Woronoco,=
Red and white, bred and owned by DAVID MOSELY, Westfield, Mass.: calved
April 16th, 1858; got by Nonesuch, _{*}52, 1935½, Dam Marchioness, by
Yorkshireman, 189,--
2d dam Narcissus, by Bertram 2d, 21,
3d--Nonpariel, by Young Denton, (963)
4th--Arabella, by North Star, (460) 5th--Aurora,
by Comet, (155).
=_{*}70 Young Marmion, 3602.=
Light roan, bred and owned by TIMOTHY MATHER, Hartford, Conn.: calved
July 6th, 1858; got by Marmion, _{*}44, 1843, Dam Nymph 5th, by imported
Lord Vane Tempest, 669½,--
2d dam Nymph, by Bertram 2d, 21, 3d--Nannette, by
Patriot, (2412) 4th--Nonpariel, by Young Denton,
(963) 5th--imported Arabella, by North Star, (460)
6th--Aurora, by Comet, (155).
=_{*}71 Young Humboldt,=
Red and white, bred by WILLIAM HURST, Albany, N. Y.; property of ISAAC
S. CLEMENT, Saratoga Co., N. Y.: calved April 19th, 1859; got by
Humboldt, 1678, Dam Minnie, by Lord Eryholme 2d, (11715),--
2d dam Agnes, by Lamartine, (11662) 3d-- ---- by
Plowboy, 824, 4th--Pocahontas, by Harlem Comet,
71, 5th--Fose, by Greenbush, 2940, 6th--Young
Lily, by imported Albion, 2483, 7th--imported
Flora, by Blythe Comet, (85) 8th-- ---- by Ossian,
(476)
COWS.
=Arabella,=
Red and white, bred by B. H. STEDMAN, Chicopee, Mass.; the property of
WILBUR WILSON, Agawam, Mass.: calved July 8th, 1858; got by Connecticut,
369, out of Arabella, by Agate 2,--
2d dam Dew Drop, by Charles, (878) 3d--Dulcibella,
by Frederic, (1060) 4th--Delicia, by Major, (2252)
5th-- ---- by Comus, (161) 6th-- ---- by Marske,
(418).
=Arabella 2d,=
Red and white, bred and owned by WILBUR WILSON, Agawam, Mass.: calved
October 6th, 1861; got by Fabius 3d, _{*}25, 3920, Dam Arabella, by
Connecticut, 369,--
2d dam Arabella by Agate 2, 3d--Dew Drop, by
Charles, (878) 4th--Dulcibella, by Frederic,
(1060) 5th--Delicia, by Major, (2252) 6th-- ----
by Comus, (161) 7th-- ---- by Marske, (418).
=Arabella 2d,=
Red and white, bred by JOHN BISSELL, East Windsor, Conn.; the property
of B. H. STEDMAN, Chicopee, Mass: calved
|
rowning.
"Oh well, I shouldn’t have said there was anything strange about them,"
Hartley said, "but they certainly were beautiful. There’s no denying
that. The man with her looked rather Irish I thought."
They came to the Etoile and cut across it towards the Avenue Hoche.
Ste. Marie glanced back once more, but the motor-car and the delivery
boy and the gendarmes were gone.
"What did you say?" he asked idly.
"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend. All at once Ste.
Marie gave a loud exclamation—
"Sacred thousand devils! Fool that I am! Dolt! Why didn’t I think of
it before?" Hartley stared at him and Ste. Marie stared down the Champs
Elysées like one in a trance.
"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must be getting on, you know,
we’re late." And as they went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded—
"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was? What struck you so
suddenly?"
"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie, "where I had seen that man
before, and with whom I last saw him. I’ll tell you about it later.
Probably it’s of no importance, though."
"You’re talking rather like a mild lunatic," said the other. "Here we
are at the house!"
*CHAPTER II*
*THE LADDER TO THE STARS*
Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange fair youth with an
impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked
to this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting
people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh
of relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of
Legation, an old friend of her grandfather’s, a man made gentle and
sweet by infinite sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent
over the girl’s hand.
"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have
need of you, _nous autres_. Madame your mother is well, I hope—and the
bear?" He called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest,
and that fierce octogenarian rather liked it.
"Oh yes," the girl said, "we’re all fairly well. My mother had one of
her headaches to-night and so didn’t come here, but she’s as well as
usual, and ’the bear’—yes, he’s well enough physically, I should think,
but he has not been quite the same since—during the past month. It has
told upon him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he will
admit."
"Yes," said Baron de Vries gravely. "Yes, I know." He turned about
towards the fair young man, but that youth had drifted away and joined
himself to another group. Miss Benham looked after him and gave a
little exclamation of relief.
"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can’t think why he is
here. Marian so seldom has dull people."
"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connexion of de
Saulnes’. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice.
"You have heard no—news? They have found no trace?"
"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m rather in despair. It’s
all so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something has
happened to him. It’s—very very hard. Sometimes I think I can’t bear
it. But I go on. We all go on."
Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.
"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must go
on. That is what needs the real courage and you have courage. I am not
afraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him—from him. It
is impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear from
him." He smiled at her, his slow grave smile that was not of mirth but
of kindness and sympathy and cheer.
"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out
once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at
home. It is better to live one’s normal life—even when it is not easy
to do it. I say so who know."
The girl touched Baron de Vries’ arm for an instant with her hand—a
little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and
affection.
"If all my friends were like you!" she said to him. And after that she
drew a quick breath as if to have done with these sad matters, and she
turned her eyes once more towards the broad room where the other guests
stood in little groups, all talking at once very rapidly and in loud
voices.
"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner parties in new
Paris are!" she said. "They’re like diplomatic parties, only we have a
better time and the men don’t wear their orders. How many nationalities
should you say there are in this room now?"
"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They
counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
"I don’t see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was
to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking towards the doorway.
"Here he comes now!" she said. "He’s rather late. Who is the
Spanish-looking man with him, I wonder? He’s rather handsome, isn’t
he?"
Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his
turn. He said—
"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss
Benham’s eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
through the joyous greetings of friends towards his hostess.
"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.
Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
"Well, I don’t wonder at the reputation he bears for—gallantry and that
sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn’t he?"
"Ye—es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently _beau garçon_.
But—yes, well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get the idea
that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic young
squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine
qualities. To be sure he appears to possess no ambition in particular,
but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house,
and there is no blot upon the history of that house—nothing but
faithfulness and gallantry and honour. And there is, I think, no blot
upon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so
strongly of any one, I think."
The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he
laughed.
"Oh well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for
the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young
man is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that
young man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste.
Marie. In a sense that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for
him. His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his view
of the heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude
or misfortune or grief.
"Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently, "or perhaps the other
thing might do it best—the more obvious thing?"
The girl’s raised eyebrows questioned him and, when he did not answer,
she said—
"What thing then?"
"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to
work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah! he
is coming here."
The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman with
a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her
wake. She said—
"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me, and cherish him! I
believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn’t he?" She
beamed over her shoulder, and departed, and Miss Benham found herself
confronted by the Spanish-looking man.
Her first thought was that he was not as handsome as he had seemed at a
distance but something much better. For a young man she thought his
face was rather oddly weather-beaten, as if he might have been very much
at sea, and it was too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked his
eyes, which were not brown or black, as she had expected, but a very
unusual dark grey—a sort of slate colour.
And she liked his mouth too. It was her habit—and it is not an
unreliable habit—to judge people by their eyes and mouth. Ste. Marie’s
mouth pleased her because the lips were neither thin nor thick, they
were not drawn into an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did
not pout as so many Latin lips do, and they had at one corner a humorous
expression which she found curiously agreeable.
"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters.
How does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth
twitched and he grinned at her. Miss Benham did not approve of young
men who began an acquaintance in this very familiar manner. She thought
that there was a certain preliminary and more formal stage which ought
to be got through with first, but Ste. Marie’s grin was irresistible.
In spite of herself she found that she was laughing.
"I don’t quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn’t
it? Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each
other’s heads. She takes my breath away at times."
"Ah well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when
I’ve led you to the place where food is. And, by the way, what are we
waiting for? Are we not all here? There’s an even number." He broke
off with a sudden exclamation of pleasure, and, when Miss Benham turned
to look, she found Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some friends,
had once more come up to where she stood. She watched the greeting
between the two men, and its quiet affection impressed her very much.
She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that it was not his habit to
show or to feel a strong liking for young and idle men. This young man
must be very worth while to have won the regard of that wise old
Belgian.
Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded behind a cordon of friends,
came up to her in an abominable temper over his ill luck, and, a few
moments later, the dinner procession was formed and they went in.
At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
strange fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She
looked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed
that there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention
to waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish
passion extraordinary to see and also, alas! to hear. Miss Benham
turned from him to meet Ste. Marie’s delighted eye.
"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen—not
heard." But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust.
"I shall tell him nothing whatever," she said. "He’s quite too dreadful
really. People shouldn’t be exposed to that sort of thing. It’s not
only the noises. Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for
example, make strange noises at table. But he behaves like a famished
dog over a bone. I refuse to have anything to do with him. You must
make up the loss to me, M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two
people." She smiled across at him in her gravely questioning fashion.
"I’m wondering," she said, "if I dare ask you a very personal question.
I hesitate because I don’t like people who presume too much upon a short
acquaintance—and our acquaintance has been very very short, hasn’t it?
even though we may have heard a great deal about each other beforehand.
I wonder."
"Oh, I should ask it, if I were you!" said Ste. Marie at once. "I’m an
extremely good-natured person. And besides I quite naturally feel
flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."
"Well," said she, "it’s this. Why does everybody call you just ’Ste.
Marie’? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that—if there
isn’t a more august title—but they all call you Ste. Marie without any
Monsieur. It seems rather odd."
Ste. Marie looked puzzled.
"Why," he said, "I don’t believe I know, just. I’d never thought of
that. It’s quite true, of course. They never do use a Monsieur or
anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why it is. I’ll ask
Hartley."
He did ask Hartley later on and Hartley didn’t know either. Miss Benham
asked some other people, who were vague about it, and in the end she
became convinced that it was an odd and quite inexplicable form of
something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have formulated it to
himself.
"The name is really ’de Ste. Marie’," he went on, "and there’s a title
that I don’t use, and a string of Christian names that one employs. My
people were Bearnais, and there’s a heap of ruins on top of a hill in
the Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie de
Mont-les-Roses, but afterwards, after the Revolution, they called it
Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, but
some old servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."
He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not in
the cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speaking
of ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. And
when she allowed a little silence to occur at the end he did not go on
with his family history, but turned at once to another subject. It
pleased her curiously.
The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,
making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wish
to be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether.
It occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie’s other neighbour might
desire an occasional word from him, but after all, she said to herself,
that was his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked together
through the entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was
being much more deeply affected by the simple magnetic charm of a man
than ever before in her life. It made her a little angry, because she
was unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted it. She was a
rather perfect type of that phenomenon before which the British and
Continental world stands in mingled delight and exasperation—the
American unmarried young woman, the creature of extraordinary beauty and
still more extraordinary poise, the virgin with the bearing and _savoir
faire_ of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked girl with the calm
mind of a _savant_ and the cool judgment, in regard to men and things,
of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and that may be
true; but it is well enough known that she can love very deeply. It
says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of reasons,
she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to queens who
are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma, and like all
other enigmas forever fascinating.
Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie,
save for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries’ good
opinion, which could not be despised. And that made her the more
displeased when she realised how promptly she was surrendering to his
charm. In a moment of silence she gave a sudden little laugh which
seemed to express a half-angry astonishment.
"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded. The girl looked at him for an
instant and shook her head.
"I can’t tell you," said she. "That’s rude, isn’t it, and I’m sorry.
Perhaps I will tell you one day when we know each other better."
But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all begin:
all these regiments of women who make fools of themselves about him! I
suppose this is exactly what he does to them all!"
It made her angry and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as it
were, to Ste. Marie—to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was by
nature very just and she could not quite do that, particularly as it was
evident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to flirt
with her and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments—though she
was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a few moments
his eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that few women
can find it in their hearts to resent.
"You say," said Ste. Marie, "’when we know each other better.’ May one
twist that into a permission to come and see you—I mean, really see you,
not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observing the
formalities?"
"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like that
without straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be very
glad to see you. I’m sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."
Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two had
no more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left about
the dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad
head at him. He said—
"You’re a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, that
I should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hope
you’re decently grateful."
"_Mon vieux_," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars."
"No!" He shook his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feet
are upon the ladder to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish word
like grateful mean? Don’t talk to me. You are not worthy to trample
among my magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."
"You said just now," objected the other man practically, "that your feet
were on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."
"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! aren’t there, though? There shall be
ladders all over Olympus if I like. What do you know about gods and
stars? I shall be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be an
angel of light, and I shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the night
here below, and I shall be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happen
to think of, all of them at once, if I choose. And you, you shall be the
tongue-tied son of perfidious Albion that you are, gaping at my
splendours from a fog bank—a November fog bank in May. Who is the
dessicated gentleman bearing down upon us?"
*CHAPTER III*
*STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM*
Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of
distaste.
"It’s Captain Stewart, Miss Benham’s uncle," he said, lowering his
voice. "I’m off. I shall abandon you to him. He’s a good old soul but
he bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then
made his way to the end of the table where their host sat discussing
Aero-Club matters with a group of the other men.
Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying—
"May I recall myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or
twice, a couple of years ago. My name’s Stewart."
Captain Stewart—the title was vaguely believed to have been won some
years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much
about it—was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much
more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him
"old Stewart" and others "_ce vieux_ Stewart." Indeed, at a first
glance, he might have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was
a good deal more lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age.
Ste. Marie’s adjective had been rather apt. The man had a dessicated
appearance. Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was still
red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and withered
like an old man’s, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair was
almost gone from the top of his large round head, but it remained at the
sides, stiff colourless hair with a hint of red in it. And there were
red streaks in his grey moustache, which was trained outwards in two
loose tufts like shaving brushes. The moustache and the shallow chin
under it gave him an odd cat-like appearance. Hartley, who rather
disliked the man, used to insist that he had heard him mew.
Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at
all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at
Captain Stewart with a real curiosity and interest, in his character as
Miss Benham’s uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make
these friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do
so.
"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece,
Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met,
is it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am
quite sure she said that she had not met you. Ah! yes, of course, you
have been away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother—her
mother is my sister, that is to say, my half-sister—have come here to
live with my father." He gave a little gentle laugh.
"I take an elderly uncle’s privilege," he said, "of being rather proud
of Helen. She is called very pretty and she certainly has great poise."
Ste. Marie drew a quick breath and his eyes began to flash as they had
done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon
the ladder to the stars.
"Miss Benham," he cried. "Miss Benham is——" He hung poised so for a
moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient splendour, but in
the end he shook his head, and the gleam faded from his eyes. He sank
back in his chair sighing.
"Miss Benham," said he, "is extremely beautiful." And again her uncle
emitted his little gentle laugh which may have deceived Hartley into
believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound was as much like
mewing as it was like anything else.
"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more
into the world. She needs distraction. We—you may possibly have heard
that the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of
my young nephew. Helen has suffered particularly because she is
convinced that the boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very
unlikely, very unlikely indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and
for another—— Ah well, a score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be
comforted. It seems to me much more like a boy’s prank—his idea of
revenge for what he considered unjust treatment at his grandfather’s
hands. He was always a headstrong youngster, and he has been a bit
spoilt. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very trying for us
all—very wearing."
"Of course," said Ste. Marie gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah, by
the way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing
happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We
walked up the Champs Elysées from the Concorde, and on the way Hartley
had been telling me of your nephew’s disappearance. Near the Rond Point
we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
street—there had been an accident of no consequence, a boy tumbled over
but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the motor-car was a man
whom I used to see about Maxim’s and the Café de Paris and the
Montmartre places too, some time ago—a rather shady character whose name
I’ve forgotten. The odd part of it all was that at the last occasion or
two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I think it was in
_Henry’s Bar_. Of course it means nothing at all. Your nephew doubtless
knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to have
information about his present whereabouts than any of the others.
Still, I should have liked to ask him. I didn’t remember who he was
till he had gone."
Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette
from which he had knocked the ash.
"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys
kept in a glass case, but—— Yes, I’m afraid Arthur was not always too
careful." He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips.
"This man now, this man whom you saw to-night, what sort of looking man
will he have been?"
"Oh, a tall lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
a heavy old-fashioned moustache. I just can’t remember the name."
The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart’s cigarette,
and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled over
the man’s face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his chair.
After a moment he said—
"I fancy—from your description I fancy I know who the man was. If it is
the man I am thinking of, the name is—Powers. He is, as you have said,
a rather shady character, and I more than once warned my nephew against
him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes, I warned
him."
[Illustration: "’I fancy I know who the man was.’"]
"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn’t sound right to me, you know. I
can’t say the fellow’s name myself, but I’m sure—that is, I think—it’s
not Powers."
"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart with an elderly man’s half-querulous
certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
remember—— Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that just
as you were talking of Arthur. You—oh, you didn’t speak to him, you say?
No! no, to be sure. You didn’t recognise him at once. Yes, it was odd.
Of course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur’s
disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been
for what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none,
away with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be
to-night, I wonder? It’s a sad business, M. Ste. Marie. A sad
business."
Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
the table before him and twisting with his thin fingers the little
liqueur glass and the coffee cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste.
Marie thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and
the man’s fingers twitched on the cloth of the table, but when at last
the group at the other end of the board rose and began to move towards
the door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them.
At the door he seemed to think of something, and touched Ste. Marie upon
the arm.
"This, ah, Powers," he said in a low tone, "this man whom you saw
to-night. You said he was one of two occupants of a motor-car. Yes?
Did you by any chance recognise the other?"
"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw
her before. She was very handsome."
Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly
away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said,
in a man-of-the-world manner which sat rather oddly upon him—
"Ah well, we all have our little love affairs. I dare say this shady
fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the
speech peculiarly offensive.
In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss
Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead
of him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before
her turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie
listlessly played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it,
and he was glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and
departed to look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a
little with Marian de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of
adoring him. She complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which
was not true: he was only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone;
and so, at last, he took his leave without waiting for Hartley.
Outside in the street he stood for a moment hesitating, and an expectant
fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an interrogative
whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away on foot. It
was a still sweet night of soft airs and a moonless starlit sky, and the
man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the Etoile he walked
down the Champs Elysées, but presently turned towards the river. His
eyes were upon the mellow stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. He
found himself crossing the Pont des Invalides, and halted midway to rest
and look. He laid his arms upon the bridge’s parapet and turned his
face outwards. Against it bore a little gentle breeze that smelt of the
purifying water below and of the night and of green things growing.
Beneath him the river ran black as flowing ink, and across its troubled
surface the coloured lights of the many bridges glittered very
beautifully—swirling arabesques of gold and crimson. The noises of the
city—beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn of tram or motor-car,
jingle of bell upon cab horse—came here faintly and as if from a great
distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the sky glowed
softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.
Ste. Marie closed his eyes and, against darkness, he saw the beautiful
head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut exquisite modelling of feature and
contour, the perfection of form and colour. Her eyes met his eyes, and
they were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and
the new contours into which her face fell with the smile were more
perfect than before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of
the movement was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen
should have. The heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him and he would have
gone down upon his knees.
He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
unprecedented, wholly new to his experience had befallen him—an
awakening to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times.
He was usually in love. And each time his heart had gone through the
same sweet and bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and
gone upon him, the eternal and ever-new miracle had wakened spring in
his soul, had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal
regrets to winter’s death; but through it all something within him had
waited asleep.
He found himself wondering dully what it was, wherein lay the great
difference, and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees
to worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervour of his
forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far
above him upon a throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and
untroubled. She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of
the base passions of men. The other women whom Ste. Marie had, as he
was pleased to term it, loved, had certainly come at least halfway to
meet him, and some of them had come a good deal farther than that. He
could not, by the wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl
doing anything of that sort. She was to be won by trial and high
endeavour, by prayer and self-purification, not captured by a warm eye
glance, a whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy he looked from the
crowding cohorts of these others to that still sweet figure set on high,
wrapt in virginal pride, calm in her serene perfection, and his soul
abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and worshipful adoration.
So, before quest or tournament or battle, must those elder Ste.
Maries—Ste. Maries of Mont-les-Roses—have knelt, each knight at the feet
of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardour of
chivalry.
The man’s hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his
face again to the shining stars whereamong, as his fancy had it, she sat
enthroned. Exultingly he felt under his feet the rungs of the ladder,
and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done for ever with
blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to climb, until at
last he should stand where she was—cleansed and made worthy by long
endeavour—at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.
It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in
earnest about it, but his guardian angel, indeed Fate herself, must have
laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in less
exalted hours.
It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every
man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has
been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some
mysterious fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been
elsewhere diverted, and sometimes hours afterwards, or even days,
produces quite suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste.
Marie had turned with a little sigh to take up once more his walk across
the Pont des Invalides,
|
the sun touched it, blue where the shadows
lay.
The driver assured the young English lady, whom he much admired for
her pluck as well as beauty, that she had far better return to the
carriage; that indeed, she need not have left it. Her extra weight
would be but as that of a feather to the horses, which were used to
carrying far heavier loads than that of to-day, up the steep mountain
road to Alleheiligen in the "high" season of July and August, when
many tourists from all countries came to rest for a night and see the
wonderful view. He even grew voluble in his persuasions, but the girl
still smilingly insisted that she liked walking, and the brown-faced
fellow with the soft green hat and curly cock feather admired her the
more for her firmness and endurance.
She was plainly dressed in gray, which did not show the dust, and
though her skirt and short jacket were well made, and her neat little
hat jaunty and becoming--almost dangerously becoming--she was not
half as grand in appearance as some of the ladies who drove up with
him in July and August. Still, the man said to himself, there was an
air about her--no, he could not describe it even to himself--but it
meant distinction. And then, as she was English, it was as pleasing as
it was remarkable that she could speak Rhaetian so prettily. She had
learned it, she said when he respectfully ventured a question,
because, since she was a child, she had taken an interest in Rhaetian
history and literature. And this seemed strange to him, that so dainty
a lady should have learned such a language for pleasure, because the
people of most countries found it excessively difficult--as difficult
as Hungarian and just enough like German to make it even more
difficult, perhaps. But this English girl said she had picked it up
easily; and the young man's heart warmed to her when she praised
Rhaetian music and Rhaetian poetry.
This was the last touch; this won him wholly; and without stopping
further to analyze or account for his admiration, the driver of the
first carriage found himself bestowing confidences upon his gracious
companion as they slowly tramped up the winding road, the reins looped
over his arm.
He told her of his life; how he had not always lived down there in the
valley and driven tourists for a living. Before he fell in love and
married a valley girl, and had a young family to rear, his house had
been aloft, in Alleheiligen. He was born on the mountain side; his
mother still lived in the village. It was she who kept the inn. Ach,
but a good woman, and a cook to the king's taste--or rather, the
Emperor's taste--if it was her own son who said it.
He was glad that the English ladies would be stopping with her for a
few days at this season. She would make them comfortable, more
comfortable than would be possible at a crowded time, and then,
besides, after the season was over, and the strangers had been
frightened away by the first flurry of snow, the poor mother grew
lonely and tired of idleness. Oh yes, she stayed the winter through.
It was home to her. There were not many neighbors, then, it was true,
yet she would not be happy to go away. Mountain folk never really
learned to love the valleys.
What, the ladies had not written to the inn in advance? Ah, well, that
would not matter at this season. There would be rooms, and to spare;
the ladies could take their choice; and the mother would have a
pleasant surprise. Glad he was that he chanced to be the one to bring
it.
Those who knew Frau Yorvan, know that her larder was never empty of
good things, and that her linen was aired and scented with the dried
lavender blossoms gathered down below. Indeed, she had need to be ever
in readiness for distinguished guests, because sometimes--but the
eloquent tongue of Alois Yorvan was suddenly silent, like the clapper
of a church bell which the ringers have ceased to pull, and his
sunburnt face grew sheepish.
"Because sometimes?" echoed the girl, in her pretty Rhaetian. "What
happens sometimes, that your mother must ever be expecting?"
"Oh," the man stammered a little foolishly, "I was but going to say
that she has sometimes to entertain people of the high nobility, of
different nations. Alleheiligen, though small, is rather celebrated,
you know."
"Has your Emperor been here?" asked the young lady.
"It may be," answered Alois, jauntily. "It may be. Our Emperor has
been to most places."
His companion smiled and put no more questions.
Slowly they climbed on; the two carriages, containing the English
girl's mother, a middle-aged companion, a French maid, and a
reasonable supply of luggage, toiling up behind, the harness jingling
with a faint sound as of fairy bells.
Then at last they came to the inn, a quaint house, half of stone, half
of rich brown shingles; a huge picture, crowded with saints of special
importance to Alleheiligen, painted in once crude, now faded colors,
on a swinging sign. A characteristic, yodeling cry from Alois, sent
forth before the highest turn of the road was reached, brought an
apple-cheeked and white-capped old woman to the door; then it was the
youngest of the travelers who asked, with a pleasant greeting in
Rhaetian, for the best suite of rooms which Frau Yorvan could give.
But to the girl's astonishment the landlady showed none of the delight
her son had predicted. Surprised she certainly was, even startled, and
certainly embarrassed. For an instant she seemed to hesitate before
replying, then her emotion was partly explained by her words.
Unfortunately her best rooms were engaged; four of the bedrooms with
the choicest view, and the one private sitting-room the inn possessed.
But if the ladies would put up with the second best, she would gladly
accommodate them. Was it but for the night? Oh, for several days!
(Again the apple face looked dubious.) Well, if the ladies would
graciously enter, and choose from what she had to offer, she would be
honored.
They did enter and presently wrote their names as Lady Mowbray, Miss
Mowbray, Miss Manchester, and maid. An hour later when the new-comers,
mother, daughter and _dame de compagnie_, sat down to a hot supper in
a bed-chamber hastily but skilfully transformed into a private
dining-room, the youngest of the three remarked to Frau Yorvan upon
the peaceful stillness of her house.
"One would think there wasn't a soul about the place except
ourselves," said she, "yet you've told us you have other guests."
"The gentlemen who are stopping here are away all day long in the
mountains," explained Frau Yorvan. "It is now the time for chamois
hunting and it is for that, and also the climbing of a strange group
of rocks called the Bunch of Needles, only to be done by great
experts, that they come to me."
"They are out late this evening. Aren't you beginning to be a little
anxious about them, if they go to such dangerous places?"
"Oh, to-night, gracious Fräulein, they will not return at all," said
the landlady, warming impulsively to the subject. "They often stop at
a kind of hut they have near the top of the mountain, to begin some
climb they may wish to undertake very early. They are much closer to
it there, you see, and it saves their wasting several hours on the
way. They are constantly in the habit of stopping at the hut, in fine
weather; but they are very considerate; they always let me know their
plans beforehand."
"If they're away so much, I think it a little selfish in them to keep
your one private sitting-room, when you might need it for others,"
remarked the girl.
"Oh, but gracious Fräulein, you must not say that!" cried the old
woman, looking as much shocked as if her young guest had broken one of
the commandments.
The girl laughed. "Why not?" she inquired. "Are the gentlemen of such
importance that they mustn't be criticized by strangers?"
Frau Yorvan was embarrassed. "They are excellent patrons of mine,
gracious Fräulein, that is all I meant," said she. "I cannot bear
that unjust things should be thought of such--good gentlemen."
"I was only joking," the girl reassured her. "We are perfectly
satisfied with this room, which you have made most comfortable.
All I care for is that the famous walks in the neighborhood shall
not be private. I may, at least, walk as much as I like and even
climb a little, I and my friend, Miss Manchester, who is a daring
mountaineer," (with this she threw a glance at the middle-aged lady in
black, who visibly started and grew wild-eyed in response) "for I
suppose that your guests have not engaged the whole Schneehorn for
their own."
The landlady's hospitable smile returned. "No, gracious Fräulein. You
are free to wander as you will, but do not, I beg you, go too far, or
attempt any climbs of real difficulty, for they are not to be done
without guides; and take care you do not stray into wild places where,
by making some movement or sound before you were seen by the hunters,
you might be mistaken for a chamois."
"Even our prowess is hardly likely to lead us into such peril as
that," laughed the girl, who seemed much more friendly and inclined
toward conversation than the two elders of the party. "But please
wake us early to-morrow morning. My friend Miss Manchester and I would
like to have breakfasted and be ready for a start by eight o'clock at
latest."
Again the placid features of the lady in black quivered; and though
she said nothing, Frau Yorvan pitied her. "Would you not wish, in any
case, to have a guide?" she asked. "I could engage you an intelligent
young man who--"
"Thank you, no," broke in the girl, decidedly. "A guide-book is
preferable to a guide, for what we mean to do. We sha'n't attempt any
places which the book says are unsafe for amateurs. But what an
excellent engraving that is over the fireplace, with the chamois horns
above it. Isn't that a portrait of your Emperor when he was a boy?"
The landlady's eyes darted to the picture. "Ach, I had meant to carry
it away," she muttered.
The girl's quick ears caught the words. "Why should you carry it away?
Don't you love the Emperor, that you would put his face out of sight?"
"Not love _Unser Leo_?" cried the old woman, horrified. "Why, we
worship him, gracious Fräulein; we would die for him, any day, all of
us mountain people--and yes, all Rhaetians, I believe. I could not
let you go back to your own land with the idea that we do not love the
noblest Emperor country ever had. As for what I said about the
portrait, I didn't know that I spoke aloud, I am so used to mumbling
to myself, since I began to grow deaf and old. But of course, I wished
it put away only because it is such a poor thing, it does _Unser Leo_
no sort of justice. You--you would not recognize him from that
picture, if you were to see him now."
With this excuse, Frau Yorvan hurried out to fetch another dish, which
she said must be ready; to cool her hot face, and to scold herself for
her stupidity, all the way down-stairs.
She was gone some time; and the girl who had, no doubt unwittingly,
occasioned the old woman's uneasiness, took advantage of her absence
to laugh, excited, happy laughter.
"Poor, transparent old dear, so pleased and proud of her great secret,
which she thinks she's keeping so well!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure she
doesn't dream that she's as easy to read as a book with big, big
print. She's in a sad fright now, lest we inconvenient foreigners
should chance upon her grand gentlemen to-morrow, recognize one of
them from the portrait, and spoil his precious incognito."
"Then--you think that _he_ is really here--in this out of the way
eyrie?" half whispered the Grand Duchess.
"I feel sure he is," answered Princess Virginia.
For a moment there was silence. Then said the Grand Duchess, with an
air of resignation, "Well, I suppose we should be glad--since we have
come to Rhaetia for the purpose of--dear me, I can scarcely bring
myself to say it."
"You may say it, since our dear old lamb of a Letitia knows all about
it, and is in with us," returned Virginia. "But--but I truly didn't
expect to find him _here_. One knows he comes sometimes; it's been in
the papers; but this time they had it that he'd gone to make a week's
visit to poor old General von Borslok at the Baths of Melina; and I
thought, before we went to Kronburg with all our pretty letters of
introduction, as he was away from the palace there, it would be
idyllic to use up the time with a visit to Alleheiligen. I don't want
you and Letitia to think that I was just making catspaws of you both,
and forcing you without knowing, to help me unearth him in his lair.
Still, as he _is_ here--"
"Perhaps he isn't," suggested the Grand Duchess. "I don't see that you
have much ground for fancying so."
"Oh, _ground_!" echoed Virginia, scornfully. "It's instinct that I go
upon, not ground. That woman's face when she saw foreign tourists at
her door, out of season, when she had a right to think she was safe
from invasion. Her stammering about the best rooms being taken; her
wish to get rid of us; her distress that she couldn't possibly do so,
without making matters worse. The way she talks of her 'four
gentlemen.' Her horror at my _lèse majesté_. Her confusion about the
portraits; her wish to impress it upon us that _Unser Leo_ is quite
changed. Instinct ought to be ashamed if it couldn't play detective as
far as that. But--of course we may not see him. If she can help it, we
won't. He won't like being run to earth by tourists, when he is
amusing himself; and perhaps the trusty landlady will send the
intelligent young guide whom I refused, to warn him, so that if he
chooses he can keep out of the way."
"I almost hope she may send," said the Grand Duchess. "I don't think
Providence wills a meeting here. You have brought no pretty dresses. I
_should_ like him to see you first when you look your best, since, to
your mind, so much depends upon his feelings in this matter."
"Our first meeting is--on the knees of the gods," murmured Virginia.
And then Frau Yorvan came into the room with a soufflé.
CHAPTER III
A CHAMOIS HUNTER
"This is perfectly appalling!" groaned the unfortunate lady who
passed, for this adventure, under the name of Miss Manchester.
"Perfectly glorious!" amended her companion.
The elder lady pressed Baedeker to her bosom, and sat down, with some
abruptness. "I shall have to stop here," she panted, "all the rest of
my life, and have my meals and my night things sent up. I'm very
sorry. But I'm certain I shall never be able to go back."
"Don't be absurd, my poor dear; we're absolutely safe," said Virginia.
"I may be a selfish wretch, but I wouldn't for the world have brought
you into danger. You needn't go down yet. Let's explore a little
further. It's easier than turning back. Surely you can go on. Baedeker
says you can. In ten minutes you'll be at the top of the _col_."
"You may as well tell me that I'll be in my grave. It amounts to the
same thing," wailed Miss Manchester, who was, in the sphere of happier
duties, Miss Letitia Portman, and had been the Princess's governess.
"I can't look down; I can't look up, because I keep thinking of the
unspeakable things behind. After I get my breath and have become
resigned to my fate, I _may_ be comparatively comfortable here, for
some years; but as to stirring either way, there's no use dreaming of
it."
"Well, you'll make an ideal hermitess," said Virginia. "You've exactly
the right features for that profession; austere, yet benevolent. But
you're not really afraid now?"
"Not so much, sitting down," admitted Miss Portman, slowly regaining
her natural color.
"Do you think then, dear, that you'd relapse and lose your head or
anything, if I just strolled on alone to the top of the _col_ for the
view which the guide-book says is so fine, and then came back to
organize a relief expedition, say in about half an hour or so?"
"No-o," said Miss Portman, "I suppose I can bear it. I may as well
accustom myself to loneliness, as I am obliged to spend my remaining
years on this spot. But I'm not at all sure the Duchess would
approve--"
"You mean Lady Mowbray. She wouldn't mind. She knows I've a good head
and--physically--a good heart. Besides, I shall have only myself to
look after. And one really doesn't need a chaperon in going to make an
early call on a mountain view."
"Dearest Princess, I'm not so sure of that, in regard to this mountain
view."
"Miss Mowbray, please. You're very subtle. But I really _haven't_ come
out to look for the Mountain View you refer to. You needn't think it.
I don't know where his lair is, but it's probably miles from here, and
if I knew I wouldn't hunt him there. That would be _un peu trop fort_;
and anyway, I'm inclined to believe that Mother is right about those
dresses. I shall have such nice ones at Kronburg! So you see you can
conscientiously give me your blessing and let me go."
"My dear! As if I could have suspected you would search for him! You
are in Rhaetia not to pursue, but to give an Emperor, who wishes to
have a certain Princess for his consort, a chance to fall in love with
herself."
"If he will--if it can be so. But what do Helen Mowbray and Letitia
Manchester know about the love affairs of emperors and princesses? _Au
revoir_, dear friend; I'm going. By and by, if you have courage to
lift your eyes, you'll see me waving a handkerchief flag at the
rock-corner up there."
Virginia took the alpenstock which she had laid down, and began
picking her way daintily yet pluckily toward the _col_ which she had
named as her goal. There was another route to it, leading on to the
highest peak of the Schneehorn, only to be dared by experienced
climbers, but the way by which the girl and her companion had set out
from Alleheiligen nearly four hours ago, was merely fatiguing, never
dangerous, and Virginia knew that Miss Portman was safe, and not half
as much frightened as she pretended.
They had started at eight, just as the September sun had begun to draw
the night chill out of the keen mountain air; and now it was close
upon twelve. The Princess was hungry.
In Nordeck, the frontier town of Rhaetia as you come in from Germany,
she had bought rücksacks for herself and Miss Portman, to be used upon
just such mountain excursions as this; and to-day the brown canvas
bags were being tested for the first time. Each rücksack stored an
adequate luncheon for its bearer, while on top, secured by straps
passed across the shoulders, lay a folded wrap to be used in case of
rain.
Virginia's burden grew heavy as she mounted, though at first its
weight had seemed trifling. When she had waved her handkerchief at the
turning, and passed out of Miss Portman's sight, it occurred to her
that it would be clever to lighten the rücksack and satisfy her
appetite at the same time.
The one difficulty was that, in her present position, she could not
safely unstrap the bag from her shoulders, open it, take out the
parcel of luncheon, and strap it on again. The way was too narrow, and
the rocks too slippery, to attempt such liberties; at a short
distance, however, and only a little out of the path to the _col_, she
could see a small green plateau, the very place for a rest. But could
she reach it? The girl stood still, and looked wistfully across.
The place could be gained only by a scramble over a ledge of
formidable rocks, and climbing in good earnest here and there, yet--if
the thing could be done at all, it could be done in ten minutes, and
to come back would be comparatively easy. Virginia was tempted.
"The dear Letitia will be eating her own lunch by this time, and won't
miss me if my half hour is a long one," she thought. "And anyway, I
said half an hour or _so_. That means almost anything, when it comes
to an argument."
Another moment, and the girl had started. She was brave at first;
but when she had gone half way--a way which was longer and far more
difficult than she had fancied--she was conscious of a certain
sinking of the heart. She even felt some qualms of sympathy with
the sentiments and intentions Miss Portman had expressed, and
heartily wished herself back by that good lady's side. But it was
against her principles to be conquered, especially when being
conquered meant turning coward, or something like it, and she
scrambled on obstinately, her cheeks burning, her heart thumping,
and her lips pressed together.
What a grim, remorseless giant the mountain was, and what a mere,
creeping fly upon its vast shoulder, she! Little cared the old
mountain that she was a Royal Princess, and that the Emperor who ruled
the land of which it was part, had the intention of marrying her. It
would thwart that imperial intention without a qualm, nor turn a
pebble if the poor little Princess toppled over its cruel shoulder and
fell in a small, crushed heap, without ever having looked upon the
face of the Rhaetian Emperor.
Then there came a later moment when, like Miss Portman, whom she had
so recently laughed to scorn, the Princess felt that she could neither
go on, nor go back. She was horribly homesick. She wanted her mother
and the garden at Hampton Court, and would hardly have thrown a glance
of interest at Leopold if he had appeared before her eyes. There were
tears in those eyes and she was hating the mountain, and all Rhaetia,
with her whole strength, when from the mysterious distance round the
corner of the plateau there came the sound of a man's voice,
cheerfully yodeling.
Never had a sound been so welcome, or seemed so sweet. It was to
Virginia as the voice of an angel. "Help!" she called. "Help!" first
in English, and then, on second thoughts, in Rhaetian.
The yodeling abruptly stopped, and a man appeared round a corner of
rock beyond the green plateau. The sun shone in his eyes, and he
shaded them with his hand to look up at her. Virginia stared,
hopefully, expectantly. A glance photographed a tall figure in a gray
coat passemoiled with green; a soft green cap of felt; short trousers;
bare knees; knitted stockings; nailed boots. Thank heaven, no tourist,
but evidently a mountain man, a guide or a chamois hunter, perhaps; at
all events, one capable of coming to her rescue. These things she saw
and thought, in a flash; and then, the brown hand that had shaded his
eyes, dropped. She caught sight of his face.
It was the Emperor.
A moment ago she had felt that she could look at him with
indifference, and would a thousand times over prefer a glimpse of the
dear old house at Hampton Court, with an easy way to reach it. But
now, everything was changed. There was no longer any danger. He was
there. He was coming to help her. A Power higher than his had arranged
this as their first encounter, and would not have taken the trouble to
bring him to her here, if the meeting were to end in ignominy or
disaster.
He had run across the plateau; now the nailed boots were ringing on
rock. She could gaze down upon his head, he was so close to her. He
was looking up. What a noble face it was! Better than all the
pictures. And the eyes--
Virginia was suddenly and wildly happy. She could have sung for joy, a
song of triumph, and losing her head a little she lost her scant
foothold as well, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the
steeply sloping rock.
If the man had not sprung forward and caught her, she would probably
have rolled over the narrow ledge on which he stood, and gone bounding
down, down the mountain side, to her death. But he did catch her, and
broke the fall, so that she landed lightly beside him, and within an
ace of being on her knees.
After all, it had been a narrow escape; but the man's arms were so
strong, and his eyes so brave, that Virginia scarcely realized the
danger she had passed. It seemed so inevitable now, that he must have
saved her, that there was room in her thoughts for no dreadful
might-have-been. Was it not the One Man sent to her by Destiny, when
if this thing had not been meant, since the hour of her birth, it
might easily have been some mere tourist, sent by Cook?
[Illustration: _She lost her scant foothold, slipped, tried to hold
on, failed, and slid down the rock_]
All her life had but led up to this moment. Under the soft hat of
green felt adorned with the beard of a chamois, was the face she
had seen in dreams. A dark, austere young face it was, with more of
Mars than Apollo in its lines, yet to her more desirable than all the
ideals of all the sculptors since the world began. He was dressed as a
chamois hunter, and there was nothing in the well-worn, almost shabby
clothes to distinguish the wearer from the type he chose to represent.
But as easily might the eagle to whom in her heart she likened him,
try to pass for a barnyard fowl, as this man for a peasant, so thought
the Princess.
CHAPTER IV
THE EAGLE'S EYRIE
So she had gone on her knees to him after all--or almost! She was glad
her mother did not know. And she hoped that he did not feel the
pulsing of the blood in her fingers, as he took her hand and lifted
her to her feet. There was shame in this tempest that swept through
her veins, because he did not share it; for to her, though this
meeting was an epoch, to him it was no more than a trivial incident.
She would have keyed his emotions to hers, if she could, but since she
had had years of preparation, he a single moment, perhaps she might
have been consoled for the disparity, could she have read his eyes.
They said, if she had known: "Is the sky raining goddesses to-day?"
Now, what were to be her first words to him? Dimly she felt, that if
she were to profit by this wonderful chance to know the man and not
the Emperor--this chance which might be lost in a few moments, unless
her wit befriended her--those words should be beyond the common. She
should be able to marshal her sentences, as a general marshals his
battalions, with a plan of campaign for each.
A spirit monitor--a match-making monitor--whispered these wise advices
in her ear; yet she was powerless to profit by them. Like a
school-girl about to be examined for a scholarship, knowing that all
the future might depend upon an hour of the present, the dire need to
be resourceful, to be brilliant, left her dumb.
How many times had she not thought of her first conversation with
Leopold of Rhaetia, planning the first words, the first looks, which
must make him know that she was different from any other girl he had
ever met! Yet here she stood, speechless, epigrams turning tail and
racing away from her like a troop of playful colts refusing to be
caught.
And so it was the Emperor who spoke before Virginia's _savoir faire_
came back.
"I hope you're not hurt?" asked the chamois hunter, in the _patois_
dear to the heart of Rhaetian mountain folk.
She had been glad before, now she was thankful that she had spent many
weeks and months in loving study of the tongue which was Leopold's. It
was not the _métier_ of a chamois hunter to speak English, though the
Emperor was said to know the language well, and she rejoiced in her
ability to answer the chamois hunter as he would be answered, keeping
up the play.
"I am hurt only in the pride that comes before a fall," she replied,
forcing a laugh. "Thank you many times for saving me."
"I feared that I frightened you, and made you lose your footing," the
chamois hunter answered.
"I think on the contrary, if it hadn't been for you I should have lost
my life," said Virginia. "There should be a sign put up on that
tempting plateau, 'All except suicides beware.'"
"The necessity never occurred to us, my mates and me," returned the
man in the gray coat, passemoiled with green. "Until you came, gna'
Fräulein, no tourist that I know of, has found it tempting."
Virginia's eyes lit with a sudden spark. The spirit monitor--that
match-making monitor--came back and dared her to a frolic, such a
frolic, she thought, as no girl on earth had ever had, or would have,
after her. And she could show this grave, soldier-hero of hers,
something new in life--something quite new, which it would not harm
him to know. Then, let come what would out of this adventure, at worst
she should always have an Olympian episode to remember.
"Until _I_ came?" she caught up his words, standing carefully on the
spot where he had placed her. "But I am no tourist; I am an explorer."
He lifted level, dark eyebrows, smiling faintly. And when he smiled,
half his austerity was gone.
So beautiful a girl as this need not rise beyond agreeable
commonplaceness of mind and speech to please a man; indeed, this
particular chamois hunter expected no more than good looks, a good
heart and a nice manner, from women. Yet this beauty bade fair, it
seemed, to hold surprises in reserve.
"I have brought down noble game to-day," he said to himself; and
aloud; "I know the Schneehorn well, and love it well. Still I can't
see what rewards it has for the explorer. Unless, gna' Fräulein, you
are a climber or a geologist."
"I'm neither; yet I think I have seen something, a most rare thing,
I've wanted all my life to see."
The young man's face confessed curiosity. "Indeed? A rare thing that
lives here on the mountain?"
"I am not sure if it lives here. I should like to find out," replied
the girl.
"Might one inquire the name of this rare thing?" asked the chamois
hunter. "Perhaps, if I knew, it might turn out that I could help you
in the search. But first, if you'd let me lead you to the plateau,
where I think you were going? Here, your head might still grow a
little giddy, and it's not well to keep you standing, gna' Fräulein,
on such a spot. You've passed all the worst now. The rest is easy."
She gave him her hand, pleasing herself by fancying the act a kind of
allegory, as she let him lead her to safe and pleasant places, on a
higher, sunnier level.
"Perhaps the rare thing grows here," the chamois hunter went on,
looking about the green plateau with a new interest.
"I think not," Virginia answered, shaking her head. "It would thrive
better nearer the mountain top, in a more hidden place than this. It
does not love tourists."
"Nor do I, in truth," smiled the chamois hunter.
"You took me for one."
"Pardon, gna' Fräulein. Not the kind of tourist we both mean."
"Thank you."
"But you have not said if I might help you in your search. This is a
wild region for a young lady to be exploring in, alone."
"I feel sure," responded the Princess, graciously, "that if you really
would, you could help me as well as any one in Rhaetia."
"You are kind indeed to say so, though I don't know how I have
deserved the compliment."
"Did it sound like a compliment? Well, leave it so. I meant, because
you are at home in these high altitudes; and the rare thing I speak of
is a plant that grows in high places. It is said to be found only in
Rhaetian mountains, though I have never heard of any one who has been
able to track it down."
"Is it our pink Rhaetian edelweiss of which we are so proud? Because
if it is, and you will trust me, I know exactly where to take you, to
find it. With my help, you could climb there from here in a few
moments."
She shook her head again, smiling inscrutably. "Thank you, it's not
the pink edelweiss. The scientific, the esoteric name, I've promised
that I'll tell to no one; but the common people in my native country,
who have heard of it, would call the plant _Edelmann_."
"You have already seen it on the mountain, but not growing?"
"Some chamois hunter, like yourself, had dropped it, perhaps, not
knowing what its value was. It's a great deal to have had one
glimpse--worth running into danger for."
"Perhaps, gna' Fräulein, you don't realize to the full the danger you
did run. No chance was worth it, believe me."
"You--a chamois hunter--say that."
"But I'm a man. You are a woman; and women should keep to beaten paths
and safety."
The Princess laughed. "I shouldn't wonder," said she, "if that's a
Rhaetian theory--a Rhaetian _man's_ theory. I've heard, your Emperor
holds it."
"Who told you that, gna' Fräulein?" He gave her a sharp glance, but
her gray eyes looked innocent of guile, and were therefore at their
most dangerous.
"Oh, many people have told me. Cats may look at kings, and the most
insignificant persons may talk of Emperors. I've heard many things of
yours."
"Good things or bad?"
"No doubt such things as he truly deserves. Now can you guess which?
But perhaps I would tell you without your guessing, if I were not so
very, very hungry." She glanced at the pocket of his coat, from which
protruded a generous hunch of black bread and ham--thrust in probably,
at the instant when she had called for help. "I can't help seeing that
you have your luncheon with you. Do you want it all," (she carefully
ignored the contents of her rücksack, which she could not well have
forgotten) "or--would you share it?"
The chamois hunter looked surprised, though
|
Black Pigments and Paints--Oil
Varnishes--Linseed Oil--Turpentine.
IRON-CORROSION, ANTI-FOULING AND ANTI-CORROSIVE PAINTS. Translated from
the German of LOUIS EDGAR ANDÉS. Sixty-two Illustrations. 275 pp. Demy
8vo. 1900. Price 10s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 11s.; Other Countries,
12s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Iron-rust and its Formation--Protection from Rusting by Paint--
Grounding the Iron with Linseed Oil, etc.--Testing Paints--Use of Tar
for Painting on Iron--Anti-corrosive Paints--Linseed Varnish--Chinese
Wood Oil--Lead Pigments--Iron Pigments--Artificial Iron Oxides--
Carbon--Preparation of Anti-corrosive Paints--Results of Examination
of Several Anti-corrosive Paints--Paints for Ship's Bottoms--
Anti-fouling Compositions--Various Anti-corrosive and Ship's Paints--
Official Standard Specifications for Ironwork Paints--Index.
THE TESTING AND VALUATION OF RAW MATERIALS USED IN PAINT AND COLOUR
MANUFACTURE. By M. W. JONES, F.C.S. A Book for the Laboratories of Colour
Works. 88 pp. Crown 8vo. 1900. Price 5s.; India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.;
Other Countries, 6s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Aluminium Compounds--China Clay--Iron Compounds--Potassium Compounds--
Sodium Compounds--Ammonium Hydrate--Acids--Chromium Compounds--Tin
Compounds--Copper Compounds--Lead Compounds--Zinc Compounds--Manganese
Compounds--Arsenic Compounds--Antimony Compounds--Calcium Compounds--
Barium Compounds--Cadmium Compounds--Mercury Compounds--Ultramarine--
Cobalt and Carbon Compounds--Oils--Index.
STUDENTS' MANUAL OF PAINTS, COLOURS, OILS AND VARNISHES. By JOHN FURNELL.
Crown 8vo. 12 Illustrations. 96 pp. 1903. Price 2s. 6d.; Abroad, 3s.;
strictly net.
Contents.
Plant--Chromes--Blues--Greens--Earth Colours--Blacks--Reds--Lakes--
Whites--Painters' Oils--Turpentine--Oil Varnishes--Spirit Varnishes--
Liquid Paints--Enamel Paints.
Varnishes and Drying Oils.
THE MANUFACTURE OF VARNISHES, OIL REFINING AND BOILING, AND KINDRED
INDUSTRIES. Translated from the French of ACH. LIVACHE, Ingénieur Civil
des Mines. Greatly Extended and Adapted to English Practice, with numerous
Original Recipes by JOHN GEDDES MCINTOSH. 27 Illustrations. 400 pp. Demy
8vo. 1899. Price 12s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 13s. 6d.; Other Countries,
15s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Resins--Solvents: Natural, Artificial, Manufacture, Storage, Special
Use--Colouring: Principles, Vegetable, Coal Tar, Coloured Resinates,
Coloured Oleates and Linoleates--Gum Running: Melting Pots, Mixing
Pans--Spirit Varnish Manufacture: Cold Solution Plant, Mechanical
Agitators, Storage Plant--Manufacture, Characteristics and Uses of the
Spirit Varnishes--Manufacture of Varnish Stains--Manufacture of
Lacquers--Manufacture of Spirit Enamels--Analysis of Spirit
Varnishes--Physical and Chemical Constants of Resins--Table of
Solubility of Resins in different Menstrua--Systematic qualitative
Analysis of Resins, Hirschop's tables--Drying Oils--Oil Refining:
Processes--Oil Boiling--Driers--Liquid Driers--Solidified Boiled
Oil--Manufacture of Linoleum--Manufacture of India Rubber
Substitutes--Printing Ink Manufacture--Lithographic Ink Manufacture--
Manufacture of Oil Varnishes--Running and Special Treatment of Amber,
Copal, Kauri, Manilla--Addition of Oil to Resin--Addition of Resin to
Oil--Mixed Processes--Solution in Cold of previously Fused Resin--
Dissolving Resins in Oil, etc., under pressure--Filtration--
Clarification--Storage--Ageing--Coachmakers' Varnishes and Japans--Oak
Varnishes--Japanners' Stoving Varnishes--Japanners' Gold Size--
Brunswick Black--Various Oil Varnishes--Oil-Varnish Stains--Varnishes
for "Enamels"--India Rubber Varnishes--Varnishes Analysis: Processes,
Matching--Faults in Varnishes: Cause, Prevention--Experiments and
Exercises.
DRYING OILS, BOILED OIL AND SOLID AND LIQUID DRIERS. By L. E. ANDÉS.
Expressly Written for this Series of Special Technical Books, and the
Publishers hold the Copyright for English and Foreign Editions. Forty-two
Illustrations. 342 pp. 1901. Demy 8vo. Price 12s. 6d.; India and Colonies,
13s. 6d.; Other Countries, 15s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Properties of the Drying Oils; Cause of the Drying Property;
Absorption of Oxygen; Behaviour towards Metallic Oxides, etc.--The
Properties of and Methods for obtaining the Drying Oils--Production of
the Drying Oils by Expression and Extraction; Refining and Bleaching;
Oil Cakes and Meal; The Refining and Bleaching of the Drying Oils; The
Bleaching of Linseed Oil--The Manufacture of Boiled Oil; The
Preparation of Drying Oils for Use in the Grinding of Paints and
Artists' Colours and in the Manufacture of Varnishes by Heating over a
Fire or by Steam, by the Cold Process, by the Action of Air, and by
Means of the Electric Current; The Driers used in Boiling Linseed Oil;
The Manufacture of Boiled Oil and the Apparatus therefor; Livache's
Process for Preparing a Good Drying Oil and its Practical
Application--The Preparation of Varnishes for Letterpress,
Lithographic and Copperplate Printing, for Oilcloth and Waterproof
Fabrics; The Manufacture of Thickened Linseed Oil, Burnt Oil, Stand
Oil by Fire Heat, Superheated Steam, and by a Current of Air--
Behaviour of the Drying Oils and Boiled Oils towards Atmospheric
Influences, Water, Acids and Alkalies--Boiled Oil Substitutes--The
Manufacture of Solid and Liquid Driers from Linseed Oil and Rosin;
Linolic Acid Compounds of the Driers--The Adulteration and Examination
of the Drying Oils and Boiled Oil.
Oils, Fats, Soaps and Perfumes.
LUBRICATING OILS, FATS AND GREASES: Their Origin, Preparation, Properties,
Uses and Analyses. A Handbook for Oil Manufacturers, Refiners and
Merchants, and the Oil and Fat Industry in General. By GEORGE H. HURST,
F.C.S. Second Revised and Enlarged Edition. Sixty-five Illustrations. 317
pp. Demy 8vo. 1902. Price 10s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 11s.; Other
Countries. 12s. strictly net.
Contents.
Introductory--Hydrocarbon Oils--Scotch Shale Oils--Petroleum--
Vegetable and Animal Oils--Testing and Adulteration of Oils--
Lubricating Greases--Lubrication--Appendices--Index.
TECHNOLOGY OF PETROLEUM: Oil Fields of the World--Their History, Geography
and Geology--Annual Production and Development--Oil-well
Drilling--Transport. By HENRY NEUBERGER and HENRY NOALHAT. Translated from
the French by J. G. MCINTOSH. 550 pp. 153 Illustrations. 26 Plates. Super
Royal 8vo. 1901. Price 21s.; India and Colonies, 22s.; Other Countries,
23s. 6d.; strictly net.
Contents.
Study of the Petroliferous Strata--Petroleum--Definition--The Genesis
or Origin of Petroleum--The Oil Fields of Galicia, their History--
Physical Geography and Geology of the Galician Oil Fields--Practical
Notes on Galician Land Law--Economic Hints on Working, etc.--
Roumania--History, Geography, Geology--Petroleum in Russia--History--
Russian Petroleum (_continued_)--Geography and Geology of the
Caucasian Oil Fields--Russian Petroleum (_continued_)--The Secondary
Oil Fields of Europe, Northern Germany, Alsace, Italy, etc.--Petroleum
in France--Petroleum in Asia--Transcaspian and Turkestan Territory--
Turkestan--Persia--British India and Burmah--British Burmah or Lower
Burmah--China--Chinese Thibet--Japan, Formosa and Saghalien--Petroleum
in Oceania--Sumatra, Java, Borneo--Isle of Timor--Philippine Isles--
New Zealand--The United States of America--History--Physical Geology
and Geography of the United States Oil Fields--Canadian and other
North American Oil Fields--Economic Data of Work in North America--
Petroleum in the West Indies and South America--Petroleum in the
French Colonies.
Excavations--Hand Excavation or Hand Digging of Oil Wells.
Methods of Boring.
Accidents--Boring Accidents--Methods of preventing them--Methods of
remedying them--Explosives and the use of the "Torpedo" Levigation--
Storing and Transport of Petroleum--General Advice--Prospecting,
Management and carrying on of Petroleum Boring Operations.
General Data--Customary Formulæ--Memento. Practical Part. General Data
bearing on Petroleum--Glossary of Technical Terms used in the
Petroleum Industry--Copious Index.
THE PRACTICAL COMPOUNDING OF OILS, TALLOW AND GREASE FOR LUBRICATION, ETC.
By AN EXPERT OIL REFINER. 100 pp. 1898. Demy 8vo. Price 7s. 6d.; India and
Colonies, 8s.; Other Countries, 8s. 6d.; strictly net.
Contents.
Introductory Remarks on the General Nomenclature of Oils, Tallow and
Greases suitable for Lubrication--Hydrocarbon Oils--Animal and Fish
Oils--Compound Oils--Vegetable Oils--Lamp Oils--Engine Tallow,
Solidified Oils and Petroleum Jelly--Machinery Greases: Loco and
Anti-friction--Clarifying and Utilisation of Waste Fats, Oils, Tank
Bottoms, Drainings of Barrels and Drums, Pickings Up, Dregs, etc.--The
Fixing and Cleaning of Oil Tanks, etc.--Appendix and General
Information.
ANIMAL FATS AND OILS: Their Practical Production, Purification and Uses
for a great Variety of Purposes. Their Properties, Falsification and
Examination. Translated from the German of LOUIS EDGAR ANDÉS. Sixty-two
Illustrations. 240 pp. 1898. Demy 8vo. Price 10s. 6d.; India and Colonies,
11s.; Other Countries, 12s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Introduction--Occurrence, Origin, Properties and Chemical Constitution
of Animal Fats--Preparation of Animal Fats and Oils--Machinery--
Tallow-melting Plant--Extraction Plant--Presses--Filtering Apparatus--
Butter: Raw Material and Preparation, Properties, Adulterations, Beef
Lard or Remelted Butter, Testing--Candle-fish Oil--Mutton-Tallow--Hare
Fat--Goose Fat--Neatsfoot Oil--Bone Fat: Bone Boiling, Steaming Bones,
Extraction, Refining--Bone Oil--Artificial Butter: Oleomargarine,
Margarine Manufacture in France, Grasso's Process, "Kaiser's Butter,"
Jahr & Münzberg's Method, Filbert's Process, Winter's Method--Human
Fat--Horse Fat--Beef Marrow--Turtle Oil--Hog's Lard: Raw Material--
Preparation, Properties, Adulterations, Examination--Lard Oil--Fish
Oils--Liver Oils--Artificial Train Oil--Wool Fat: Properties, Purified
Wool Fat--Spermaceti: Examination of Fats and Oils in General.
THE OIL MERCHANTS' MANUAL AND OIL TRADE READY RECKONER. Compiled by FRANK
F. SHERRIFF. Second Edition Revised and Enlarged. Demy 8vo. 214 pp. 1904.
With Two Sheets of Tables. Price 7s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 8s.; Other
Countries, 8s. 6d.; strictly net.
Contents.
Trade Terms and Customs--Tables to Ascertain Value of Oil sold per
cwt. or ton--Specific Gravity Tables--Percentage Tare Tables--
Petroleum Tables--Paraffine and Benzoline Calculations--Customary
Drafts--Tables for Calculating Allowance for Dirt, Water, etc.--
Capacity of Circular Tanks Tables, etc., etc.
THE CHEMISTRY OF ESSENTIAL OILS AND ARTIFICIAL PERFUMES. By ERNEST J.
PARRY, B.Sc. (Lond.), F.I.C., F.C.S. 411 pp. 20 Illustrations. 1899. Demy
8vo. Price 12s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 13s. 6d.; Other Countries, 15s.;
strictly net.
Contents.
The General Properties of Essential Oils--Compounds occurring in
Essential Oils--The Preparation of Essential Oils--The Analysis of
Essential Oils--Systematic Study of the Essential Oils--Terpeneless
Oils--The Chemistry of Artificial Perfumes--Appendix: Table of
Constants--Index.
VEGETABLE FATS AND OILS: Their Practical Preparation, Purification and
Employment for Various Purposes, their Properties, Adulteration and
Examination. Translated from the German of LOUIS EDGAR ANDÉS. Ninety-four
Illustrations. 340 pp. Second Edition. 1902. Demy 8vo. Price 10s. 6d.;
India and Colonies, 11s.; Other Countries, 12s.; strictly net.
Contents.
General Properties--Estimation of the Amount of Oil in Seeds--The
Preparation of Vegetable Fats and Oils--Apparatus for Grinding Oil
Seeds and Fruits--Installation of Oil and Fat Works--Extraction Method
of Obtaining Oils and Fats--Oil Extraction Installations--Press
Moulds--Non-drying Vegetable Oils--Vegetable drying Oils--Solid
Vegetable Fats--Fruits Yielding Oils and Fats--Wool-softening Oils--
Soluble Oils--Treatment of the Oil after Leaving the Press--Improved
Methods of Refining--Bleaching Fats and Oils--Practical Experiments on
the Treatment of Oils with regard to Refining and Bleaching--Testing
Oils and Fats.
SOAPS. A Practical Manual of the Manufacture of Domestic, Toilet and other
Soaps. By GEORGE H. HURST, F.C.S. 390 pp. 66 Illustrations. 1898. Price
12s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 13s. 6d.; Other Countries, 15s.; strictly
net.
Contents.
Introductory--Soap-maker's Alkalies--Soap Fats and Oils--Perfumes--
Water as a Soap Material--Soap Machinery--Technology of Soap-making--
Glycerine in Soap Lyes--Laying out a Soap Factory--Soap Analysis--
Appendices.
Textile Soaps.
TEXTILE SOAPS AND OILS. Handbook on the Preparation, Properties and
Analysis of the Soaps and Oils used in Textile Manufacturing, Dyeing and
Printing. By GEORGE H. HURST, F.C.S. Crown 8vo. 195 pp. 1904. Price 5s.;
India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.; Other Countries, 6s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Methods of Making Soaps--Hard Soap--Soft Soap. Special Textile Soaps--
Wool Soaps--Calico Printers' Soaps--Dyers' Soaps. Relation of Soap to
Water for Industrial Purposes--Treating Waste Soap Liquors--Boiled Off
Liquor--Calico Printers' and Dyers' Soap Liquors--Soap Analysis--Fat
in Soap.
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE OILS AND FATS--Tallow--Lard--Bone Grease--Tallow
Oil. Vegetable Soap, Oils and Fats--Palm Oil--Coco-nut Oil--Olive
Oil--Cottonseed Oil--Linseed Oil--Castor Oil--Corn Oil--Whale Oil or
Train Oil--Repe Oil.
GLYCERINE.
TEXTILE OILS--Oleic Acid--Blended Wool Oils--Oils for Cotton Dyeing,
Printing and Finishing--Turkey Red Oil--Alizarine Oil--Oleine--Oxy
Turkey Red Oils--Soluble Oil--Analysis of Turkey Red Oil--Finisher's
Soluble Oil--Finisher's Soap Softening--Testing and Adulteration of
Oils--Index.
Cosmetical Preparations.
COSMETICS: MANUFACTURE, EMPLOYMENT AND TESTING OF ALL COSMETIC MATERIALS
AND COSMETIC SPECIALITIES. Translated from the German of Dr. THEODOR
KOLLER. Crown 8vo. 262 pp. 1902. Price 5s.; India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.;
Other Countries, 6s. net.
Contents.
Purposes and Uses of, and Ingredients used in the Preparation of
Cosmetics--Preparation of Perfumes by Pressure, Distillation,
Maceration, Absorption or Enfleurage, and Extraction Methods--Chemical
and Animal Products used in the Preparation of Cosmetics--Oils and
Fats used in the Preparation of Cosmetics--General Cosmetic
Preparations--Mouth Washes and Tooth Pastes--Hair Dyes, Hair Restorers
and Depilatories--Cosmetic Adjuncts and Specialities--Colouring
Cosmetic Preparations--Antiseptic Washes and Soaps--Toilet and
Hygienic Soaps--Secret Preparations for Skin, Complexion, Teeth,
Mouth, etc.--Testing and Examining the Materials Employed in the
Manufacture of Cosmetics--Index.
Glue, Bone Products and Manures.
GLUE AND GLUE TESTING. By SAMUEL RIDEAL, D.SC. (Lond.), F.I.C. Fourteen
Engravings. 144 pp. Demy 8vo. 1900. Price 10s. 6d.; India and Colonies,
11s.; Other Countries, 12s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Constitution and Properties: Definitions and Sources, Gelatine,
Chondrin and Allied Bodies, Physical and Chemical Properties,
Classification, Grades and Commercial Varieties--Raw Materials and
Manufacture: Glue Stock, Lining, Extraction, Washing and Clarifying,
Filter Presses, Water Supply, Use of Alkalies, Action of Bacteria and
of Antiseptics, Various Processes, Cleansing, Forming, Drying,
Crushing, etc., Secondary Products--Uses of Glue: Selection and
Preparation for Use, Carpentry, Veneering, Paper-Making, Bookbinding,
Printing Rollers, Hectographs, Match Manufacture, Sandpaper, etc.,
Substitutes for other Materials, Artificial Leather and Caoutchouc--
Gelatine: General Characters, Liquid Gelatine, Photographic Uses,
Size, Tanno-, Chrome and Formo-Gelatine, Artificial Silk, Cements,
Pneumatic Tyres, Culinary, Meat Extracts, Isinglass, Medicinal and
other Uses, Bacteriology--Glue Testing: Review of Processes, Chemical
Examination, Adulteration, Physical Tests, Valuation of Raw
Materials--Commercial Aspects.
BONE PRODUCTS AND MANURES: An Account of the most recent Improvements in
the Manufacture of Fat, Glue, Animal Charcoal, Size, Gelatine and Manures.
By THOMAS LAMBERT, Technical and Consulting Chemist. Illustrated by
Twenty-one Plans and Diagrams. 162 pp. Demy 8vo. 1901. Price 7s. 6d.;
India and Colonies, 8s.; Other Countries, 8s. 6d.; strictly net.
Contents.
Chemical Composition of Bones--Arrangement of Factory--Properties of
Glue--Glutin and Chondrin--Skin Glue--Liming of Skins--Washing--
Boiling of Skins--Clarification of Glue Liquors--Glue-Boiling and
Clarifying-House--Specification of a Glue--Size--Uses and Preparation
and Composition of Size--Concentrated Size--Properties of Gelatine--
Preparation of Skin Gelatine--Drying--Bone Gelatine--Selecting Bones--
Crushing--Dissolving--Bleaching--Boiling--Properties of Glutin and
Chondrin--Testing of Glues and Gelatines--The Uses of Glue, Gelatine
and Size in Various Trades--Soluble and Liquid Glues--Steam and
Waterproof Glues--Manures--Importation of Food Stuffs--Soils--
Germination--Plant Life--Natural Manures--Water and Nitrogen in
Farmyard Manure--Full Analysis of Farmyard Manure--Action on Crops--
Water-Closet System--Sewage Manure--Green Manures--Artificial
Manures--Mineral Manures--Nitrogenous Matters--Shoddy--Hoofs and
Horns--Leather Waste--Dried Meat--Dried Blood--Superphosphates--
Composition--Manufacture--Common Raw Bones--Degreased Bones--Crude
Fat--Refined Fat--Degelatinised Bones--Animal Charcoal--Bone
Superphosphates--Guanos--Dried Animal Products--Potash Compounds--
Sulphate of Ammonia--Extraction in Vacuo--French and British Gelatines
compared--Index.
Chemicals, Waste Products and Agricultural Chemistry.
REISSUE OF CHEMICAL ESSAYS OF C. W. SCHEELE. First Published in English in
1786. Translated from the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, with
Additions. 300 pp. Demy 8vo. 1901. Price 5s.; India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.;
Other Countries, 6s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Memoir: C. W. Scheele and his work (written for this edition by J. G.
McIntosh)--On Fluor Mineral and its Acid--On Fluor Mineral--Chemical
Investigation of Fluor Acid, with a View to the Earth which it Yields,
by Mr. Wiegler--Additional Information Concerning Fluor Minerals--On
Manganese, Magnesium, or Magnesia Vitrariorum--On Arsenic and its
Acid--Remarks upon Salts of Benzoin--On Silex, Clay and Alum--Analysis
of the Calculus Vesical--Method of Preparing Mercurius Dulcis Via
Humida--Cheaper and more Convenient Method of Preparing Pulvis
Algarothi--Experiments upon Molybdæna--Experiments on Plumbago--Method
of Preparing a New Green Colour--Of the Decomposition of Neutral Salts
by Unslaked Lime and Iron--On the Quantity of Pure Air which is Daily
Present in our Atmosphere--On Milk and its Acid--On the Acid of
Saccharum Lactis--On the Constituent Parts of Lapis Ponderosus or
Tungsten--Experiments and Observations on Ether--Index.
THE MANUFACTURE OF ALUM AND THE SULPHATES AND OTHER SALTS OF ALUMINA AND
IRON. Their Uses and Applications as Mordants in Dyeing and Calico
Printing, and their other Applications in the Arts, Manufactures, Sanitary
Engineering, Agriculture and Horticulture. Translated from the French of
LUCIEN GESCHWIND. 195 Illustrations. 400 pp. Royal 8vo. 1901. Price 12s.
6d.; India and Colonies, 13s. 6d.; Other Countries, 15s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Theoretical Study of Aluminium, Iron, and Compounds of these Metals--
Aluminium and its Compounds--Iron and Iron Compounds.
Manufacture of Aluminium Sulphates and Sulphates of Iron--Manufacture
of Aluminium Sulphate and the Alums--Manufacture of Sulphates of Iron.
Uses of the Sulphates of Aluminium and Iron--Uses of Aluminium
Sulphate and Alums--Application to Wool and Silk--Preparing and using
Aluminium Acetates--Employment of Aluminium Sulphate in Carbonising
Wool--The Manufacture of Lake Pigments--Manufacture of Prussian Blue--
Hide and Leather Industry--Paper Making--Hardening Plaster--Lime
Washes--Preparation of Non-inflammable Wood, etc.--Purification of
Waste Waters--Uses and Applications of Ferrous Sulphate and Ferric
Sulphates--Dyeing--Manufacture of Pigments--Writing Inks--Purification
of Lighting Gas--Agriculture--Cotton Dyeing--Disinfectant--Purifying
Waste Liquors--Manufacture of Nordhausen Sulphuric Acid--Fertilising.
Chemical Characteristics of Iron and Aluminium--Analysis of Various
Aluminous or Ferruginous Products--Aluminium--Analysing Aluminium
Products--Alunite Alumina--Sodium Aluminate--Aluminium Sulphate--
Iron--Analytical Characteristics of Iron Salts--Analysis of Pyritic
Lignite--Ferrous and Ferric Sulphates--Rouil Mordant--Index.
AMMONIA AND ITS COMPOUNDS: Their Manufacture and Uses. By CAMILLE VINCENT,
Professor at the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, Paris.
Translated from the French by M. J. SALTER. Royal 8vo. 114 pp. 1901.
Thirty-two Illustrations. Price 5s.; India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.; Other
Countries, 6s.; strictly net.
Contents.
General Considerations: Various Sources of Ammoniacal Products; Human
Urine as a Source of Ammonia--Extraction of Ammoniacal Products from
Sewage--Extraction of Ammonia from Gas Liquor--Manufacture of
Ammoniacal Compounds from Bones, Nitrogenous Waste, Beetroot Wash and
Peat--Manufacture of Caustic Ammonia, and Ammonium Chloride, Phosphate
and Carbonate--Recovery of Ammonia from the Ammonia-Soda Mother
Liquors--Index.
ANALYSIS OF RESINS AND BALSAMS. Translated from the German of Dr. KARL
DIETERICH. Demy 8vo. 340 pp. 1901. Price 7s. 6d.; India and Colonies, 8s.;
Other Countries, 8s. 6d.; strictly net.
Contents.
Definition of Resins in General--Definition of Balsams, and especially
the Gum Resins--External and Superficial Characteristics of Resinous
Bodies--Distinction between Resinous Bodies and Fats and Oils--Origin,
Occurrence and Collection of Resinous Substances--Classification--
Chemical Constituents of Resinous Substances--Resinols--Resinot
Annols--Behaviour of Resin Constituents towards the Cholesterine
Reactions--Uses and Identification of Resins--Melting-point--
Solvents--Acid Value--Saponification Value--Resin Value--Ester and
Ether Values--Acetyl and Corbonyl Value--Methyl Value--Resin Acid--
Systematic Résumé of the Performance of the Acid and Saponification
Value Tests.
Balsams--Introduction--Definitions--Canada Balsam--Copaiba Balsam--
Angostura Copaiba Balsam--Babia Copaiba Balsam--Carthagena Copaiba
Balsam--Maracaibo Copaiba Balsam--Maturin Copaiba Balsam--Gurjum
Copaiba Balsam--Para Copaiba Balsam--Surinam Copaiba Balsam--West
African Copaiba Balsam--Mecca Balsam--Peruvian Balsam--Tolu Balsam--
Acaroid Resin--Amine--Amber--African and West Indian Kino--Bengal
Kino--Labdanum--Mastic--Pine Resin--Sandarach--Scammonium--Shellac--
Storax--Adulteration of Styrax Liquidus Crudus--Purified Storax--
Styrax Crudus Colatus--Tacamahac--Thapsia Resin--Turpentine--Chios
Turpentine--Strassburg Turpentine--Turpeth Turpentine. Gum Resins--
Ammoniacum--Bdellium--Euphorbium--Galbanum--Gamboge--Lactucarium--
Myrrh--Opopanax--Sagapenum--Olibanum or Incense--Acaroid Resin--
Amber--Thapsia Resin--Index.
MANUAL OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. By HERBERT INGLE, F.I.C., Lecturer on
Agricultural Chemistry, the Yorkshire College; Lecturer in the Victoria
University. 388 pp. 11 Illustrations. 1902. Demy 8vo. Price 7s. 6d.; India
and Colonies, 8s.; Other Countries, 8s. 6d. net.
Contents.
Introduction--The Atmosphere--The Soil--The Reactions occurring in
Soils--The Analysis of Soils--Manures, Natural--Manures (continued)--
The Analysis of Manures--The Constituents of Plants--The Plant--
Crops--The Animal--Foods and Feeding--Milk and Milk Products--The
Analysis of Milk and Milk Products--Miscellaneous Products used in
Agriculture--Appendix--Index.
THE UTILISATION OF WASTE PRODUCTS. A Treatise on the Rational Utilisation,
Recovery and Treatment of Waste Products of all kinds. By Dr. THEODOR
KOLLER. Translated from the Second Revised German Edition. Twenty-two
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 280 pp. 1902. Price 7s. 6d.; India and Colonies,
8s.; Other Countries, 8s. 6d.; strictly net.
Contents.
The Waste of Towns--Ammonia and Sal-Ammoniac--Rational Processes for
Obtaining these Substances by Treating Residues and Waste--Residues in
the Manufacture of Aniline Dyes--Amber Waste--Brewers' Waste--Blood
and Slaughter-House Refuse--Manufactured Fuels--Waste Paper and
Bookbinders' Waste--Iron Slags--Excrement--Colouring Matters from
Waste--Dyers' Waste Waters--Fat from Waste--Fish Waste--Calamine
Sludge--Tannery Waste--Gold and Silver Waste--India-rubber and
Caoutchouc Waste--Residues in the Manufacture of Rosin Oil--Wood
Waste--Horn Waste--Infusorial Earth--Iridium from Goldsmiths'
Sweepings--Jute Waste--Cork Waste--Leather Waste--Glue Makers'
Waste--Illuminating Gas from Waste and the By-Products of the
Manufacture of Coal Gas--Meerschum--Molasses--Metal Waste--By-Products
in the Manufacture of Mineral Waters--Fruit--The By-Products of Paper
and Paper Pulp Works--By-Products in the Treatment of Coal Tar Oils--
Fur Waste--The Waste Matter in the Manufacture of Parchment Paper--
Mother of Pearl Waste--Petroleum Residues--Platinum Residues--Broken
Porcelain. Earthenware and Glass--Salt Waste--Slate Waste--Sulphur--
Burnt Pyrites--Silk Waste--Soap Makers' Waste--Alkali Waste and the
Recovery of Soda--Waste Produced in Grinding Mirrors--Waste Products
in the Manufacture of Starch--Stearic Acid--Vegetable Ivory Waste--
Turf--Waste Waters of Cloth Factories--Wine Residues--Tinplate Waste--
Wool Waste--Wool Sweat--The Waste Liquids from Sugar Works--Index.
Writing Inks and Sealing Waxes.
INK MANUFACTURE: Including Writing, Copying, Lithographic, Marking,
Stamping, and Laundry Inks. By SIGMUND LEHNER. Three Illustrations. Crown
8vo. 162 pp. 1902. Translated from the German of the Fifth Edition. Price
5s.; India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.; Other Countries, 6s.; net.
Contents.
Varieties of Ink--Writing Inks--Raw Materials of Tannin Inks--The
Chemical Constitution of the Tannin Inks--Recipes for Tannin Inks--
Logwood Tannin Inks--Ferric Inks--Alizarine Inks--Extract Inks--
Logwood Inks--Copying Inks--Hektographs--Hektograph Inks--Safety
Inks--Ink Extracts and Powders--Preserving Inks--Changes in Ink and
the Restoration of Faded Writing--Coloured Inks--Red Inks--Blue
Inks--Violet Inks--Yellow Inks--Green Inks--Metallic Inks--Indian
Ink--Lithographic Inks and Pencils--Ink Pencils--Marking Inks--Ink
Specialities--Sympathetic Inks--Stamping Inks--Laundry or Washing
Blue--Index.
SEALING-WAXES, WAFERS AND OTHER ADHESIVES FOR THE HOUSEHOLD, OFFICE,
WORKSHOP AND FACTORY. By H. C. STANDAGE. Crown 8vo. 96 pp. 1902. Price
5s.; India and Colonies, 5s. 6d.; Other Countries, 6s.; strictly net.
Contents.
Materials Used for Making Sealing-Waxes--The Manufacture of
Sealing-Waxes--Wafers--Notes on the Nature of the Materials Used in
Making Adhesive Compounds--Cements for Use in the Household--Office
Gums, Pastes and Mucilages--Adhesive Compounds for Factory and
Workshop Use.
Lead Ores and Compounds.
LEAD AND ITS COMPOUNDS. By THOS. LAMBERT, Technical and Consulting
Chemist. Demy 8vo. 226 pp. Forty Illustrations. 1902. Price 7s. 6d.; India
and Colonies, 8s.; Other Countries, 8s. 6d.; net. Plans and Diagrams.
Contents.
History--Ores of Lead--Geographical Distribution of the Lead
Industry--Chemical and Physical Properties of Lead--Alloys of Lead--
Compounds of Lead--Dressing of Lead Ores--Smelting of Lead Ores--
Smelting in the Scotch or American Ore-hearth--Smelting in the Shaft
or Blast Furnace--Condensation of Lead Fume--Desilverisation, or the
|
of the century, the embodiment of all the force of that
movement--a movement marked by very earnest piety and a somewhat unusual
combination of emotionalism and asceticism. It was founded by a group of
devoted men sprung from the upper-middle class; and chief among them was
M. Olier, a man justly celebrated for his saintly life. He was appointed
in 1642 to the parish of St. Sulpice when it was noted as the most
depraved quarter of Paris. He labored unremittingly and very
successfully to reform this unpromising flock, and the young priests who
were associated with him in his task constituted the nucleus of the
seminary and community of St. Sulpice. The necessary building to house
the institution, to the establishment of which Monsieur Olier gave
himself with highest enthusiasm, was completed in 1652--a square edifice
capable of receiving one hundred inmates. This became the center of a
most wholesome and inspiring activity.
The founder had a very high ideal of sacerdotal character. He would not
admit any who embraced the sacred calling from considerations of
ambition or expediency, and those admitted were subjected to the
sharpest kind of tests. Whatever their birth or condition they were
required to perform the menial duties of the house, and to mingle on
terms of absolute equality with their fellow-students. The complete
immolation of self was set as the paramount aim before those who looked
forward to holy orders. The will must be entirely surrendered. The good
priest must become the model of all the virtues. All earthly interests
and ties must be renounced. The closest union with the Divine was to be
cultivated. A very literal interpretation of the teaching of the Master
was followed. The pupils were urged to study the Gospels till they could
bring the Divine life before them at any moment in a series of mental
pictures which should help them in the decision of all perplexing
questions of duty, and were exhorted to keep themselves in such a
disposition that meditation on that model life would never seem strange
or demand a violent mental revulsion whatever their outward
circumstances might be. While the ceremonies of the Church were observed
with minute exactness, and occasional austerities were practiced, and
learning was not neglected, the main thought was that the perfection of
personal character must be secured at all costs; the world was to be
abandoned, the flesh crucified, the devil in all his forms resisted, and
lessons of humility, obedience, and charity were to be most carefully
learned. They were taught that in the silence which succeeds the
struggle of self-abandonment they would find Christ coming to them--the
Christ who had borne all and understood all, and whose presence was far
more worth having than the prizes they had missed or put away.
It can well be believed that this wholly consecrated man, the first
superior of St. Sulpice, won to himself so large a share of personal
affection and loyalty from his students that when he was removed from
its care many feared its collapse. But this was not to be. A suitable
successor was found in M. Louis Tronson, a man every way as capable as
the first founder--indeed more learned in theology--and fully disposed
to continue the traditions of the institution as already laid down; a
man who coveted no external recognition, joined in no race for
preferment, but gave himself with singleness of eye to the great work
intrusted to him by the Master. It was to his care that Francis Fénelon
was committed, and he speedily won the enthusiastic affection of the
young man. In a few years Fénelon writes concerning his teacher to Pope
Clement XI as follows: "Never have I seen his equal for piety and
prudence, for love of justice and insight into character. I glory in the
thought that I was brought up under his wing." Fénelon was evidently one
of the Abbé Tronson's favorites, for he was a favorite with everybody,
and all could see in the brilliant youth a promise that would do honor
to those who had a share in his development. A high degree of confidence
was given and received on both sides. Francis wrote to his uncle, in a
burst of gratitude, one day: "I earnestly desire to be able to tell you
some part of all that passes between M. Tronson and me; but indeed,
Monsieur, I know not how to do so. I find I can be much more explicit
with him than with you, nor would it be easy to describe the degree of
union we have reached. If you could hear our conversation you would not
know your pupil, and you would see that God has very marvelously helped
on the work which you begun. My health does not improve, which would be
a great trial to me if I were not learning how to comfort myself." This
was very beautiful, very delightful, and though such complete dominance
of one personality by another is not devoid of danger, the results in
this case appear to have justified the experiment. Francis' early bent
to deep piety was greatly intensified during these years, and his views
of disinterested or perfect love, so strongly brought out in later
times, were scarcely more than the natural evolution of the thoughts and
habits drilled into him during this formative period. He greatly enjoyed
this home of piety and study. His love for the seminary never decayed.
He declared on his death-bed that he knew of no institution more
venerable or more apostolic.
It was while at the seminary that Fénelon thought he had a call to the
mission field. The congregation of St. Sulpice had a large missionary
establishment at Montreal, and many of the students from the Paris house
had gone thither. It was natural, with his intense unworldliness, that
he should wish to follow in their footsteps, and in one of his descent
it would not be surprising if the love of adventure was unconsciously
mingled with a more religious ambition to show his love for the Savior
by doing a great work for Him in a difficult field. How many have had
these longings, but have been providentially prevented from carrying
them out! In Fénelon's case difficulties at once sprung up. His uncle,
the Marquis Antoine, strongly objected on account of the delicacy of his
constitution, and another uncle, the Bishop of Sarlat, coincided with
this opinion. A letter on the subject to the bishop from M. Tronson,
dated February, 1667, says, "His strong, persisting inclination, the
firmness of his resolution, and the purity of his intentions have made
me feel that they deserved attention, and led me to give you as exact a
report as may be of our action in the matter." The teacher had done his
very best to dissuade the youth from his purpose. "I have told him
plainly that if he can calm his longings and be quiet, he might, by
going on with his studies and spiritual training, become more fitted to
work usefully hereafter for the Church." He adds, "I perceive too
confirmed a resolution to have much hope of change." The feelings called
out were so strong that persuasion seemed useless, and so the teacher
appealed to the authority of the guardians; which proved sufficient to
stop the rash enterprise.
But the missionary impulse still burned strongly in the breast of this
enthusiastic youth, and it burst forth again a few years later. He
received the tonsure, and entered holy orders in 1675, at the age of
twenty-four, and went for a while to work in the diocese of his uncle,
the Bishop of Sarlat. It was at this time that his thoughts were turned
to the Levant. A letter of October 9, 1675, sets forth somewhat
rhapsodically his excited feelings: "I long to seek out that Areopagus
whence St. Paul preached the unknown God to heathen sages.... Neither
will I forget thee, O island consecrated by the heavenly visions of the
beloved disciple! O blessed Patmos, I will hasten to kiss the footsteps
left on thee by the apostle, and to imagine heaven open to my gaze!...
Already I see schism healed; East and West reunited; Asia awaking to the
light after her long sleep; the Holy Land, once trodden by our Savior's
feet and watered by his blood, delivered from profaners and filled with
new glory; the children of Abraham, more numerous than the stars, now
scattered over the face of the earth, gathered from all her quarters to
confess the Christ they crucified, and to rise again with him." This was
decidedly visionary, and somewhat overwrought; but it shows at least a
heart on fire to do something extraordinary for God, and this he had at
all periods of his life. He did not go to Greece and Palestine,
abandoning the project in deference to the wishes of his family, to whom
he was extremely reluctant to give pain. It was a romantic dream rather
than a true vocation.
It is thought by some that he really went to Montreal at a later date.
The _Correspondence Litteraire_ of July 25, 1863,[2] gives a letter from
the archives of the French Ministry of Marine in the handwriting of
Colbert, the great Finance Minister of Louis XIV, who also had charge of
the department of commerce, dated in 1675, to Frontenac, Governor of
Canada, in which Louis XIV says: "I have blamed the action of Abbé
Fénelon, and have ordered him not to return to Canada. But I ought to
say to you that it was difficult to institute a criminal proceeding
against him or oblige the priests of the seminary of St. Sulpice at
Montreal to testify against him; and it was necessary to remit the case
to his bishop or the grand vicar to punish him by ecclesiastical
penalties, or to arrest him and send him back to France by the first
ship." There was not then in France any other abbé of that name, so far
as is known. Somewhat confirmatory of it is the fact that Appleton's
Cyclopedia, in its account of the Society of St. Sulpice says, "In 1668
the Sulpicians, François de Fénelon and Claude Trouvé, founded the first
Iroquois mission at the western extremity of Lake Ontario, but their
labors were confined principally to the Indians near Montreal." The
dates do not harmonize; but it may be that, in some irregular way that
did not commend itself to the authorities, our hero was for a time in
Canada; but if so, it is very singular that it left so little trace upon
his life.
He gave himself for some three years after his ordination to labors in
the parish of St. Sulpice, living still at the seminary, and endeavoring
to spread the light of his faith among the poor wherever he could reach
them best, whether in prisons and hospitals or their own quarters. It
was good training for him in many ways, enlarging his sympathies,
deepening his views of life, and bringing him into touch with children
as well as women. Doubtless he gathered in these years--for he had quick
powers of observation and a very active mind--much of that amazing
knowledge concerning these classes which surprised his friends when he
came subsequently to pour forth in letters or books the wisest of
counsels on education and kindred topics. M. Languet, curé of the parish
at this time, was said to distribute more than a million francs in alms
yearly, while his own room was furnished with nothing more than a coarse
bed and two straw chairs. Under such guidance Fénelon could not fail to
learn many useful lessons, and to become still more completely fitted
for the great career which was soon to open before him.
It was in 1678 that Fénelon, while attending quietly to his duties at
the parish of St. Sulpice, preaching on Sundays and visiting among the
poor during the week, received the important appointment of superior to
the community called the Nouvelles Catholiques, or New Catholics. He was
twenty-seven at this time, and had developed into a very lovable,
charming, attractive, and every way promising young man. His high birth,
solid education, brilliant parts, spotless life, eloquence of speech,
and influential friends, all tended to bring him forward into the public
eye. The words of the Chancellor d'Aguesseau on Fénelon, found in the
memoirs of the life of his father, although applying perhaps in fullest
measure a little later, may be inserted here, as showing what it must
have been felt, by discerning observers, he would erelong become.
"Fénelon," says the chancellor, "was one of those uncommon men who are
destined to give luster to their age; and who do equal honor to human
nature by their virtues, and to literature by their superior talent. He
was affable in his deportment and luminous in his discourse, the
peculiar qualities of which were a rich, delicate, and powerful
imagination, but which never let its power be felt. His eloquence had
more of mildness in it than of vehemence; and he triumphed as much by
the charms of his conversation as by the superiority of his talents. He
always brought himself to the level of his company; he never entered
into disputation, and he sometimes appeared to yield to others at the
very time that he was leading them. Grace dwelt upon his lips. He
discussed the greatest subjects with facility; the most trifling were
ennobled by his pen; and upon the most barren he scattered the flowers
of rhetoric. The peculiar but unaffected mode of expression which he
adopted made many persons believe that he possessed universal knowledge
as if by inspiration. It might indeed have been almost said that he
rather invented what he knew than learned it. He was always original and
creative, imitating no one, and himself inimitable. A noble singularity
pervaded his whole person, and a certain undefinable and sublime
simplicity gave to his appearance the air of a prophet." His personal
appearance has been well sketched by one of his contemporaries, the Duke
de St. Simon, a satirical, misanthropical, utterly worldly man.
"Fénelon," says St. Simon, "was a tall man, thin, well-made, and with a
large nose. From his eyes issued the fire and animation of his mind,
like a torrent; and his countenance was such that I never yet beheld any
one similar to it, nor could it ever be forgotten if once seen. It
combined everything, and yet with everything in harmony. It was grave,
and yet alluring; it was solemn, and yet gay; it bespoke equally the
theologian, the bishop, and the nobleman. Everything which was visible
in it, as well as in his whole person, was delicate, intellectual,
graceful, becoming, and, above all, noble. It required an effort to
cease looking at him. All the portraits are strong resemblances, though
they have not caught that harmony which was so striking in the original,
and that individual delicacy which characterized each feature. His
manners were answerable to his countenance. They had that air of ease
and urbanity which can be derived only from intercourse with the best
society, and which diffused itself over all his discourse. He possessed
a natural eloquence, graceful and finished, and a most insinuating yet
noble and proper courtesy; an easy, clear, agreeable utterance; a
wonderful power of explaining the hardest matters in a lucid, distinct
manner. Add to all this that he was a man who never sought to seem
cleverer than those with whom he conversed, who brought himself
insensibly to their level, putting them at their ease, and enthralling
them so that one could neither leave him nor distrust him, nor help
seeking him again. It was this rare gift which he possessed to the
utmost degree which bound all his friends so closely to him all his life
in spite of his disgrace at court, and which led them, when scattered,
to gather together to talk of him, regret him, long after him, and cling
more and more to him, like the Jews to Jerusalem, and sigh and hope for
his return, even as that unhappy race waits and sighs for their
Messiah."
The community of the New Catholics had been founded in 1634 by
Archbishop Gondi, as a protection for women converted from
Protestantism, and as a means of propagating Church teachings among
those yet unconverted. It was conducted by a community of women who did
the work of Sisters of Charity outside its walls, and was presided over
by a priest selected by the Archbishop of Paris. Marshal Turenne,
himself a recent convert, gave largely to it, and the king, who was
willing to combine gentle means with harsh for the accomplishment of his
purposes in bringing all his subjects into one faith, took great
interest in it. Hitherto the post of superior had been filled by much
older men, but, though only twenty-seven, Fénelon was found to combine
all those qualities which fitted him for the employment--distinguished
talents, education, amiable manners, unusual prudence and discretion,
much love to God, and great benevolence to man. The archbishop who
selected him, M. de Harlai, was, as we have already noted, by no means
of Fénelon's stamp. He was a courtier, a man of the world, regardless of
morality, and ever scheming for his own advancement. Having noted the
capability of Fénelon, perhaps he thought, by making him a sort of
protegé, he could attach him to his interests, obtain credit by his
successes, and use him for his purposes. But if he thought this he did
not show his usual discernment; for Fénelon, though willing to accept
the office assigned, which gave promise of large usefulness, was in no
way attracted by the character of his patron, and no considerations of
expediency could induce him to pay court in that direction.
Consequently, De Harlai's early liking changed erelong to pronounced
enmity. He noticed the absence of Fénelon from his levees, and when he
did present himself at a certain reception, rebuked him with the words,
"It seems that you desire to be forgotten, M. l'Abbé, and you will be."
Fénelon's friendship also with Bossuet became established about this
time, and this doubtless increased the animosity of the archbishop, as
the two were rivals for the favor of the king, on which the coveted
promotion to the cardinalate, which each desired, so largely depended.
It was probably owing, somewhat at least, to this unfriendly influence
on the part of De Harlai that Fénelon received no appointment which
could supply him with funds; for the post of Superior carried no salary,
and until 1681 he continued to be entirely dependent for everything upon
his uncle, the marquis. In that year his uncle, the Bishop of Sarlat,
resigned to him the deanery of Carenac, at Quercy, on the Dordogne, and
this small benefice, producing between 3,000 and 4,000 livres
annually--about $2,000 a year of modern money--was the only revenue
Fénelon possessed for a long time, until, indeed, his forty-third year.
On leaving the Sulpician seminary, he took up his abode with his uncle,
the Marquis de Fénelon, in the Abbey of St. Germain, and gave himself up
as entirely to his work as if he had not been brought into so much
closer proximity to the court and the world of Paris. He avoided general
society, only living intimately with some few chosen friends. His uncle
was able to introduce him into a rare circle, prominent in which were
the Duke and Duchess of Beauvilliers, and the Duke and Duchess of
Chevreuse (the two ladies were sisters, daughters of the great finance
minister, Colbert), Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and Madame de Maintenon.
We must say a few words about these people, for they had much to do with
Fénelon through all his subsequent life.
"The Duke de Beauvilliers," says St. Simon, "was early touched by God,
and never lost His presence, but lived entirely in the future world,
indifferent to place and cabal and worldly advantage, content, when
called to the council-board, simply to state his true opinion, without
much caring whether it was followed or not." Punctual and orderly almost
to excess, he controlled his household with vigilant kindness, and took
on his shoulders, as the king himself bore witness, a load of
administrative details that would have killed four other men. In society
he was rather shy and stiff by nature, as well as on principle
exceedingly careful to set a close guard on eyes and ears and lips, so
that even when, as a principal minister, he was the observed of all
observers, surrounded by princes and nobles, he repelled by his reserve.
He had been at court nearly all his life, having early succeeded Marshal
Villeroy as head of the Council of Finance, and being also first
gentleman of the chamber. He had also been governor of Havre. He was
called to the treasury in 1685, and to the council-board in 1691. He was
acknowledged on all sides to be a man of remarkable piety and purity of
life, and, as a courtier, without reproach--a very rare thing in those
days. His chief fault was his timidity, and his excessive subserviency
to the king. But when his conscience was aroused he could show a
boldness that was most admirable, and all the more to be commended
because somewhat foreign to his nature. He remained true as steel to
Fénelon to his dying day, his friendship never wavering or showing
diminution, even when the latter was banished from court, and all his
friends were in a measure under the ban because of the king's fierce
anger. In later years the king did his best to separate the two, even
sending for the duke and explicitly threatening him with a like fate to
that of his friend if he did not give him up. But the duke replied, with
dignity and feeling: "Sire, you have placed me where I am, and you can
displace me. I shall accept the will of my sovereign as the voice of
God, and I should retire from court at your bidding regretting your
displeasure, but hoping to lead a more peaceful life in retirement."
This manly, uncompromising stand made a deep impression on the king,
who, in spite of his liking for his own way, knew that he could hardly
afford to spare so faithful and conscientious a servant; nothing more
was said about the matter.
His brother-in-law, the Duke de Chevreuse, was different in disposition,
though equally devoted to religion. He was abler, broader-minded, better
informed, more genial and witty, but less systematic, and a very poor
business man. He had no fixed hours for anything, and was always
behindhand. Had it not been for the king he must have died a beggar; for
he had little of his own, and his wife's large fortune was wasted on
costly but futile experiments, such as canals made at enormous expense
to float down the timber from woods which he sold before even a tree was
felled. He was charming in his manners, and was not simply loved, but
adored by his family, and friends, and servants. Throughout his
troubles, which were many, he was never for a moment cast down, but
offered up his all to God and fixed his eyes on Him. "Never man
possessed his soul in peace as he did," wrote St. Simon, "as the
Scripture says, 'He carried it in his hands.'" He was even nearer to
Fénelon in some ways than the other duke, and equally stanch in his
attachment. He had no special portfolio in the ministry, but was
consulted by the king about most departments, and was very highly
esteemed by him.
The two sisters, wives of these dukes--there were indeed three, the
third having married the Duke de Mortemart, but of this family we hear
almost nothing--were linked by the strongest bonds of sympathy and
affection, and the three families lived in the closest union of
principle and action, which gave them great strength amid the
profligate, time-serving court. Twice a week there were dinners at the
Hotel de Beauvilliers, where the society was at once select,
intellectual, and devout. A bell was on the table, and no servant was
present, that they might converse without restraint. It was in this
society that Fénelon, being introduced, became speedily the leader. He
was accepted by the two dukes, not as director simply but as spiritual
master, as the mind of their mind, says St. Simon, the soul of their
soul, the sovereign ruler of their heart and conscience. Such he
remained all his days. Fénelon and the Beauvilliers had not been long
acquainted before the duchess, mother of eight daughters, begged him to
set down some rules for the guidance of their education. This request is
a proof not only of the versatility of his powers, but of the strength
of his faculty of intuition, that a court lady should have turned to him
for help in such matters. He had been educated from childhood to his
sacred calling, shut off from any experience of some of the strongest of
life's influences, and therefore on some accounts might seem poorly
fitted to prove an apt adviser; but it was strongly felt that he
possessed the secret of truest wisdom, that what he taught was drawn
from too high a source to be greatly affected by the limits of personal
experience. Throughout his life, indeed, it was his power of sympathy,
of entering into the difficulties of others, of realizing temptations
that can never have been present with him, that made his influence so
comprehensive--a power rarer and more marvelous than the greatest of
intellectual gifts.
The work on the education of girls, which grew out of the duchess's
request, swelled into a considerable compass, and was first published in
1687. It greatly increased his reputation, revealing a knowledge of
child-nature which was most remarkable, and taking advanced ground in
many particulars. He showed himself a thoroughgoing reformer, breaking
away from the trammels of mediæval education that so long and so
disastrously had ruled. There is hardly a page of it which might not
afford profitable study for parents at the present day. It still holds a
high position among works on this subject. His deep love for children
sharpened his keen observation of all that concerned them. He severely
reprobated the fashion of leaving them with uneducated persons; for he
regarded the earliest years as of unspeakable importance in the
formation of character.
"Never let them show themselves off," he says, "but do not be worried by
their questions; rather encourage them; they are the most natural
opportunities of teaching." He discovered that children are always
watching others, endowed with a great faculty of imitation, so that it
is impossible to over-estimate the responsibility of their first
guardians. He recognized the necessity of discipline; but if the child
has merited disgrace, he pleads that there should be some one to whom
she can turn for sympathy, thus showing that he had fathomed that
overwhelming sense of loneliness which is one of childhood's chief
terrors. He says: "Make study pleasant, hide it under a show of liberty
and amusement. Let the children interrupt their lessons sometimes with
little jokes; they need such distraction to rest their brain. Never fear
to give them reasons for everything. Never give extra lessons as a
punishment." His method was to treat children as reasonable beings
instead of unruly animals whom it was necessary to coerce against their
will; and his object was to make them regard learning as a privilege and
delight, not as a penance forced upon them by the tyranny of their
elders. He made religion the groundwork of all education, but he would
have it guarded against superstition. He stood strongly for the true,
best rights of women, counting their occupations no less important to
the public than those of men. He would give the young girl useful solid
tastes that would fill her mind with real interests and prevent idle
curiosity and the dissipations of romance-reading. "Give them something
to manage, on condition that they give you an account of it," he pleads;
"they will be delighted with the confidence, for it gives an incredible
pleasure to the young when one begins to rely upon them and admit them
to serious concerns."
This will suffice to show something of the trend of his work. Much that
he urged is, of course, commonplace now, but it was not so in his day.
He shows in his book so much knowledge of the needs and characteristics
of little children not only, but of the special difficulties and
infirmities of women, that it remains a marvel where, at this period of
his life, he could have gained such insight into both. And all is
illumined with his beautiful style and gentle spirit. Mr. John Morley
remarks, "When we turn to modern literature from Fénelon's pages, who
does not feel that the world has lost a sacred accent, as if some
ineffable essence had passed out from our hearts?"
Madame de Maintenon has been mentioned as one of the little circle to
whose intimacy Fénelon was introduced when beginning his Parisian
career. The full particulars of her remarkable history must be sought in
larger works. Yet it is essential that we know something concerning her,
since for a while she was one of Fénelon's best supporters, and then
became one of his most persistent foes. She was the grandchild of
Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, a noted Protestant warrior and a noble
friend of Henry of Navarre, who died at Geneva in 1630.[3] Her father
was a scamp, her mother a jailer's daughter. She was a stout Protestant
in her younger days, but being left penniless at an early age, and
wholly dependent upon charitable relatives, she was placed in a Parisian
convent, and there converted to Catholicism. She was still only
seventeen and uncommonly good-looking when, to escape the pressure of
dependence, she consented to become the wife of Scarron, a writer of
comic poetry and a cripple. So Frances d'Aubigne became Madame Scarron,
and somewhat improved her position. Her husband died in five years,
leaving her a pension. Falling in with Madame de Montespan, the king's
mistress, that lady took a liking to her, and it was not long before she
was established at a fine house in one of the suburbs, with a large
income and a numerous staff of servants, as governess of the king's
illegitimate children by this mistress. At the end of four years the
children, with their governess, were housed in the palace, and the
influence of the said governess over the king, who was naturally thrown
much in contact with her, steadily increased. By the savings from her
salary and the presents of the king she was able to purchase the estate
of Maintenon, not far from Paris, and the king, who never had liked the
harsh name of Scarron, soon began to call her Madame de Maintenon, which
henceforth became her title. In the midst of all the vicissitudes of her
life she had maintained a good character, inheriting much from her
grandfather, and now she became yet more austere in her piety. The Abbé
Gobelin, a severe Jesuit confessor, directed her conscience, and Bossuet
impressed his strong personality upon her. They persuaded her that she
was the chosen instrument for the conversion of the king. So she set
herself to the task, finding it on many accounts congenial, and
achieving a remarkable degree of success. There seems to have been in
the complex character of the king, in spite of his many sins, no little
regard for religion--it is said that he never missed going to mass but
once in his life--and he was already weary of Montespan, whose influence
on him was unquestionably evil. So the new influence more and more
prevailed; the mistress was dismissed to a convent, and the wise,
devout, good-looking governess became a power at court, first lady in
waiting to the crown princess, and female friend to the monarch. The
king spent hours daily in her company, and was the better for it. She
was a strict moralist, and none of the slanders rife about her seem to
have any good foundation. She enjoyed the respect of the best people
about the court, and was a friend of the neglected queen, who cried,
"Providence has raised up Madame de Maintenon to bring my husband back
to me." And this new favorite, who was not a mistress, believed
abundantly in the divine nature of her mission. She accepted the king's
friendship to give him good counsels and end his slavery to vice. The
care of his salvation became the first and most absorbing of her duties.
She held herself a monitress, charged to encourage and console him, or
to check him with reproaches that none but she dared utter. He called
her "Your Seriousness." She never annoyed him with opposition, never
encroached, had no will of her own, but became, as it were, the king's
conception of his better self, his second conscience, a magnet quick to
draw him, sometimes into the really worthier of two opposing courses,
always into the more ecclesiastically virtuous. The queen died in her
arms in 1683. Two years after, she was privately married to the king by
the Archbishop of Paris in the presence of Père Lachaise, the king's
confessor, after whom the famous cemetery in Paris is named. Such was
the woman who ruled at Versailles when Fénelon came into office. He
excited her interest on their first meeting, at or before 1683; for she
wrote, under that date, to Madame de St. Geran: "Your Abbé de Fénelon is
very well received; but the world does not do him justice. He is feared;
he wishes to be loved; and is lovable."
We must briefly introduce one more personage to our readers before we
can safely resume the current of the narrative. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet,
who was for a while Fénelon's friend and then became the bitterest of
his foes, was born at Dijon, 1627. In his boyhood he was a brilliant
scholar. At Paris he soon surpassed his teachers in acquirements. He
took the Doctor's bonnet in 1652, and in the same year was received into
priest's orders. He was first canon to the cathedral of Metz; in 1669,
Bishop of Condom; in 1681, bishop of Meaux. In 1670 he was appointed
preceptor to the dauphin, and gave most of his time for ten years to
this office, resigning his bishopric for the purpose. In the pulpit his
oratorical powers elicited universal applause. His celebrated Funeral
Discourses, six in number, were, and still are, accounted masterpieces
of rhetorical skill. Two words, strength and majesty, describe the
dominant characteristics of his oratory. He had a mind well stored with
noble sentiments. His sermons were almost entirely extempore, springing
from a mind filled with his subject, guided by a few notes on paper.
Attracted by the strength and sublimity of the Bible he moved largely
within its circle of thought, rather than with saints, relics, and
images, which were for the most part below the plane of his vision.
Besides being one of the first preachers of the age, he was a celebrated
polemic and a powerful writer, having also a Roman aptitude to rule. One
of the strongest personalities which the French Church has produced, he
exercised a commanding influence in various directions. The principles
of Gallicanism as opposed to Ultramontanism found in him their stalwart
champion. He was a famous apologist. His knowledge was completely at
command, so that he did not shrink from oral disputation with the most
learned adversaries. And he wielded a very strong pen. His "Exposition
of the Catholic Faith" presents the doctrines of Rome in a liberal and
plausible form. In his "History of the Variations of the Protestant
Churches," and also in other treatises, he made out what was considered
at the time a very strong defense of the Roman Catholic faith, but he
|
is always on the left as viewed.
During the months this work has been in progress, many people and
institutions have generously assisted in many ways. It is a pleasure
to thank them for their help.
Mr. Detmar Finke of the Office of the Chief of Military History,
Department of the Army, reviewed the Regular Army portions of the
manuscript and made many valuable suggestions. Mr. Frederick P. Todd,
director of The West Point Museum, graciously answered many questions
relative to both Regular Army and Militia insignia. Through the
courtesy of Mr. James Koping and Miss Elizabeth Ulrich of the
Pennsylvania State Library, The _U.S. Military Magazine_ of Huddy and
Duval was made available for unlimited use.
Thanks are also given to the following, who furnished photographs of
specimens in their collections: Mr. Waverly P. Lewis, Devon,
Connecticut; Mr. William E. Codd, Monkton, Maryland; The Filson Club,
Louisville, Kentucky; The West Point Museum; The Fort Sill Museum; Old
Fort Erie Museum, Ontario, Canada; The Niagara Historical Society
Museum, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada; The Washington County
Historical Society Museum, Fort Calhoun, Nebraska; the Valley Forge
Chapel Museum, and Dr. John Lattimer, New York City.
Mr. Michael Arpad of Washington, D.C., was especially helpful in
matters pertaining to the techniques of chasing and die sinking.
J. DUNCAN CAMPBELL
EDGAR M. HOWELL
_March 1, 1963._
Bibliography
The following works have been used in gathering the material for this
book. They are frequently referred to in the text in shortened form.
_American military history, 1607-1953._ (ROTC Manual 145-20,
Department of the Army.) Washington, 1956.
_American state papers, class V, military affairs._ Vol. 1.
Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832.
ANSELL, S. T. Legal and historical aspects of the Militia. _Yale Law
Journal_ (April 1917), vol. 26, no. 6, pp. 471-480.
BARNES, R. M. _Military uniforms of Britain and the Empire._ London:
Seeley Service and Co., 1960.
BELOTE, THEODORE T. _American and European swords in the historical
collections of the United States National Museum._ (U.S. National
Museum Bulletin 163.) Washington, 1932.
A bit of U.S. Mint history. _American Journal of Numismatics_ (1908),
vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 45-50.
CALVER, W. L., and BOLTON, R. P. _History written with pick and
shovel._ New York: New York Historical Society, 1950.
CHAMBERLAIN, GEORGIA S. Moritz Furst, die-sinker and artist. _The
Numismatist._ (June 1954), vol. 67, no. 6, pp. 588-592.
DAVIS, GHERARDI. _The colors of the United States Army, 1789-1912._
New York: Privately printed, 1912.
EMILIO, L. F. _The Emilio collection of military buttons._ Salem,
Massachusetts: Essex Institute, 1911.
FINKE, DETMAR H. Insignia of rank in the Continental Army, 1775-1783.
_Military Collector and Historian_ (fall 1956), vol. 8, no. 3, pp.
71-73.
_General regulations for the Army._ Philadelphia: M. Carey and Sons,
1821.
_General regulations for the Army of the United States._ Washington:
Department of the Army, 1835.
_General regulations for the Army of the United States, 1847._
Washington: J. and G. S. Gideon, 1847.
GRONERT, T. G. The first national pastime in the Middle West. _Indiana
Magazine of History_ (September 1933), vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 171-186.
History of the organization of the United States cavalry. MS, Office
of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington,
D.C.
HOPKINS, ALFRED F. Volunteer corps hat of 1814. _Military Affairs_
(winter 1941), vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 271-272.
JOHNSON, DAVID F. _Uniform buttons, American armed forces, 1784-1948._
2 vols. Watkins Glen, New York: Century House, 1948.
JONES, WILLARD L. History of the organization of the United States
Field Artillery. MS, Office of the Chief of Military History,
Department of the Army, Washington, D.C.
_Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789._ Edit. Worthington
Chauncey Ford and others. 34 vols. Washington: Carnegie Foundation,
1904-1937.
KIVETT, MARVIN F. Excavations at Fort Atkinson, Nebraska, a
preliminary report. _Nebraska History_ (March 1959), vol. 40, no. 1,
pp. 39-66.
Knox papers. MSS Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
KUHN, EDWARD C. U.S. Army colors and standards of 1808. _Military
Affairs_ (winter 1941), vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 263-267.
LEFFERTS, CHARLES W. _Uniforms of the American, British, French, and
German Armies in the War of the American Revolution._ New York: New
York Historical Society, 1926.
LEWIS, WAVERLY P. _U.S. military headgear, 1770-1880._ Devon,
Connecticut: Privately printed, 1960.
LUNDEBERG, PHILIP K. A history of the North Carolina Militia,
1784-1848. Master's dissertation, Duke University, 1947.
MAHON, JOHN K. The citizen soldier in national defense, 1789-1815.
Doctor's dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1950.
----. History of the organization of the United States Infantry. (Pp.
1-61 in vol. 2 of _The Army lineage book_, Washington: Department of
the Army, 1953.)
MCBARRON, H. CHARLES. Regiment of Riflemen, winter uniform, 1812-1815.
Military Collector and Historian (December 1954), vol. 6, no. 4, p.
100.
----. The 18th U.S. Infantry Regiment, 1814-1815. _Military Collector
and Historian_ (summer 1955), vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 48-49.
MCCLELLAN, E. N. Uniforms of the American Marines, 1775 to 1827.
Mimeographed in 1932 by Marine Corps Historical Section, Department of
the Navy, Washington, D.C.
_The military laws of the United States._ Edit. John F. Callan.
Philadelphia: George W. Childes, 1863.
_New York Military Magazine_ (1841).
_Official Army register, corrected to October 31, 1848._ Washington,
1848.
Official drawings for the U.S. Army uniform regulations of 1851.
_Military Collector and Historian_, vol. 10, no. 1 (spring 1958), pp.
17-19; vol. 10, no. 2 (summer 1958), pp. 43-45.
_Old Print Shop Portfolio_ (May 1961), vol. 20, no. 9.
PARKYN, MAJ. H. G. _Shoulder-belt plates and buttons._ Aldershot,
Hants, England: Gale and Polden, Ltd., 1956.
PATTERSON, C. MEADE. The military rifle flasks of 1832 and 1837.
_Military Collector and Historian_ (March 1953), vol. 5, no. 1, pp.
7-12.
PETERSON, HAROLD L. _The American sword_, New Hope, Pennsylvania: The
River House, 1954.
PETERSON, MENDEL L. American Army epaulets, 1841-1872. _Military
Collector and Historian_ (March 1951), vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-14.
PREBLE, GEORGE HENRY. _History of the flag of the United States of
America._ Boston: A. Williams and Co., 1880.
Records of the Adjutant General's Office. Record Group 94, National
Archives, Washington, D.C.
_Regulations for the government of the Ordnance Department._
Washington: Francis P. Blair, 1834.
_Regulations for the uniform and dress of the Army of the United
States, June 1851._ Philadelphia: William H. Horstmann and Sons, 1851.
RIKER, WILLIAM H. _Soldiers of the States._ Washington: Public Affairs
Press, 1957.
Standing Order Book, 1st Infantry, Detroit. MSS Division, Library of
Congress, Washington, D. C.
SWANSON, NEIL H. _The perilous flight._ New York: Farrar and Rinehart,
1945.
TODD, FREDERICK P. The Huddy and Duval prints. _Journal of the
American Military Institute_ (1939), vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 166-176.
----. Notes on the dress of the Regiment of Light Artillery, U.S.A.
_Military Collector and Historian_ (March 1950), vol. 2, no. 1, p. 10.
----. Our National Guard: An introduction to its history. _Military
Affairs_, vol. 5, no. 2 (summer 1941), pp. 73-86; vol. 5, no. 3 (fall
1941), pp. 152-170.
----. The curious case of the Voltigeur uniform. _Military Collector
and Historian_ (June 1952), vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 44-45.
----. Notes on the organization and uniforms of South Carolina
military forces, 1860-1861. _Military Collector and Historian_
(September 1951), vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 53-62.
----. Three leather cockades. _Military Collector and Historian_
(spring 1956), vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 24-25.
TOWNSEND, F. C., and TODD, FREDERICK P. Branch insignia of the Regular
cavalry, 1833-1872. _Military Collector and Historian_ (spring 1956),
vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-5.
UPTON, EMORY. The military policy of the United States. Senate
Document No. 379, 64th Congress, 1st Session. Washington: 1916.
_U.S. Military Magazine_ (1839-1842), vols. 1-3.
WALL, ALEXANDER J. The flag with an eagle in the canton. _New York
Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin_ (October 1933), vol. 17, no. 3,
pp. 51-67.
WIKE, JOHN W. Untitled MS, Office of the Chief of Military History,
Department of the Army, Washington, D.C.
_Writings of George Washington._ Edit. John G. Fitzpatrick.
Washington: 1944.
ZIEBER, EUGENE. _Heraldry in America._ Philadelphia: Bailey, Banks,
and Biddle, 1909.
American
Military Insignia
1800-1851
Introduction
In almost all armies it long has been standard practice to use
distinctive devices of cloth and metal to distinguish between arms and
services, and between individual units of each arm, to enhance morale
and develop esprit de corps. Colors of units of the British Army have
had ancient badges emblazoned on them since before the establishment
of the present standing army in 1661. By the end of the first half of
the 18th century some of these badges had been authorized for
placement on horse furniture or for wear on grenadier caps. This was
especially true of the regiments of horse and a few of the older
regiments of foot. The infantry regiments received numerical
designations in 1751, and these numbers were worn on waist belts,
shoulder belts, and cartridge-box plates. When the infantry units
acquired county titles in 1782, these names often were added to the
plates. In 1767 regimental numbers were ordered placed on the buttons
of officers and other ranks; in practice these numbers were often
combined with other devices.[1]
[Footnote 1: PARKYN'S _Shoulder-Belt Plates and Buttons_ contains a
wealth of information on British regimental devices.]
In the American Army such devices have taken many forms, ranging from
distinctive buttons, plumes, cockades, cap plates, shoulder-belt
plates, and waist-belt and cartridge-box plates to the well-known
shoulder sleeve insignia and distinctive unit insignia of the present
day. The origin of much of this insignia and many of the changes in
its design can be tied more or less directly to the organization of
the Regular Army--its contractions and expansions and its changes in
arm and service designations--and to the peculiar circumstances
surrounding the origin and growth of the volunteer or uniformed
Militia. Thus, a short discussion of the organization of each is in
order.[2]
[Footnote 2: For history of the organization of the Army, see
_American Military History, 1607-1953_; MAHON, "History of the
Organization of the United States Infantry"; and JONES, "History of
the Organization of the United States Field Artillery."
Unfortunately, there is no single, completely satisfactory source on
the militia system of the United States. The following works, however,
contain sound information and, when taken together, provide an
excellent background on the subject: TODD, "Our National Guard";
MAHON, "Citizen Soldier"; LUNDEBERG, "History of the North Carolina
Militia"; ANSELL, "Legal and Historical Aspects of the Militia";
GRONERT, "First National Pastime in the Middle West"; and RIKER,
_Soldiers of the States_.]
Organization of the Regular Army
Two months after the War of the Revolution officially ended with the
signing of a peace treaty on September 3, 1783, General Washington
directed the Army to turn in its arms and disband.[3] Since the
Continental Congress had made no provision for a permanent
establishment, Washington retained in service one infantry regiment
and a battalion of artillery to guard military stores and take over
posts to be evacuated by the British.[4] Early in June 1784 Congress
ordered these units disbanded except for detachments to guard stores
at Fort Pitt and West Point; then, in order to secure the frontier
against Indian unrest, it immediately authorized a regiment to be
raised from the militia of four of the States to comprise eight
companies of infantry and two of artillery.[5] This unit, called the
First American Regiment, gradually turned into a regular organization.
[Footnote 3: _Writings of George Washington_, vol. 27, p. 222.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid., pp. 256-258; also letter dated January 3, 1784,
from Henry Knox, Commander in Chief of the Army, to President of the
Continental Congress (in Knox papers).]
[Footnote 5: Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 27, p. 524;
also, UPTON, p. 69.]
The failure of an expedition commanded by Col. Josiah Harmar of the
First American Regiment against the Indians in 1790 awakened the
Congress somewhat to the threat in the Northwest and resulted in the
organization of another infantry regiment, which was designated the 2d
Infantry Regiment; the First American Regiment was redesignated the
"1st".[6] Trouble with the Indians continued, and after another severe
reverse Congress authorized the raising of three additional infantry
regiments and, at the same time, empowered the President to organize
the Army as he might see fit.[7]
[Footnote 6: Act of March 3, 1791 (_Military Laws_, pp. 90-91).]
[Footnote 7: Act of March 5, 1792 (_Military Laws_, pp. 92-94).]
Under this discretionary power, the Army was reorganized into the
Legion of the United States. This was a field army in which the three
combat branches--infantry, cavalry, and artillery--were combined. The
Legion was in turn broken down into four sublegions, with each
containing infantry, cavalry, artillery, and riflemen; thus, the
sublegions were the fore-runners of the modern combined arms team. The
1st and 2d Infantries became the 1st and 2d Sublegions. Of the three
additional infantry regiments authorized, only two were organized,
these becoming the 3d and 4th Sublegions.[8] Under the forceful
leadership of Gen. Anthony Wayne the Legion reversed the record on the
frontier and decisively defeated the Indians at the Battle of Fallen
Timbers. The temporary peace which followed turned attention to the
problem of protecting the Atlantic seaboard, and in 1794 Congress
authorized a large increase in the artillery, assigned engineer
officers, and designated the new organization the Corps of
Artillerists and Engineers.[9] The Legion was continued until it was
replaced in 1796 by the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th Infantry Regiments, which
were constituted from the four sublegions, two troops of light
dragoons, and the above-mentioned Corps.[10]
[Footnote 8: _American State Papers_, pp. 40-41.]
[Footnote 9: Act of May 9, 1794 (_Military Laws_, p. 104).]
[Footnote 10: Act of May 30, 1796 (_Military Laws_, p. 114).]
The threat of war with France in 1798 brought further expansions. In
April of that year an "additional regiment" of artillerists and
engineers was authorized, with the Corps created in 1794 becoming the
1st and the new unit being designated the 2d Regiment of Artillerists
and Engineers.[11] In the following July, 12 more regiments of
infantry and 6 troops of light dragoons--to be combined with the two
troops in existence to form a regiment--were authorized; an additional
24 regiments of infantry, plus units of other arms, authorized the
following winter made a total of 40 regiments of infantry.[12]
Actually, the greatest part of this force remained on paper. Only the
1st and 2d Infantries ever attained their required strength, and only
3,400 men were enlisted for the 5th through the 16th. There were no
enlistments at all for the other regiments. Officers were assigned to
the six troops of light dragoons, but no enlisted personnel were
raised and no horses were bought.[13]
[Footnote 11: Act of April 27, 1798 (_Military Laws_, pp. 119-120).]
[Footnote 12: Acts of July 16, 1798, and March 2, 1799 (_Military
Laws_, pp. 127-128).]
[Footnote 13: _American State Papers_, p. 137.]
More quickly than it had arisen, the threat of a war with France
abated. Early in 1800 action was suspended under the two acts creating
the paper regiments, and the Army was reduced to the regular
establishment of four regiments of infantry, two regiments of
artillerists and engineers, and two troops of light dragoons.[14] Two
years later the antipathy of the new Jefferson administration to a
standing army further reduced this establishment to two regiments of
infantry and one of artillery. The Corps of Artillerists and Engineers
was abolished; a Corps of Engineers was organized to be stationed at
West Point and "constitute a military academy"; and the light dragoons
were disbanded.[15]
[Footnote 14: Acts of February 20 and May 14, 1800 (_Military Laws_,
pp. 139, 141); also, _American State Papers_, p. 139.]
[Footnote 15: Act of March 16, 1802 (_Military Laws_, pp. 141-149).]
The Jeffersonian theories regarding a strong militia and a small
professional army were rudely shaken in 1807 by the _Chesapeake-Leopard_
affair. With war seeming imminent, Congress added to the Regular
Establishment, though cautiously "for a limited time," five regiments of
infantry, one regiment of riflemen, one of light artillery, and one of
light dragoons. The new regiments of infantry were numbered the 3d
through the 7th.[16] There was no further preparation for a fight with
England until just before war was actually declared. In January 1812, 10
regiments of infantry, two of artillery, and one regiment of light
dragoons were added; three months later a Corps of Artificers was
organized; and in June provision was made for eight more infantry
regiments, making a total of 25.[17] In January 1813, following the
discouragements of the early campaigns in the Northwest, Congress
constituted 20 more infantry regiments, bringing the total to 45, the
largest number in the Regular Establishment until the 20th century.[18]
A year later three more regiments of riflemen, designated the 2d through
the 4th, were formed.[19]
[Footnote 16: Act of April 12, 1808 (_Military Laws_, pp. 200-203).]
[Footnote 17: Acts of January 11, April 23, and June 26, 1812
(_Military Laws_, pp. 212-215, 222-223, 230).]
[Footnote 18: Act of January 1813 (_Military Laws_, pp. 238-240).
There is some confusion as to just how many infantry regiments were
organized and actually came into being. The Act of January 29, 1813,
authorized the President to raise such regiments of infantry as he
should see fit, "not exceeding twenty." It seems that 19 were actually
formed, made up partly of 1-year men and partly of 5-year men. There
are 46 regiments listed in the Army Register for January 1, 1815, and
it is known that several volunteer regiments were designated as units
of the Regular Establishment and that a 47th and a 48th were
redesignated as lower numbered units when several regiments were
consolidated because of low recruitment rate. Mahon (in "History of
the Organization of the United States Infantry") is not clear on this
point. There is an organizational chart of the Army for this period in
the files of the Office of the Chief of Military History, Department
of the Army.]
[Footnote 19: Act of February 10, 1814 (_Military Laws_, pp.
251-252).]
In March 1814 Congress reorganized both the artillery and the
dragoons. The three artillery regiments, which had never operated as
such, but rather by company or detachment, were consolidated into the
Corps of Artillery; and the two regiments of dragoons, which had never
been adequately trained and generally had given a poor account of
themselves, were merged into one.[20] The Regiment of Light Artillery
remained untouched.
[Footnote 20: Act of March 30, 1814 (_Military Laws_, pp. 252-255);
JONES, p. 58; "History of the Organization of the United States
Cavalry."]
Almost as soon as the war ended, Congress moved to reduce the Army[21]
by limiting the peacetime establishment to 10,000 men, to be divided
among infantry, artillery, and riflemen, plus the Corps of Engineers.
The number of wartime infantry units was reduced to eight, and the
rifle units to one. The Corps of Artillery and the Regiment of Light
Artillery were retained, but dragoons were eliminated.[22]
[Footnote 21: Act of March 3, 1815 (_Military Laws_, pp. 266-267).]
[Footnote 22: The reorganization of 1815 is treated by MAHON "History
of the Organization of the United States Infantry" (pp. 11-12), JONES
"History of the Organization of the United States Field Artillery"
(pp. 59-60), and WIKE, unpublished study.]
By 1821 the prospects of a prolonged peace appeared so good that
Congress felt safe in further reducing the Army. Consequently, in that
year the number of infantry regiments was cut to seven; the Rifle
Regiment was disbanded; the Corps of Artillery and the Regiment of
Light Artillery were disbanded, with four artillery regiments being
organized in their stead; and the Ordnance Department was merged with
the artillery,[23] an arrangement that continued until 1832.
[Footnote 23: Act of March 2, 1821 (_Military Laws_, pp. 303-309).]
The opening of the West in the decades following the War of 1812
brought an important change in the organization of the Army.
Experience having shown that infantry were at a distinct disadvantage
when pitted against the fleetly mounted Indians, in 1832 a battalion
of mounted rangers was organized to quell disturbances on the
northwest frontier,[24] but this loosely knit force was replaced by a
regiment of dragoons the following year.[25] The mounted arm had come
to stay in the Army.
[Footnote 24: Acts of April 5 and June 15, 1832 (_Military Laws_, pp.
322-323, 325-326).]
[Footnote 25: Act of March 2, 1833 (_Military Laws_, pp. 329-330).]
When the second Seminole War broke out in 1836, a second regiment of
dragoons was organized.[26] And, as the war dragged through another
inconclusive year, a reluctant Congress was forced to increase the
size of existing line units and to authorize an additional regiment of
infantry, the 8th. Meanwhile, increasing demands for surveying and
mapping services resulted in the creation of the Corps of
Topographical Engineers as a separate entity.[27]
[Footnote 26: Act of May 23, 1836 (_Military Laws_, pp. 336-337).]
[Footnote 27: Act of July 5, 1838 (_Military Laws_, pp. 341-349).]
Meanwhile, the responsibilities of the Army in the opening of the West
continued to increase, and in 1846 the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen
was organized to consolidate the northern route to the Pacific by
establishing and manning a series of posts along the Oregon Trail.[28]
However, the outbreak of the War with Mexico postponed this mission.
[Footnote 28: Act of May 19, 1846 (_Military Laws_, pp. 371-372).]
At the start of the War with Mexico Congress leaned heavily on
volunteer units, with the hard core of the Regulars remaining
unchanged. But early in 1847 it was found necessary to add nine
regiments of infantry and one regiment of dragoons.[29] Of the
infantry unit's, eight were of the conventional type; the ninth was
formed as the Regiment of Voltigeurs and Foot Riflemen. Theoretically,
only half of this latter regiment was to be mounted. Each horseman was
to be paired with a foot soldier who was to get up behind and ride
double when speed was needed. In practice, however, none of the
Voltigeurs were mounted; the entire unit fought as foot riflemen.[30]
[Footnote 29: Act of February 11, 1847 (_Military Laws_, pp.
379-382).]
[Footnote 30: MAHON, "History of the Organization of the United States
Infantry," p. 16.]
All of these new units proved merely creatures of the war, and the
coming of peace saw a reduction to the old establishment of eight
regiments of infantry, four of artillery, two of dragoons, and one
regiment of mounted riflemen.[31] This organization remained
substantially unchanged until 1855.[32]
[Footnote 31: Official Army Register, 1848.]
[Footnote 32: UPTON, p. 223.]
Organization of the Militia
The "common" Militia was first established by the various colonies of
all able-bodied men between roughly the ages of 16 and 60 for
protection against Indian attack. These militiamen were required by
law to be enrolled in the unit of their township or county, furnish
their own arms and equipment, and appear periodically for training.
They were civilian soldiers who had little or no taste for things
military, as their performance in both peace and war almost invariably
demonstrated. They were not uniformed and contributed little or
nothing to the field of military dress.
The "volunteer" or "independent" Militia companies, on the other hand,
were something else again. These units, composed of men who enjoyed
military life, or rather certain aspects of it, appeared rather early
in the Nation's history. The first of these, formed in 1638, was The
Military Company of the Massachusetts, later and better known as the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. By 1750
there were a number of independent companies in existence--many of
them chartered--and membership in them had become a recognized part of
the social life of the larger urban centers.
The concept of volunteer Militia units was confirmed in the Uniform
Militia Act of 1792, which prescribed flank companies of grenadiers,
light infantry, or riflemen for the "common" Militia battalions and a
company of artillery and a troop of horse for each division, to be
formed of volunteers from the Militia at large and to be uniformed and
equipped at the individual volunteer's expense. Thus, from within the
national Militia structure emerged an elite corps of amateur--as
opposed to civilian--soldiers who enjoyed military exercise, and the
pomp and circumstance accompanying it, and who were willing to
sacrifice both the time and the money necessary to enjoy it. Since the
members were volunteers, they were ready to submit to discipline up to
a point; they trained rather frequently; many of the officers made an
effort to educate themselves militarily; they chose their own
officers; and their relative permanency gave rise to an excellent
esprit de corps. In actuality, these organizations became private
military clubs, and differed from other male social and fraternal
groups only in externals.
The great urban growth of the Nation during the period 1825-1860 was
the golden age of the volunteer companies, and by 1845 these units had
all but supplanted the common Militia. It would be difficult to even
estimate the number of volunteer companies during this period. They
sprang up almost everywhere, more in answer to a demand by the younger
men of the Nation for a recreation that would meet a social and
physical need and by emigrant minorities for a group expression than
for reasons military. It was a "gay and gaudy" Militia, with each unit
in its own distinctive and generally resplendent uniform. If the
"Raleigh Cossacks," the "Hibernia Greens," the "Velvet Light Infantry
Company," or the "Teutonic Rifles" were more "invincible in peace"
than visible in war, they were a spectacular, colorful, and exciting
integral of the social and military life of the first half of the 19th
century.
Insignia of the Regular Army
Uniform regulations prior to 1821 were loosely and vaguely worded, and
this was especially true in regard to officers' insignia. For example
General Orders of March 30, 1800, stated: "... the swords of all
officers, except the generals, to be attached by a white shoulder belt
three inches wide, with an oval plate three inches by two and a half
ornamented with an eagle."[33] In 1801 the 1st Infantry Regiment
directed that "the sword... for platoon officers... be worn with a
white belt over the coat with a breast plate such as have been by the
Colonel established,"[34] and in 1810 a regulation stated that "those
gentlemen who have white sword belts and plates [are] to consider them
as uniform, but those not so provided will be permitted to wear their
waist belts."[35] As a result, the officers generally wore what they
wished, and there was a wide variation in design. Most officer
insignia were the product of local jewelers and silversmiths, although
some known specimens are obviously the work of master craftsmen.
Quality varied as well as design, depending on the affluence of the
officer concerned. Some of the plainer plates appear to have been made
by rolling silver dollars into an oval shape.
[Footnote 33: General Orders, March 30, 1800 (Records AGO).]
[Footnote 34: Standing Order Book, folio 1, October 1, 1801.]
[Footnote 35: Records AGO.]
In regard to enlisted men's insignia, only the descriptions of the
1800 dragoon helmet plate and the 1814 and 1817 riflemen's cap plates
give us anything approaching a clear picture. "Oblong silver plates
... bearing the name of the corps and the number of the regiment" for
the infantry in 1812, "plates in front" for the 1812 dragoons, and
"gilt plate in front" for the 1812 light artillery are typical
examples. As a result, the establishment of a proper chronology for
these devices has depended on the careful consideration of specimens
excavated at posts where specific units are known to have served at
specific times, combined with research in pertinent records of the
period in the National Archives.
Cap and Helmet Devices
DRAGOON HELMET PLATE, 1800
_USNM 66330-M (S-K 86). Figure 1._
[Illustration: FIGURE 1]
The first known distinctive metal branch insignia authorized for the
Army was this helmet plate. General Order, U.S. Army, dated March 30,
1800, prescribed for "Cavalry... a helmet of leather crowned with
black horse hair and having a brass front, with a mounted dragoon in
the act of charging."[36] This oval plate, struck in thin brass with
lead-filled back, has a raised rim, within which is a mounted,
helmeted horseman in the act of charging; overhead is an eagle with a
wreath in its beak. A double-wire fastener soldered to the back is not
contemporary.
[Footnote 36: Records AGO.]
DRAGOON HELMET PLATE, 1800, DIE SAMPLE
_USNM 60283-M (S-K 41). Figure 2._
[Illustration: FIGURE 2]
Although from a different die, this plate, struck in thin brass,
appears to be a die sample of the plate described above. It is also
possible that it is a sample of the dragoon plate authorized in 1812.
¶ The 1813 uniform regulations specified for enlisted men of the
artillery a "black leather cockade, with points 4 inches in diameter,
a yellow button and eagle in the center, the button in uniform with
the coat button."[37] This specification gives some validity to the
belief that a cockade with an approximation of the artillery button
tooled on it may also have been worn.
[Footnote 37: General Order, Southern Department, U.S. Army, January
24, 1813 (photostatic copy in files of division of military history,
Smithsonian Institution); also, _American State Papers_, p. 434.]
LEATHER COCKADE, ARTILLERY, C. 1808-1812
_USNM 60256-M (S-K 14). Figure 3._
[Illustration: FIGURE 3]
This cockade is of black leather of the size prescribed by the 1813
regulations. Tooled into
|
more especially of young
men of the Apollo variety, though in a strictly proper, platonic and
critical sense. Indeed, her taste in the abstract, for animated
Praxiteles had, for well-nigh two-score of years, been unimpeachable. At
the big gatherings in her noble country mansion, there was always a
liberal sprinkling of decorative and animated objects of art of this
description. She liked to ornament her porches or her gardens with husky
and handsome young college athletes. She had an intuitive artistic taste
for stunning living-statuary, “dressed up,” of course. Bob came
distinctly in that category. So behold him then, one fine morning, on
the little sawed-off train that whisked common people—and sometimes a
few notables when their cars were otherwise engaged—countryward. Bob
had a big grip by his side, his golf sticks were in a rack and he had a
newspaper in his hand. The sunshine came in on him but his mood was not
sunny. An interview with dad just before leaving hadn’t improved his
spirits. He had found dad at the breakfast table examining a book of
artificial flies, on one hand, and a big reel on the other.
“Which shall it be, my son?” dad had greeted him cordially. “Trout or
tarpon?”
“I guess that’s for you to decide,” Robert had answered grumpily. Dad,
in his new role, was beginning to get on Bob’s nerves. Dad didn’t seem
to be at all concerned about his future. He shifted that weighty and
momentous subject just as lightly! He acted as if he hadn’t a care in
the world.
“Wish I _could_ make up my mind,” he said, like a boy in some doubt how
he can best put in his time when he plays hooky. “Minnows or whales?
I’ll toss up.” He did. “Whales win. By the way, how’s the hustling
coming on?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, don’t put it off too long.” Cheerfully. “I guess I can worry
along for about three weeks.”
“Three weeks!” said Bob gloomily. Oh, that familiar sound!
“You wouldn’t have me stint myself, would you, my son?” Half
reproachfully. “You wouldn’t have dad deny himself anything?”
“No,” answered the other truthfully enough. As a matter of fact things
couldn’t be much worse, so he didn’t much care. Fortunately, dad didn’t
ask any questions or show any curiosity about that “hustling” business.
He seemed to take it for granted Bob would arise to the occasion and be
as indulgent a son as he had been an indulgent dad—for he had never
denied the boy anything. Bob softened when he thought of that. But
confound dad’s childlike faith in him, at this period of emergency. It
made Bob nervous. He had no faith in himself that way. Dad _did_ lift
his eyebrows just a little when Bob brought down his big grip.
“Week-end?” he hazarded.
“Whole week,” replied Bob in a melancholy tone.
“Whither?”
“Tonkton.”
Dad beamed. “Mrs. Ralston?”
“Yes.”
“Aunt of Miss Gwendoline Gerald, I believe?” With a quick penetrating
glance at Bob.
“Yes.”
“Sensible boy,” observed dad, still studying him.
“Oh, I’m not going for the reason you think,” said Bob quite savagely.
He was most unlike himself.
“Of course not.” Dad was conciliatory.
“I’m not. Think what you like.”
“Too much work to think,” yawned dad.
“But you _are_ thinking.” Resentfully.
“Have it your own way.”
Bob squared his shoulders. “You want to know really why I’m going to
Tonkton?”
“Have I ever tried to force your confidences, my son?”
“I’m going because I’ve got to. I can’t help myself.”
“Of course,” said dad. “Ta! ta! Enjoy yourself. See you in three weeks.”
“Three—!” But Bob didn’t finish. What was the use? Dad thought he was
going to Tonkton because Miss Gerald might be there.
As a matter of fact Bob’s one great wish now was that she wouldn’t be
there. He wanted, and yet didn’t want, to see her. What had he to hope
now? Why, he didn’t have a son, or not enough of them to count. He was
to all practical intents and purposes a pauper. Dad’s “going broke” had
changed his whole life. He had been reared in the lap of luxury, a
pampered son. He had never dreamed of being otherwise. And considering
himself a favored child of fortune, he had even dared entertain the
delirious hope of winning her—her, the goddess of his dreams.
But hope now was gone. Regrets were useless. He could no longer conceive
himself in the role of suitor. Why, there were few girls in the whole
land so overburdened with “rocks”—as Dickie called them! If only she
didn’t have those rocks—or stocks! “Impecunious Gwendoline!” How well
that would go with “Impecunious Bob!” If only her trustees would hit the
toboggan, the way dad did! But trustees don’t go tobogganing. They
eschew the smooth and slippery. They speculate in government bonds and
things that fluctuate about a point or so a century. No chance for quick
action there! On the contrary, the trustees were probably making those
millions grow. Bob heaved a sigh. Then he took something white from his
pocket and gazed at two words, ardently yet dubiously.
That “Will you?” of hers on Mrs. Ralston’s card exhilarated and at the
same time depressed him. It implied she, herself, did expect to be at
her aunt’s country place. He attached no other especial importance to
the “Will you?” An imperious young person in her exalted position could
command as she pleased. She could say “Will you?” or “You will” to
dozens of more or less callow youths, or young grown-ups, with impunity,
and none of said dozens would attach any undue flattering meaning to her
words. Miss Gerald found safety in numbers. She was as yet heart-free.
“Can you—aw!—tell me how far it is to Tonkton?” a voice behind here
interrupted his ruminations.
Bob hastily returned the card to his pocket, and glancing back, saw a
monocle. “Matter of ten miles or so,” he responded curtly. He didn’t
like monocles.
“Aw!” said the man.
Bob picked up his newspaper that he had laid down, and frowningly began
to glance over the head-lines. The man behind him glanced over them,
too.
“Another society robbery, I see,” the latter remarked. “No function
complete without them nowadays, I understand. Wonderful country,
America! Guests here always expect—aw!—to be robbed, I’ve been told.”
“Have the paper,” said Bob with cutting accents.
“Thanks awfully.” The man with the monocle took the paper as a matter of
course, seeming totally unaware of the sarcasm in Bob’s tone. At first,
Bob felt like kicking himself; the rustle of the paper in those alien
hands caused him to shuffle his feet with mild irritation. Then he
forgot all about the paper and the monocle man. His thoughts began once
more to go over and over the same old ground, until—
“T’nk’n!” The stentorian abbreviation of the conductor made Bob get up
with a start. Grabbing his grip—hardly any weight at all for his
muscular arm—in one hand, and his implements of the game in the other,
he swung down the aisle and on to the platform. A good many people got
off, for a small town nestled beneath the high rolling lands of the
country estates of the affluent. There were vehicles of all kinds at the
station, among them a number of cars, and in one of the latter Bob
recognized Mrs. Ralston’s chauffeur.
A moment he hesitated. He supposed he ought to step forward and get in,
for that was what he naturally would do. But he wanted to think; he
didn’t want to get to the house in a hurry. Still he had to do what he
naturally would do and he started to do it when some other people Bob
didn’t know—prospective guests, presumably, among them the man with the
monocle—got into the car and fairly filled it. That let Bob out nicely
and naturally. It gave him another breathing spell. He had got so he was
looking forward to these little breathing spells.
“Hack, sir?” said a voice.
“Not for me,” replied Bob. “But you can tote this up the hill,”
indicating the grip. “Ralston house.”
“Dollar and a half, sir,” said the man. “Same price if you go along,
too.”
“What?” It just occurred to Bob he hadn’t many dollars left, and of
course, tips would be expected up there, at the big house. It behooved
him, therefore, to be frugal. But to argue about a dollar and a
half!—he, a guest at the several million dollar house! On the other
hand, that dollar looked large to Bob at this moment. Imagine if he had
to earn a dollar and a half! He couldn’t at the moment tell how he would
do it.
“Hold on.” Bob took the grip away from the man. “Why, it’s outrageous,
such a tariff! Same price, with or without me, indeed! I tell you—”
Suddenly he stopped. He had an awful realization that he was acting a
part. That forced indignation of his was not the truth; that aloof kind
of an attitude wasn’t the truth, either.
“To tell you the truth,” said Bob, “I can’t afford it.”
“Can’t afford. Ha! ha!” That was a joke. One of Mrs. Ralston’s guests,
not afford—!
“No,” said Bob. “I’ve only got about fifteen dollars and a half to my
name. I guess you’re worth more than that yourself, aren’t you?” With
sudden respect in his tone.
“I guess I am,” said the man, grinning.
“Then, logically, I should be carrying your valise,” retorted Bob.
“Ha! ha! That’s good.” The fellow had been transporting the overflow of
Mrs. Ralston’s guests for years, but he had never met quite such an
eccentric one as this. He chuckled now as if it were the best joke.
“I’ll tell you what—I’ll take it for nothing, and leave it to you what
you give me!” Maybe, for a joke, he’d get a fifty—dollars, not cents.
These young millionaire men did perpetrate little funnyisms like that.
Why, one of them had once “beat him down” a quarter on his fare and then
given him ten dollars for a tip. “Ha! ha!” repeated the fellow,
surveying Bob’s elegant and faultless attire, “I’ll do it for nothing,
and you—”
Bob walked away carrying his grip. Here he was telling the truth and he
wasn’t believed. The man took him for one of those irresponsible merry
fellows. That was odd. Was it auspicious? Should he derive encouragement
therefrom? Maybe the others would only say “Ha! ha!” when he told the
truth. But though he tried to feel the fellow’s attitude was a good
omen, he didn’t succeed very well.
No use trying to deceive _himself_! Might as well get accustomed to that
truth-telling habit even in his own thoughts! That diabolical trio of
friends had seen plainer than he. _They_ had realized the dazzling
difficulties of the task confronting him. How they were laughing in
their sleeves now at “darn fool Bob!” Bob, a young Don Quixote, sallying
forth to attempt the impossible! The preposterous part of the whole
business was that his role _was_ preposterous. Why, he really and truly,
in his transformed condition, ought to be just like every one else. That
he was a unique exception—a figure alone in his glory, or ingloriously
alone—was a fine commentary on this old world, anyhow.
What an old humbug of a world it was, he thought, when, passing before
the one and only book-store the little village boasted of, he ran plump
into, or almost into, Miss Gwendoline Gerald.
She, at that moment, had just emerged from the shop with a supply of
popular magazines in her arms. A gracious expression immediately
softened the young lady’s lovely patrician features and she extended a
hand. As in a dream Bob looked at it, for the fraction of a second. It
was a beautiful, shapely and capable hand. It was also sunburned. It
looked like the hand of a young woman who would grasp what she wanted
and wave aside peremptorily what she didn’t want. It was a strong hand,
but it was also an adorable hand. It went with the proud but lovely
face. It supplemented the steady, direct violet eyes. The pink nails
gleamed like sea-shells. Bob set down the grip and took the hand. His
heart was going fast.
“Glad to see you,” said Miss Gwendoline.
Bob remained silent. He was glad and he wasn’t glad. That is to say, he
was deliriously glad and he knew he ought not to be. He found it
difficult to conceal the effect she had upon him. He dreaded, too, the
outcome of that meeting. So, how should he answer and yet tell the
truth? It was considerable of a “poser,” he concluded, as he strove to
collect his perturbed thoughts.
“Well, why don’t you say something?” she asked.
“Lovely clay,” observed Bob.
The violet eyes drilled into him slightly. Shades of Hebe! but she had a
fine figure! She looked great next to Bob. Maybe she knew it. Perhaps
that was why she was just a shade more friendly and gracious to him than
to some of the others. They two appeared so well together. He certainly
did set her off.
“Is that all you have to say?” asked Miss Gwendoline after a moment.
“Let me put those magazines in the trap for you?” said Bob, making a
desperate recovery and indicating the smart rig at the curb as he spoke.
“Thanks,” she answered. “Make yourself useful.” And gave them to him.
But there was now a slight reserve on her part. His manner had slightly
puzzled her. There was a constraint, or hold-offishness about him that
seemed to her rather a new symptom in him. What did it mean? Had he
misinterpreted her “Will you?” The violet eyes flashed slightly, then
she laughed. How ridiculous!
“There! You did it very well,” she commended him mockingly.
“Thanks,” said Bob awkwardly, and shifted. It would be better if she let
him go. Those awful things he might say?—that she might make him say?
But she showed no disposition to permit him to depart at once. She
lingered. People didn’t usually seek to terminate talks with her. As a
rule they just stuck and stuck around and it was hard to get rid of
them. Did she divine his uneasiness? Bob showed he certainly wasn’t
enjoying himself. The violet eyes grew more and more puzzled.
“What a brilliant conversationalist you are to-day, Mr. Bennett!” she
remarked with a trace of irony in her tones.
“Yes; I don’t feel very strong on the talk to-day,” answered Bob
truthfully.
Miss Gwendoline pondered a moment on this. She had seen young men
embarrassed before—especially when she was alone with them. Sometimes
her decidedly pronounced beauty had a disquieting effect on certain
sensitive young souls. Bob’s manner recalled the manner of one or two of
those others just before they indulged, or tried to indulge, in unusual
sentiments, or too close personalities. Miss Gerald’s long sweeping
lashes lowered ominously. Then they slowly lifted. She didn’t feel
to-day any inordinate endeavor or desire on Bob’s part to break down the
nice barriers of convention and to establish that more intimate and
magnetic atmosphere of a new relationship. Well, that was the way it
should be. It must be he was only stupid at the moment. That’s why he
acted strange and unlike himself.
Perhaps he had been up late the night before. Maybe he had a headache.
His handsome face was certainly very sober. There was a silent appeal to
her in that blond head, a little over half-a-head above hers. Miss
Gwendoline’s red lips softened. What a great, big, nice-looking boy he
was, after all! She let the lights of her eyes play on him more kindly.
She had always thought Bob a good sort. He was an excellent partner in
tennis and when it came to horses—they had certainly had some great
spurts together. She had tried to follow Bob but it had sometimes been
hard. His “jumps” were famous. What he couldn’t put a horse over, no one
else could. For the sake of these and a few kindred recollections, she
softened.
“I suppose men sometimes do feel that way the next day,” she observed
with tentative sympathy. One just had to forgive Bob. She knew a lot of
cleverer men who weren’t half so interesting on certain occasions.
Intellectual conversation isn’t everything. Even that soul-to-soul talk
of the higher faddists sometimes palled. “I suppose that’s why you’re
walking.”
“Why?” he repeated, puzzled.
“To dissipate that ‘tired feeling,’ I believe you call it?”
“But I’m not tired,” said Bob.
“Headachey, then?”
“No.” He wasn’t quite following the subtleties of her remarks.
“Then why _are_ you walking?” she persisted. “And with that?” Touching
his grip with the tip of her toe.
“Save hack fare,” answered Bob.
She smiled.
“Man wanted a dollar and a half,” he went on.
“And you objected?” Lightly.
“I did.”
Again she smiled. Bob saw she, too, thought it was a joke. And he
remembered how she knew of one or two occasions when he had just thrown
money to the winds—shoved it out of the window, as it were—orchids, by
the dozens, tips, two or three times too large, etc. Bob, with those
reckless eyes, object to a dollar and a half—or a hundred and fifty,
for that matter? Not he! If ever there had been a spendthrift!—
“Well, I’ll lend a hand to a poor, poverty-stricken wretch,” said Miss
Gerald, indulgently entering into the humor of the situation.
“What do you mean?” With new misgivings.
“Put them”—indicating the grip and the sticks—“in the trap,” she
commanded.
Bob did. He couldn’t do anything else. And then he assisted her in.
“Thanks for timely help!” he said more blithely, as he saw her slip on
her gloves and begin to gather up the reins with those firm capable
fingers. “And now—?” He started as if to go.
“Oh, you can get in, too.” Why shouldn’t he? There was room for two. She
spoke in a matter-of-fact manner.
“I—?” Bob hesitated. A long, long drive—unbounded opportunity for
chats, confidences!—and all at the beginning of his sojourn here? Dad’s
words—that horrid advice—burned on his brain like fire. He tried to
think of some excuse for not getting in. He might say he had to stop at
a drug store, or call up a man in New York on business by telephone,
or— But no! he couldn’t say any of those things. He was denied the
blissful privilege of other men.
“Well, why don’t you get in?” Miss Gerald spoke more sharply. “Don’t you
want to?”
The words came like a thunder-clap, though Miss Gwendoline’s voice was
honey sweet. Bob raised a tragic head. That monster, Truth!
“No,” he said.
An instant Miss Gwendoline looked at him, the violet eyes incredulous,
amused. Then a slight line appeared on her beautiful forehead and her
red lips parted a little as if she were going to say something, but
didn’t. Instead, they closed tight, the way rosebuds shut when the night
is unusually frosty. Her eyes became hard like diamonds.
“How charmingly frank!” she said. Then she drew up the reins and trailed
the tip of the whip caressingly along the back of her spirited cob. It
sprang forward. “Look out for the sun, Mr. Bennett,” she called back as
they dashed away. “It’s rather hot to-day.”
Bob stood and stared after her. What did she mean about the sun? Did she
think he had a touch of sunstroke, or brain-fever? It was an
inauspicious beginning, indeed. If he had only known what next was
coming!
CHAPTER IV—A CHAT ON THE LINKS
At the top of the hill, instead of following the winding road, Bob
started leisurely across the rolling green toward the big house whose
roof could be discerned in the distance above the trees. The day was
charming, but he was distinctly out of tune. There was a frown on his
brow. Fate had gone too far. He half-clenched his fists, for he was in a
fighting mood and wanted to retaliate—but how? At the edge of some
bushes he came upon a lady—no less a personage than the better-half of
the commodore, himself.
She was fair, fat and forty, or a little more. She was fooling with a
white ball, or rather it was fooling with her, for she didn’t seem to
like the place where it lay. She surveyed it from this side and then
from that. To the casual observer it looked just the same from whichever
point you viewed it. Once or twice the lady, evidently no expert, raised
her arm and then lowered it. But apparently, at last, she made up her
mind. She was just about to hit the little ball, though whether to top
or slice it will never be known, when Bob stepped up from behind the
bushes.
“Oh, Mr. Bennett!” He had obviously startled her.
“The same,” said Bob gloomily.
“That’s too bad of you,” she chided him, stepping back.
“What?”
“Why, I’d just got it all figured out in my mind how to do it.”
“Sorry,” said Bob. “I didn’t know you were behind the bushes or I
wouldn’t have come out on you like that. But maybe you’ll do even better
than you were going to. Hope so! Go ahead with your drive. Don’t mind
me.” His tone was depressed, if not sepulchral.
But the lady, being at that sociable age, showed now a perverse
disposition not to “go ahead.”
“Just get here?” she asked.
“Yes. Anything doing?”
“Not much. It’s been, in fact, rather slow. Mrs. Ralston says so
herself. So I am at liberty to make the same remark. Of course we’ve
done the usual things, but somehow there seems to be something lacking,”
rattled on the lady. “Maybe we need a few more convivial souls to stir
things up. Perhaps we’re waiting for some one, real good and lively, to
appear upon the scene. Does the description chance to fit you, Mr.
Bennett?” Archly.
“I think not,” said gloomy Bob.
“Well, that isn’t what Mrs. Ralston says about you, anyway,” observed
the commodore’s spouse.
“What does she say?”
“‘When Bob Bennett’s around, things begin to hum.’ So you see you have a
reputation to live up to.”
“I dare say. No doubt I’ll live up to it, all right.”
“It’s really up to you to stir things up.”
“I’ve begun.” Ominously.
“Have you? How lovely!”
This didn’t require an answer, for it wasn’t really a question. A white
ball went by them, a very pretty snoop, and pretty soon another lady and
a caddy loomed on their range of vision. The lady was thin and
spirituelle and she walked by with a stride. You would have said she had
taken lessons of a man. She looked neither to the right nor the left. At
the moment, she, at any rate, was not sociably inclined. That walk meant
business. She wasn’t one of those fussy beginners like the lady Bob was
talking with.
“Isn’t that Mrs. Clarence Van Duzen?” asked Bob.
“Yes. She, too, poor dear, has had to desert hubby. Exactions of
business! Clarence simply couldn’t get away. You see he’s director of so
many things. And poor, dear old Dan! So busy! Every day at the office!
So pressed with business.”
“Quite so,” said Bob absently. “I mean—” He stopped. He knew Dan wasn’t
pressed for business and Bob couldn’t utter even the suspicion of an
untruth now. “Didn’t exactly mean that!” he mumbled.
The lady regarded him quickly. His manner was just in the least strange.
But in a moment she thought no more about it.
“You didn’t happen to see Dan?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“At his office, I suppose?” Dan had written he hadn’t even had time for
his club; that it had been just work—work all the time.
“No.”
“Where, then?”
“At the club and some other places.” Reluctantly.
“Other places?” Lightly. Of course she hadn’t really believed quite all
Dan had written about that office confinement. “How dreadfully
ambiguous!” With a laugh. “What other places?”
Bob began to get uneasy. “Well, we went to a cabaret or two.” No
especial harm about that answer.
“Of course,” said the lady. “Why not?”
Bob felt relieved. He didn’t want to make trouble. He was too miserable
himself. He trusted that would end the talk and now regarded the
neglected ball suggestively.
“And then you went to still some other places?” went on the lady in that
same light, unoffended tone.
“Ye-es,” Bob had to admit.
“One of those roof gardens, perhaps, where they have entertainments?”
she suggested brightly.
Bob acknowledged they had gone to a roof garden. And again, and more
suggestively, he eyed the little white ball. But Mrs. Dan seemed to have
forgotten all about it.
“Roof gardens,” she said. “I adore roof gardens. They _are_ such a boon
to the people. I told dear Dan to be sure not to miss them. So nice to
think of him enjoying himself instead of moping away in a stuffy old
office.”
Bob gazed at her suspiciously. But she had such an open face! One of
those faces one can’t help trusting. Mrs. Dan was just the homely, plain
old-fashioned type. At least, so she seemed. Anyhow, it didn’t much
matter so far as Bob was concerned. He had to tell the truth. He hadn’t
sought this conversation. It was forced on him. He was only going the
“even tenor of his way.” He was, however, rather pleased that Mrs. Dan
did seem in some respects different from others of her sex. Bob didn’t,
of course, really know much about the sex.
“So you went to the roof garden—just you and Dan,” purred Mrs. Dan.
Bob didn’t answer. He hoped she hadn’t really put that as a question.
“Or _were_ you and Dan alone?” She made it a question now.
“No-a.”
“Who else were along?”
“Dickie—”
“And—?”
“Clarence.”
She gazed toward Mrs. Clarence, while a shade of anxiety appeared on
Bob’s face. In the distance Mrs. Clarence had paused to contemplate the
result of an unusually satisfactory display of skill. Mrs. Dan next
glanced sidewise at her caddy, but that young man seemed to have
relapsed into a condition of innocuous vacancy. He looked capable of
falling asleep standing. Certainly he wasn’t trying to overhear.
“Just you four men!” Mrs. Dan resumed her purring. “Or were you all
alone? No ladies along?”
While expecting, of course, the negative direct, she was studying Bob
and gleaning what she could, surreptitiously, or by inference. He had an
eloquent face which might tell her something his lips refused to reveal.
His answer almost took her breath away.
“Ye-es.”
He was sorry, but he had to say it. No way out of it! Mrs. Dan’s jaw
fell. What she might have said can only be conjectured, for at this
moment, luckily for Bob, there came an interruption.
“Tête-à-têting, instead of teeing!” broke in a jocular voice. The
speaker wore ecclesiastical garments; his imposing calves were encased
in episcopal gaiters. Mrs. Ralston always liked to dignify her
house-parties with a religious touch, and this particular bishop was
very popular with her. Bob inwardly blessed the good man for his
opportune appearance. He was a ponderous wag.
“Forgive interruption,” he went on, just as if Mrs. Dan who was
non-amatory had been engaged in a furious flirtation. “I’ll be hurrying
on.”
“Do,” said Mrs. Dan, matching his tone, and concealing any inward
exasperation that she might have felt.
“It’s I who will be hurrying on,” interposed Bob quickly. “You see, I’m
expected to arrive at the house,” he laughed.
“Looked as if you were having an interesting conversation,” persisted
the bishop waggishly.
“And so we were,” assented Mrs. Dan. She could have stamped with
vexation, but instead, she forced a smile. The dear tiresome bishop had
to be borne.
“Confess you find me de trop?” he went on, shaking a finger at Bob.
“On the contrary,” said Bob.
“Has to say that,” laughed the good man. He did love to poke fun (or
what he conceived “fun”) at “fair, fat and forty.” “I suppose you were
positively dee-lighted to be interrupted?”
“I was,” returned Bob truthfully.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the bishop.
Bob looked at him. The bishop thought he was joking, just as the hackman
had. Of course, no one could say such a thing as that seriously and in
the presence of the lady herself. People always didn’t believe truth
when they heard it. They thought telling the truth a form of crude
humor, and a spark of hope-a very small one—shot through Bob’s brain.
Perhaps they would continue to look upon him in the light of a joker. He
would be the little joker in the pack of cards and he might yet pull off
that “three weeks” without pulling down the house. Only—would Miss
Gerald look upon him as a joker? Intuition promptly told him she would
not. His thoughts reverted to that last meeting. Think of having told
her he didn’t want—His offense grew more awful unto himself every
moment. He ceased to remember Mrs. Dan, and saying something, he hardly
knew what, Bob walked on.
Miss Gwendoline Gerald was on the big veranda when he reached the house.
He would have thanked her humbly and with immense contrition for having
transferred his bag and clubs hither, but as he went by, that gracious,
stately young lady seemed not to see him. It was as if he had suddenly
become invisible. Her face didn’t even change; the proud contour
expressed neither contempt nor disdain; the perfectly formed lips didn’t
take a more pronounced curve or grow hard.
Bob felt himself shrink. He was like that man in the story book who
becomes invisible at times. The fiction man, however, attained this
convenient consummation through his own volition. Bob didn’t. She was
the magician and he wasn’t even a joker.
He managed to reach the front door without stumbling. A wild desire to
attract her attention by asking her if his luggage _had_ arrived safely,
he dismissed quickly. It wouldn’t do at all. It might imply a fear she
had dumped it out, en route. And if she hadn’t, such an inquiry would
only emphasize the fact that she had acted as expressman—or woman—and
for him!
He would go to his room at once, he told the footman. He didn’t mind a
few moments’ solitude. If so much could happen before his house-party
had begun—before he even got into the house—what might he not expect
later? In one of the upper halls he encountered the man with the
monocle.
“I say!” said this person. “What a jolly coincidence!”
“Think so?” said Bob. He didn’t find anything “jolly” about it. On
another occasion, he might have noticed that the eye behind the
“window-pane” was rather twinkling, but his perceptions were not
particularly keen at the present time.
In the room to which he had been assigned, Bob cast off a few garments.
Then he stopped with his shirt partly off. He wondered how Miss Gerald
would look the next time he saw her? Like a frozen Hebe, perhaps! Bob
removed the shirt and cast it viciously somewhere. Then he selected
another shirt—the first that came along, for why should he exercise
care to select? It matters little what an invisible man wears. _She_
wouldn’t see the extra stripe or the bigger dot. Stripes couldn’t rescue
him from insubstantiability. Colors, too, would make no difference.
Pea-green, yellow, or lavender—it was all one. Any old shirt would do.
And any old tie!
When he had finished dressing, he didn’t find any further excuse for
remaining in his room. He couldn’t consult his desires as to that. He
wasn’t asked there to be a hermit. He couldn’t imitate Timon of Athens,
Diogenes or any other of those wise old fellows who did the glorious
solitude act. Diogenes told the truth, mostly, but he could live in a
tub. He didn’t have to participate in house-parties. Whoever invented
house-parties, anyhow? They were such uncomfortable “social functions”
they must have been invented by the English. Why do people want to get
together? Bob could sympathize with Diogenes. Also, he could envy Timon
his howling wilderness! But personally he couldn’t even be a Robinson
Crusoe. Would there were no other company than clawless crabs and a goat
and a parrot! He would not be afraid to tell _them_ the truth.
He had to go down and he did. Nemesis lurked for him below. Had Bob
realized what was going to happen he would have skipped back to his
room. But, as it was, he assumed a bold front. He even said to himself,
“Cheer up; the worst is yet to come.” It was.
CHAPTER V—TRIVIALITIES
Luncheon came and went, but nothing actually tragic happened at it. Bob
didn’t make more than a dozen remarks that failed to add to his
popularity. He tried to be agreeable, because that was his nature. That
“even-tenor-of-his-way” condition made it incumbent on him—yes, made it
his sacred duty to be bright and amiable. So it was “Hence, loathed
Melancholy!” and a brave endeavor to be as jocund as the poet’s lines!
Only those little unfortunate moments—airy preludes to larger
misfortunes—had to occur, and just when he would flatter himself he was
not doing so badly.
For example, when Mrs. Augustus Ossenreich Vanderpool said: “Don’t you
adore dogs, Mr. Bennett?”
“No. I like them.” It became necessary to qualify that. “That is—not
the little kind.”
The lady stiffened. Her beribboned and perfumed five-thousand-dollar
toy-dogs were the idolized darlings of her heart. The children might be
relegated to the nursery but the canines had the run of the boudoir.
They rode with her when she went out in state while the French _bonne_
took the children for an airing. “And why are the ‘little kind’ excluded
from the realm of your approbation?” observed Mrs. Vanderpool coldly.
It was quite a contract to answer that. Bob wanted to be truthful; not
to say too much or too little; only just as much as he was in honor
bound to say. “I think people make too much fuss over them,” he answered
at last. That reply seemed quite adequate and he trusted the lady would
change the subject. But people had a way of not doing what he wanted
them to, lately
|
6 gives a general idea of the toy base.
DOWEL STICKS.
Dowel sticks are very useful to the toy maker and an assortment of
various sizes should be kept on hand. They are very handy in many ways
in toy making and furniture construction. They come in sizes from 1/4"
to 1" in diameter or larger, in 30" lengths, and cost from two to three
cents apiece.
Dowel sticks are usually carried in stock by local hardware men or may
be obtained from manufacturers of mill work.
PICTURE PUZZLE CONSTRUCTION.
The problem illustrated in Plate 5 is very interesting and especially
good for the beginner.
First, select a picture of the size desired from a calendar or discarded
magazine. Colored pictures are the best.
Prepare a piece of 1/4" soft wood, such as bass or pine, and glue the
picture to the surface, rolling and pressing out air bubbles and
smoothing away all wrinkles. Place a weight on the picture and allow it
to dry overnight.
Holding the coping saw so that the blade is straight up and down, or in
other words, at right angles with the surface of the work, saw out
irregular shaped pieces similar to those shown in the accompanying
drawing.
If these pieces are placed in a neat Christmas box, such as may be
purchased at the five-and-ten-cent store, it will make a very pleasing
Christmas gift.
[Illustration: _Plate 5._
_PICTURE PUZZLE CONSTRUCTION_]
[Illustration: _Plate 6._
_PELICAN_]
[Illustration: _Plate 7._
_DUCK_]
[Illustration: _Plate 8._
_GOOSE_]
[Illustration: _Plate 9._
_RHINOCEROS_]
[Illustration: _Plate 10._
_ELEPHANT_]
[Illustration: _Plate 11._
_RABBIT_]
[Illustration: _Plate 12._
_LAMB_]
[Illustration: _Plate 13._
_GOAT_]
[Illustration: _Plate 14._
_ROOSTER_]
[Illustration: _Plate 15._
_CAMEL_]
[Illustration: _Plate 16._
_METHOD OF ENLARGING FIGURES_]
METHOD OF ENLARGING FIGURES.
If a figure shown in a book or in any picture is to be enlarged the
following method is very simple:
Enclose the figure in a rectangle and divide it in quarter inch squares,
like the drawing of the duck in Plate 16.
If the drawing is to be enlarged twice the original size, draw a
rectangle on a piece of paper or cardboard twice as large as the
picture. Divide it into exactly the same number of squares, which will
now be twice as large as before, or one-half inch on a side. Letter and
number all parts to agree.
Start now and sketch the enlarged figure, having the lines pass through
the same places in the squares of the large rectangle as in the small.
With a little patience it will be surprising how accurate a copy can be
made.
A picture may be reduced by the same method.
DIPPY DUCK.
This toy is larger than the regular cut-out figure and has added action
by the placing of the inner piece off-center on the larger wheel, thus
causing the duck to move up and down as the toy is pulled along on the
floor.
As shown in the drawing (Plate 17), the base is made of four separate
pieces, because it is easier to construct it this way than to cut out
the slot from a solid piece. The wood used is 7/8" pine, the two long
pieces being 1-1/2" wide by 15" long and the two end pieces 1-1/4" wide
by 2-1/2" long. These are glued and chamfered. A small chamfer is planed
around the top edge, as shown.
The small base piece on which the duck rests is made 7/8" × 1" × 7-1/2".
A hole is bored 2" from one end with a 1/2" bit and the slot is sawed
out. The opposite end is rounded.
A hole is bored in the end where the slot is cut 3/8" from the end, of a
size that will take a piece of 16-penny nail tightly. The nail is cut
one inch long and serves as an axle for the large wheel. A similar hole
is bored, 3/8" from the other end, with a larger drill so that the nail
used at this point will be smaller than the hole, allowing the base
piece to move easily upon it.
The large wheel is made by cutting a piece from a curtain rod 2-1/4" in
diameter or by turning down a piece to this diameter on the lathe. This
wheel is cut 3/8" thick. The four main wheels are 1-3/4" in diameter and
3/8" thick. These wheels have a small hole bored exactly in their
center, of a size large enough to allow a shingle, or a screw, nail to
turn easily within.
The wheels are attached two inches from the ends and the nails are
driven in straight so as to insure the wheels turning evenly. A screw
eye is placed at the front end, as shown, to which is attached a string
to pull it by.
[Illustration: _Plate 17._
_DIPPY DUCK_]
All parts should be nicely sanded before assembling and then given two
coats of paint. A suggested color scheme is given on the drawing.
[Illustration: _Plate 18._
_MONITOR_ (_revolving turret_)]
THE MONITOR.
This design is what might be called an amphibious toy, which means one
that is at home both on the land and water.
The base, or hull, is made from a piece of 1/2" board, 5-1/4" wide and
14" long. At a point on the long edges, 4-1/2" from the ends, a center
is taken with a compass, or pair of dividers, set at 5-1/4" radius, as
shown in the drawing. Strike all of these curves and cut to the line
with a coping saw and finish smooth.
The main turret and the two smaller blocks are either turned on a lathe
or cut from a cylindrical piece of wood. If care is used the pieces can
also be cut with a turning saw from a piece of wood of the required
thickness. The two smaller pieces are cut from a piece of 7/8" board and
are 1-3/4" in diameter and are attached with 1" brads and glue, 1-3/4"
from each end.
For the main turret, which is to be movable, a hole is bored in the hull
exactly in the middle. In boring, a bit a little larger than the size of
a 1-1/2" No. 8 flat-head screw is used, in order that the screw shank
will move easily. This hole is countersunk on the under side. A smaller
hole is started on the under side of the turret to receive the screw
and, when the pieces are assembled, the screw is not screwed up tight,
but enough play is left so that the turret will revolve fairly easily.
[Illustration: The Monitor and the Merrimac and Animal Toys.]
The two "guns" may be cut from 5/8" dowels, 2-3/8" long, or may be
turned on a lathe. Two holes are bored, on opposite sides of the turret,
3/8" deep, to receive the guns which are glued in.
The two pieces to which the wheels are attached are made 1/2" × 3/4" ×
4", and are secured in place 4" from bow and stern with shingle nails
and glue.
[Illustration: _Plate 19._
_MERRIMAC_]
The four wheels are cut from 1" dowels, 7/8" thick.
A hole is bored exactly in the middle of each wheel a little larger than
the wire of a shingle nail, which is used to hold them in place on the
base.
A small piece of 1/4" dowel about 2-1/4" long, is inserted in a hole,
bored with a 1/4" bit, 3/4" from the bow. This is the flagstaff, and
just in front of this is placed a small screw eye to attach the string
for pulling the toy. Give the entire toy two coats of black paint.
THE MERRIMAC.
The Confederate Ironclad is a little harder to make than the Monitor,
but it is well within the ability of a sixth grade boy.
The hull is made 1/2" × 5-1/4" × 14", and is sawed to a point at the bow
and stern, sloping from the center point of both ends to points 3-1/4"
from either end.
The upper works are made from a block of wood 1-3/4" thick, 4-1/2" wide
and 7-1/2" long. This is beveled so that the top is 3-1/4" × 6-1/4".
The two smokestacks are made from pieces of 3/4" dowel, cut 3-1/4" long
and inserted in holes bored 1/2" deep, 1" from the sides of the upper
deck and 3-1/8" from the ends. These are held in place with glue.
The flagstaff is cut from a piece of 1/4" dowel, 2-3/8" long, inserted
in a hole, bored with a 1/4" bit, 3/4" from the bow.
Just in front of this, 1/4" from the end, is placed a small screw-eye to
which a string may be attached.
The ten "guns" are made from 1/2" dowels, cut 1" long, and at an angle
so that the lower side is 7/8" long. This is so that they will fit
against the sloping sides of the turret.
A hole is bored from end to end of each gun, in their centers, so that a
1-1/2" finish nail will fit in nicely.
The guns are held in place with these nails and with glue at the points
indicated on the drawing.
The upper works and hull are held together with 1" brads and glue, in
such a manner that the gun turret is equally distant from the ends and
sides of the hull.
The pieces which hold the wheels are made 1/2" × 3/4" × 4" and are
nailed and glued in place, 3-1/2" from bow and stern.
The wheels are 3/8" thick, cut from 1" dowels, and are held by shingle
nails driven into the axle in such a way that they will turn freely.
The holes for the nails, in the wheels, are bored exactly in their
centers with a bit a little larger than the nail to be used.
After sanding and assembling give the boat two coats of black or battle
ship gray paint.
[Illustration: _Plate 20._
_CHILD'S SNOW SHOVEL_]
CHILD'S SNOW SHOVEL.
This problem is simple and of interest to young people during early
winter. (Plate 20.)
The handle may be made square in section first and then gradually
rounded with a plane and then filed and sanded; or a discarded handle
from some other implement may be utilized. The handle should be 28"
long, and a hole should be bored and a rivet inserted 11-5/8" from one
end. This is to reinforce the handle where the saw cut comes. This cut
is made directly along the center of the handle and stops 11" from the
end. If this cut is not made exactly in the center, the spreading, when
the grip is inserted, will be unequal, and the shovel will not be in
balance.
The two ends of the shovel are rounded, as indicated, and the lower end
is cut at an angle to fit the surface of the shovel.
The grip should be cut from a 1" dowel and then cut to fit the angle
formed by the spreading sides of the shovel.
This is held in place by 1-1/4" No. 8 round-head screws with washers, as
indicated.
The broad part of the shovel is cut from one piece, if possible, 1/2" ×
8" × 10-1/2", and the front end cut an angle which is reinforced with a
piece of zinc, 3-1/4" × 8", bent over and held by rivets and washers, as
shown.
The brace under the handle is cut 3/4" × 1-5/8" × 8" and then planed
from an upper edge to within an inch of the opposite lower edge and
secured in place with screws. The handle is attached to the blade with
rivets and washers, as shown on the drawing.
THE PERISCOPE.
This is an interesting problem and demonstrates a scientific principle.
For a periscope of the size shown in the drawing (Plate 21), two pieces
of looking glass must be first cut 2-1/4" × 2-7/8".
Pieces A are cut 3/8" × 2" × 4-1/4"; pieces B are 3/8" × 2-3/4" ×
4-1/4"; pieces C, 3/8" × 1-7/8" × 2-3/4"; pieces D, 3/8" × 2" × 17-1/4";
pieces E, 3/8" × 2-3/4" × 18-7/8"; and pieces F, 3/8" × 2-3/4" ×
18-7/8".
Two grooves 1/8" deep, and of a width to receive the thickness of the
glass used, should be cut at an angle of 45 degrees, where indicated on
the drawing. This groove is cut in pieces A only.
All pieces should be thoroughly sanded with No. 1 sandpaper and finished
with No. 0. Assemble, as shown on the drawing, using glue and 1" brads.
The final finish may be stain or paint. Whatever finish is used should
be of a dark color as best suited for a periscope.
[Illustration: _Plate 21._
_PERISCOPE_]
[Illustration: The Periscope in Use.]
DOLL'S IRONING BOARD.
(Size A.)
This problem has proven very popular in toy-making classes and has been
one of the best sellers at toy sales. It folds up compactly and is
strong and serviceable.
Plates 22, 23 and 24 show the ironing board in three sizes for children
of varying ages.
Plate 22 is for children of about three years of age, and the material
is prepared as follows:
The top is first made of 1/2" lumber and is 6" wide and 20" long. Set
the dividers with a 3" radius and strike an arc just touching the end
and two sides of the board. Do the same on the other end, using a 2-1/2"
radius.
[Illustration: The Three Types of Ironing Boards.]
Connect these arcs with straight lines and saw and plane carefully just
to the lines all around. The turning saw may be used on the ends.
[Illustration: _Plate 22._
_DOLL'S IRONING BOARD_ (_Size A_)]
Slightly round the upper edge of the surface which is to be uppermost.
The legs are next cut to size, the two longer ones being 1/2" × 1" × 19"
and the two shorter ones 1/2" × 1" × 18-3/4".
One end of each is rounded by striking an arc with a 1-1/2" radius, at
the extreme end. The other ends of the legs are cut off at an angle, as
shown in the drawing.
Holes are bored in the rounded ends of the long legs, 1/2" from the ends
with a No. 3 bit. Another hole of similar size is bored 8-1/4" from the
one previously bored. These holes are all 1/2" from the edges.
On the short legs the only holes necessary are bored 8-1/4" from the
rounded end.
The long legs are attached by screws to a cleat which itself is screwed
to the underside of the top of the board, as shown. This cleat is 7/8" ×
1-1/8" × 4-1/2" and is glued and held to the top by 1-1/4" flat-head
screws, two of them being sufficient. These are countersunk.
The separating piece at the other end of the long legs is 1/2" × 1" ×
4-9/16" and is held in place by 1-1/4" brads and glue. It is attached 2"
from the ends.
Two separating pieces are next made for the short legs, 1/2" × 1" ×
3-1/2", and these are attached in the same manner as the piece between
the long legs.
A cleat 7/8" × 1" × 3-7/16" is attached with glue and 1-1/2" flat-head
screws, 2" from the small end of the board. This holds the short legs in
position.
All pieces should be thoroughly sanded with No. 1/2 sandpaper before
being assembled. No further finish is necessary.
DOLL'S IRONING BOARD.
(Size B.)
The method of constructing this board is identical with the method
suggested for board A. The difference is in the size of the pieces.
(Plate 23.)
This type of ironing board is suitable for a child from four to six
years of age.
The top is 5/8" thick, 7-3/4" wide and 24-1/2" long.
The curved ends are struck with the dividers in the same way as in the
preceding problem.
The legs are next cut to dimension, the longer ones being 9/16" × 1-1/8"
× 24", and the shorter 9/16" × 1-1/8" × 22-1/2".
One end of each leg is rounded by setting the dividers at 9/16" and
cutting to the line and cutting the opposite ends at an angle, as shown
in the drawing.
Bore holes with a No. 3 bit in the rounded ends of the long legs, 5/8"
from the ends and a similar hole is bored 9-1/2" from the hole
previously bored. These holes are all 9/16" in from the edges.
[Illustration: _Plate 23._
_DOLL'S IRONING BOARD_ (_Size B_)]
On the short legs the only holes bored are made with the same bit,
9-3/8" from the rounded ends.
The long legs are attached to a cleat by 1-1/2" No. 10 round-head blue
screws, with washers under both the heads of the screws and between the
screws and the cleat.
The cleat is 7/8" × 1-1/8" × 5-7/8" and is glued and screwed to the
under side of the top with 1-1/2" No. 8 flat-head screws.
These are countersunk.
The separating piece at the other end of the long legs is 3/8" × 1-1/8"
× 5-15/16" and is held in place by 1-1/4" brads and glue, and is
attached 3" from the end.
Two separating pieces are next made for the short legs, 3/8" × 1-1/8" ×
4-1/2", and these are attached in the same way as the piece between the
longer legs.
A cleat 7/8" × 1-1/4" × 4-7/16" is attached with glue and 1-3/4"
flat-head screws, 4" from the small end of the board. This holds the
short legs in position. Refer to the detail on the drawing of the size A
ironing board (Plate 22) for the method of making the button which holds
the board rigid.
All pieces should be thoroughly sanded with No. 1/2 sandpaper before
being assembled.
No further finish is necessary.
DOLL'S IRONING BOARD.
(Size C.)
The method of constructing this size board is similar to the other two
types. (Plate 24.)
This size board is suitable for children from six to eight years of age.
The top is made 3/4" thick, 9" wide and 30" long. The dividers are set
with a 4-1/2" radius and an arc is struck to touch the end and two sides
of the board. A similar arc is struck at the opposite end with a 3-1/2"
radius.
These arcs are connected with a straight line, and the outline is cut
with a saw and finally planed to the lines. The curved ends can be cut
with a turning saw and finished with a chisel and file.
The upper edges are slightly rounded with a file and sandpaper.
The legs are next cut to size, two being 3/4" × 1-1/4" × 27-7/8", and
the other two 3/4" × 1-1/4" × 29".
One end of each is rounded by striking an arc with a 5/8" radius, at the
extreme end. The other ends of the legs are cut at an angle, as shown in
the drawing.
Holes are bored in the rounded end of the short legs, 5/8" from the
ends, of a size that will take a 1-3/4" No. 10 round-head blue screw.
[Illustration: _Plate 24._
_DOLL'S IRONING BOARD_ (_Size C_)]
Another hole of similar size is bored 11" from this. These holes are all
5/8" from the edges.
On the other two legs the only two holes necessary are bored 12-1/2"
from the rounded ends.
The shorter legs are attached by screws to a cleat which itself is
screwed to the underside of the board, 4-1/2" from the large end. This
cleat is 1" × 1-1/4" × 6-3/4" and is held in place with glue and 1-3/4"
flat-head screws, countersunk. Two of these screws are sufficient.
The separating piece at the other end of the legs is 3/4" × 1-1/4" ×
6-13/16", and is held in place by 1-1/2" brads and glue, and is attached
3-1/2" from the ends.
Two separating pieces are next made for the long legs, 3/4" × 1-1/4" ×
5-1/4", and these are attached in the same manner as the pieces between
the other set of legs.
A cleat 1-1/8" × 1-3/8" × 5-3/16" is attached with glue and 2" flat-head
screws, 5-1/2" from the small end of the board. This holds the short
legs in position.
The wood button, shown on the drawing for the Size A ironing board
(Plate 22), is attached to this cleat and prevents the board from
collapsing.
All pieces should be thoroughly sandpapered with No. 1/2 sandpaper
before being assembled.
No further finish is necessary.
DOLL'S CLOTHES RACK.
This folding clothes rack is an interesting toy and requires some skill
in assembling. (Plate 25.)
[Illustration: Playing House is real fun with such a dolls' clothes
rack, ironing board, wash bench, table and stepladder.]
The four legs are cut 3/8" × 3/4" × 13" and each end is rounded by first
striking semicircles on the ends, using a 3/8" radius, and then
finishing with a chisel carefully to the line.
Holes are bored in these legs with a 1/4" bit in the following places:
3/8" from the top, 4-7/8" beyond this, 3-1/4" beyond this, and 1-3/4"
beyond this. Extreme care must be taken not to split the wood. Bore
through from one side until the spur of the bit just starts to come
through, then remove the bit and bore back from the other side.
[Illustration: _Plate 25._
_DOLL'S CLOTHES RACK_]
Next cut the four top pieces to size, two being 3/8" × 3/4" × 6" and two
3/8" × 3/4" × 7". These are also rounded on both ends. Holes are bored
3/8" from each end of all of these and also half way between their ends,
as shown in Plate 25.
These pieces should be carefully sanded with No. 1 sandpaper.
The cross pieces are cut from 1/4" dowels as follows: Four pieces,
8-3/4" long; six pieces, 8" long; and one piece, 7-1/4" long.
The long dowel sticks are the ones that go at points a, b, c and d,
Plate 25, on the outside legs. The 8" dowels go at points e, f, g, h, i,
and j. The single short dowel goes at point k.
Examine the drawing carefully and see that the four top pieces are
placed on the correct dowels. Hold all dowels, which are not at movable
points, with 3/4" brads.
Be sure every piece is in its proper position before driving in the
brads and then be positive that no brad is being driven at a point where
the dowel must be free to move in the hole. It is always best to
assemble the rack completely and by closing and opening it learn clearly
just where the brads are to be placed.
No further finish is necessary.
CHILD'S WASH BENCH.
This bench may be made in various sizes to fit different heights of
children. The top consists of three slats and for the size bench shown
in Plate 26, the slats are made 3/8" × 1-3/4" × 18". These slats have
screw holes bored 2-3/8" from the ends and 3/8" from the edges, as
shown. These are countersunk to receive 1" No. 6 flat-head screws.
Two braces are made 3/4" × 1/4" × 8". These are to support the slats.
One inch from one end of these braces, and 5/8" from the edges, a hole
is bored with a 3/8" bit. The same distance from the other end a similar
hole is bored and a piece is sawed out, as shown in the drawing, to
receive and support the dowel rod.
The legs of the bench are cut 3/8" × 1" × 12-3/4". One-half inch from
one end a hole is bored with a 3/8" bit. One and one-half inches from
the other end a similar hole is bored and 7" from the same end the third
hole is bored, making three in each leg. Care must be taken in boring
these holes not to split the work as the bit goes through. Bore through
on one side until the spur of the bit just starts through on the
opposite side. Remove the bit and place the spur point in the small hole
made by the spur and bore back in the opposite direction.
[Illustration: _Plate 26._
_CHILD'S WASH BENCH_]
The two cross slats forming the braces are 3/8" × 3/4" × 13". A center
lap joint is made by cutting through half way on both slats at such an
angle as will cause the outer edge of the slats to be about five inches
apart. The ends of the slats should be sawed at such an angle as will
make them flush with the sides of the legs and small holes drilled and
countersunk so that they may be attached with 3/4" No. 4 flat-head
screws.
Two 3/8" dowel rods should next be cut, one being 12-1/2" long and the
other 14" long.
These dowels should be held in place in the legs by 3/4" brads, care
being taken not to nail where there is to be a moving joint.
All pieces should be carefully sanded with No. 1/2 sandpaper.
No other finish is necessary.
CHILD'S STEP LADDER.
This step ladder may be made in various sizes, the one shown here being
suitable for children up to seven or eight years of age. (Plate 27.)
The two front legs should be cut first, 5/8" × 2-1/4" × 21". It will be
noticed that the two ends are cut off at an angle. This angle is
obtained by measuring back on one side 1" and drawing to this point from
the opposite corner. Make all of these angles equal and if possible cut
them in a miter-box.
The two rear legs, or braces, are cut 5/8" × 1-1/8" × 17-3/4", and the
two ends are rounded. The semicircle is marked out by setting the
dividers, or a compass, at a 9/16" radius and striking the curve tangent
to the sides and ends of the legs.
Two holes are bored with a No. 8 bit, 5/16" from one end of the rear
legs and 1-1/4" from the other end, as indicated, care being taken not
to split the wood.
The top step is next made 5/8" × 5-1/4" × 9-3/4", and the top edges
slightly rounded.
Two holes are bored with a small drill, 1-1/2" from the ends of this
step and 1" from the rear and front edges of both ends. These should be
countersunk. Later, when assembled, this top is screwed to the braces
with 1" No. 6 flat-head screws, as shown in the front view. (Plate 27.)
Two braces are next made 5/8" × 2" × 5-1/4", and are cut off at either
end at the same angle as were the ends of the front legs. These are
attached to the inside of the legs, at the top, as shown in the side
view, with four 1" No. 6 flat-head screws and glue. Care should be taken
to get them just even with the front and top sides of the legs. Before
the braces are attached a hole should be bored with a No. 8 bit 5/8"
from the top edge and 1" from the left-hand edge to receive the dowel
stick on which the rear leg swings.
[Illustration: _Plate 27._
_CHILD'S STEP LADDER_]
While boring this hole the end should be held with a clamp to prevent
splitting.
The two lower steps are next made. These are 5/8" thick and are cut 3"
wide. The width is greater than is needed, and is provided that the
steps may be planed even with the edges of the legs later. The steps are
cut 8" in length.
The next operation is cutting grooves for the steps to set into the
legs, and this requires considerable care.
The lower step is 5-3/4" from the lower end of the legs. This dimension
is measured off on each leg, and a line is drawn parallel with the lower
end of the leg. This may be done by either using a T bevel, set at the
angle of the lower end of the legs, or the dimension, 5-3/4", may be
measured up on both sides of the leg and a line drawn across.
Next take the lower step and mark one end A and the other end B. Place
the end A, of the lower step, evenly on this line and make a mark above
the first line a little less than the thickness of the step. The groove
is marked a little less than the thickness of the step so that, in case
the saw cut is made a little wide, the step will not be likely to fit
loosely.
Square lines across both edges of the edge from the end of the lines
previously drawn and measure down from the surface a distance of 1/4" on
the edges. Draw a line through this point parallel to the edge of the
leg.
Next saw carefully on the lines, first drawn, down as far as this last
line and cut the wood out with a half-inch chisel.
If the step will not fit in the slot, plane a very slight amount from
the surface of the step until it fits snugly into the groove.
End B is fitted to the opposite leg in a similar way and the second step
is placed in a like manner, 6-7/8" above the lower step.
If the drawing is examined, as these directions for placing the steps
are read, the explanation will be greatly simplified.
The two narrow cross braces are next made, 3/8" × 5/8" × 15-1/2". These
are crossed at their middle point in a middle-lap joint, a groove being
cut half through each piece wide enough to insure a tight joint. These
braces are attached to the rear legs, 2-1/2" from their lower ends, with
3/4" No. 6 flat-head screws, the holes being previously bored and
countersunk.
Cut the ends of the braces even with the ends of the legs.
Holes are bored with a small bit in the grooves in the legs, 1/2" in
from the sides, as shown. These holes are for the round-head screws
which hold the steps in place. The steps are held in the grooves of the
legs with glue and 1" No. 6 round-head blue screws.
[Illustration: _Plate 28._
_DOLL'S TABLE WITH DRAWER_]
The dowel sticks are now cut 8-3/4" long from a 1/2" dowel and, after
all pieces of wood are carefully sanded with No. 1 sandpaper, the step
ladder is assembled.
A 3/4" brad should be driven into the edge of the rear legs so that it
will penetrate and hold the dowel in place.
A piece of small chain should be fastened to each front and rear leg, as
shown, of a length sufficient to have the front legs of the ladder set
flat on the ground. Also take care that the two chains are even with
each other and parallel with the ground. No further finish is required.
DOLL'S TABLE WITH DRAWER.
While this table may be made in various sizes, the one shown in the
accompanying drawing has proven very popular.
The four legs are first made 7/8" × 1-1/4" × 12". Measure down 3" from
one end and taper the legs equally from this point to a width of 7/8" at
the opposite ends, as shown.
The two side rails are made 1/2" × 2-7/8" × 6-1/2". The two front rails
above and below the drawer are cut 1/2" × 1/2" × 12".
On the side and rear rails, centers for dowels are located 5/8" from
the top and lower edges and half way between the sides. An inch brad is
driven in a short distance at these points, and the head is cut off
about 1/4" above the surface of the wood. These ends are now placed so
that their upper edges are even with the top of the legs. Press down
lightly on the rails and a mark will be made on the surface of the legs.
Remove the brads and bore the dowel hole with a 1/4" bit, 1-1/4" deep.
The two drawer rails are treated in the same manner and the holes are
bored.
The top will no
|
moors—half a mile away
perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the cottages were
close by. "Run home, sonny. I'm going to have a look at the soldier,
too."
The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to
run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and within
quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin. So fiercely it went
howling inland along the ridge that he half-expected to see the horse
urged into a gallop before it. But the rider, now standing high for a
moment against the sky-line, went plodding on. For a while horse and
rider disappeared over the rise; but Taffy guessed that on hitting
the cross-path beyond, they would strike away to the left and descend
toward Langona Creek; and he began to slant his course to the left in
anticipation. The tide, he knew, would be running in strong; and with
this wind behind it he hoped—and caught himself praying—that it would be
high enough to cover the wooden footbridge and make the ford impassable;
and if so, the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and
fetch a circuit farther up the valley.
By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other's heels and the
strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost his hat,
and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots. But all he
felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there little by little
for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his silent thoughts as a
reservoir by small mountain-streams; and with so tranquil a surface that
at times—poor youth!—he had honestly believed it reflected God's calm,
had been proud of his magnanimity, and said "forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us." Now as he ran he prayed
to the same God to delay the traitor at the ford.
Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the
sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the
small waves lapped against his mare's fore-feet, he heard Taffy's shout
for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a second
or two before he recognized the figure which came plunging down the low
cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches at the swaying
alder boughs.
"Hello!" he shouted, cheerfully. "Looks nasty, doesn't it?"
Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare's legs were
plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy's face.
"Get down," he panted.
"Hey?"
"Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse, and put up your fists."
"What the devil is the matter? Hello!... Keep off, I tell you! Are you
mad?"
"Come off and fight."
"By God, I'll break your head in if you don't let go.... You idiot!"—as
the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from Taffy's grip—"She'll
brain you, if you fool round her heels like that!"
"Come off, then."
"Very well." George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle
and faced him on the beach. "Now perhaps you'll explain."
"You've come from the headland?"
"Well?"
"From Lizzie Pezzack's."
"Well, and what then?"
"Only this, that so sure as you've a wife at home, if you come to the
headland again, I'll kill you; and if you're a man, you'll put up your
fists now."
"Oh, that's it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with
Lizzie Pezzack?"
"Whose child is Lizzie's?"
"Not yours, is it?"
"You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were."
"Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!" He
led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to. The
mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs and the
roar of the gale overhead; her hoofs, as George dragged her forward,
scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a minute he
desisted and turned on Taffy again.
"Look here; before we have this out there's one thing I'd like to know.
When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?"
"If you must know—yes."
"And when—when this happened, she stopped the supplies."
"Yes."
"Well, then, I didn't know it. She never told me."
"She never told _me_."
"You don't say——"
"I do. I never knew it until too late."
"Well, now, I'm going to fight you. I don't swallow being called a liar.
But I tell you this first, that I'm damned sorry. I never guessed that
it injured your prospects."
At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that
George was George, and heir to Sir Harry's nature. As it was, the
apology threw oil on the flame.
"You cur! Do you think it was _that_? And _you_ are Honoria's husband!"
He advanced with an ugly laugh. "For the last time, put up your fists."
They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so,
shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above the
gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. His left hand
held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was dragging, and the action
was merely instinctive, to guard against sudden attack.
But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted clear
against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever. Taffy
dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, behind the black contour
of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which gathered
brightness while he stared.
The very stones on the beach at his feet shone separate and distinct.
"What is it?" George gasped.
"A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?"
"She'll have to." George wheeled her round. She was fagged out with two
long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer terror made
her lively enough.
"Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be somewhere
off the creek here. Ride!"
A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane.
XXV
THE WRECK OF THE SAMARITAN
Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be somewhere
on the near side of the light-house, between it and the mouth of the
creek; that was, if she had already struck. If not, the gale and the
set of the tide together would be sweeping her eastward, perhaps right
across the mouth of the creek. And if he could discover this, his course
would be to run back, intercept the coast-guard and send them around by
the upper bridge.
He waited for a second signal to guide him—a flare or a rocket; but none
came. The beach lay in the lew of the weather, deep in the hills' hollow
and trebly landlocked by the windings of the creek; but above him the
sky kept its screaming as though the bare ridges of the headland were
being shelled by artillery.
He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to
the creek's mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along
the coast for a mile or two to the east and northeast. The night was
now as black as a wolf's throat; but he knew every path and fence. So
he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following the line of
stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it; and on the ridges—where the
blown hail took him in the face—crouching and scuttling like a crab,
sideways, moving his legs only from the knees down.
In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot
plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the tamarisks
below. Their boughs bent under his weight; but they were tough, and he
caught at them and just saved himself from rolling over into the black
water. He picked himself up and began to rub his twisted ankle. And at
that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his ear caught the sound of
splashing—yet a sound so unlike the lapping of the driven tide that he
peered over and down between the tamarisk boughs.
"Hullo there!"
"Hullo!" a voice answered. "Is that someone alive? Here, mate—for
Christ's sake!"
"Hold on! Whereabouts are you?"
"Down in this here cruel water." The words ended in a shuddering cough.
"Right—hold on a moment!" Taffy's ankle pained him, but the wrench was
not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, clutching at the
tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. "Where are you? I can't see."
"Here!" The voice was not a dozen yards away.
"Swimming?"
"No—I've got a water-breaker—can't hold on much longer."
"I believe you can touch bottom there."
"Hey? I can't hear."
"Try to touch bottom. It's firm sand hereabouts."
"So I can." The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close. Taffy
stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it in the
darkness.
"Christ! Where's a place to lie down?"
"Here, on this rock." They peered at each other, but could not see. The
man's teeth chattered close to Taffy's ear.
"Warm my hands, mate—there's a good chap." He lay on the rock and
panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly.
"Where's the ship?"
"Where's the ship?" He seemed to turn over the question in his mind,
and then stretched himself with a sigh. "How the hell should I know?"
"What's her name?" Taffy had to ask the question twice.
"The Samaritan of Newport, brigantine. Coals she carried. Ha'n't you
such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me, talkin' here like this,
and me not knowin' you from Adam."
He panted between the words, and when he had finished, lay back and
panted again.
"Hurt?" asked Taffy, after a while.
The man sat up and began to feel his limbs, quite as though they
belonged to some other body. "No, I reckon not."
"Then we'd best be starting. The tide's rising. My house is just above
here."
He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he
sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor a
hand and they mounted together. On the grass slope above they met the
gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl, Taffy
leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each with "Ay,
ay, mate!" to show that he understood.
But about half way up, these answers ceased, and Taffy, looking round
and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back for twenty
yards, and found the man stretched on his face and moaning.
"I can't... I can't! My poor brother! I can't!"
Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. "Your brother? Had you a
brother on board?"
The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both
knees, heard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness.
"Come," he coaxed; and putting out a hand touched his wet hair.
"Come—." They crept forward again; but still as he followed, the sailor
cried for his drowned brother; up the long slope to the ridge of the
headland where, with the light-house and warm cottage windows in view,
all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the blown grit
of the causeway.
Humility opened the door to them.
"Taffy! Where have you been?"
"There has been a wreck."
"Yes, yes—the coast-guard is down by the light-house. The men there saw
her before she struck. They kept signalling till it fell dark. They had
sent off before that."
She drew back, shrinking against the dresser as the lamplight fell on
the stranger. Taffy turned and stared, too. The man's face was running
with blood; and looking at his own hands he saw that they also were
scarlet.
He helped the poor wretch to a chair.
"Bandages—can you manage?" She nodded, and stepped to a cupboard. The
sailor began to wail like an infant.
"See—above the temple here: the cut isn't serious." Taffy took down a
lantern and lit it. The candle shone red through the smears his fingers
left on the horn panes. "I must go and help, if you can manage."
"I can manage," she answered, quietly.
He strode out, and closing the door behind him with an effort, faced
the gale again. Down in the lee of the light-house the lamps of the
coast-guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were
there discussing, and George among them. He had just galloped up.
The Chief Officer went off to question the survivor, while the rest
began their search. They searched all that night; they burned flares
and shouted; their torches dotted the cliffs. After an hour the Chief
Officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor, who had fallen
silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head; but he divided his men
into three parties, and they began to hunt more systematically. Taffy
was told off to help the westernmost gang and search the rocks below the
light-house. Once or twice he and his comrades paused in their work,
hearing, as they thought, a cry for help. But when they listened, it
was only one of the other parties hailing.
The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had blown
itself out. Day came filtered slowly through the wrack of it to the
southeast; and soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on the cliff
above them was George Vyell on horseback, in his red coat, with an arm
thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped off in that
direction.
They scrambled up and followed. To their astonishment, after following
the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down and across
the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor.
They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three—Taffy
amongst them—ran along the upper ground for a better view.
"Well, this beats all!" panted the foremost.
Below them George came into view again, heading now at full gallop for
a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good half-mile
from its mouth. And beyond—midway across the sandy bed where the
river wound—lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry; her deck, naked
of wheel-house and hatches, canted toward them as if to cover from the
morning the long wounds ripped by her uprooted masts.
The men beside him shouted and ran on, but Taffy stood still. It was
monstrous—a thing inconceivable—that the seas should have lifted a
vessel of three hundred tons and carried her half a mile up that shallow
creek. Yet there she lay. A horrible thought seized him. Could she have
been there last night when he had drawn the sailor ashore? And had he
left four or five others to drown close by, in the darkness? No, the
tide at that hour had scarcely passed half-flood. He thanked God for
that.
Well, there she lay, high and dry, with plenty to attend to her. It was
time for him to discover the damage done to the light-house plant and
machinery, perhaps to the building itself. In half an hour the workmen
would be arriving.
He walked slowly back to the house, and found Humility preparing
breakfast.
"Where is he?" Taffy asked, meaning the sailor. "In bed?"
"Didn't you meet him? He went out five minutes ago—I couldn't keep
him—to look for his brother, he said."
Taffy drank a cupful of tea, took up a crust, and made for the door.
"Go to bed, dear," his mother pleaded. "You must be worn out."
"I must see how the works have stood it."
On the whole, they had stood it well. The gale, indeed, had torn away
the wire cable and cage, and thus cut off for the time all access to the
outer rock; for while the sea ran at its present height the scramble out
along the ridge could not be attempted even at low water. But from the
cliff he could see the worst. The waves had washed over the building,
tearing off the temporary covers, and churning all within. Planks,
scaffolding—everything floatable—had gone, and strewed the rock with
match-wood; and—a marvel to see—one of his two heaviest winches had been
lifted from inside, hurled clean over the wall, and lay collapsed in
the wreckage of its cast-iron frame. But, so far as he could see, the
dove-tailed masonry stood intact. A voice hailed him.
"What a night! What a night!"
It was old Pezzack, aloft on the gallery of the light-house in his
yellow oilers, already polishing the lantern-panes.
Taffy's workmen came straggling and gathered about him. They discussed
the damage together but without addressing Taffy; until a little
pock-marked fellow, the wag of the gang, nudged a mate slyly and said
aloud:
"By God, Bill, we _can_ build a bit—you and me and the boss!"
All the men laughed; and Taffy laughed, too, blushing. Yes; this had
been in his mind. He had measured his work against the sea in its fury,
and the sea had not beaten him.
A cry broke in upon their laughter. It came from the base of the cliff
to the right—a cry so insistent that they ran toward it in a body.
Far below them, on the edge of a great bowlder which rose from the
broken water and seemed to overhang it, stood the rescued sailor. He
was pointing.
Taffy was the first to reach him.
"It's my brother! It's my brother Sam!"
Taffy flung himself full length on the rock and peered over. A tangle
of ore-weed awash rose and fell about its base; and from under this, as
the frothy waves drew back, he saw a man's ankle protruding, and a foot
still wearing a shoe.
"It's my brother!" wailed the sailor again. "I can swear to the shoe of
en!"
XXVI
SALVAGE
One of the masons lowered himself into the pool, and thrusting an arm
beneath the ore-weed, began to grope.
"He's pinned here. The rock's right on top of him."
Taffy examined the rock. It weighed fifteen tons if an ounce; but there
were fresh and deep scratches upon it. He pointed these out to the men,
who looked and felt them with their hands and stared at the subsiding
waves, trying to bring their minds to the measure of the spent gale.
"Here, I must get out of this!" said the man in the pool, as a small
wave dashed in and sent its spray over his bowed shoulders.
"You ban't going to leave en," wailed the sailor. "You ban't going to
leave my brother Sam."
He was a small, fussy man, with red whiskers; and even his sorrow gave
him little dignity. The men were tender with him.
"Nothing to be done till the tide goes back."
"But you won't leave en? Say you won't leave en! He've a wife and three
childern. He was a saved man, sir, a very religious man; not like me,
sir. He was highly respected in the neighborhood of St. Austell. I
shouldn't wonder if the newspapers had a word about en...." The tears
were running down his face.
"We must wait for the tide," said Taffy, gently, and tried to lead him
away, but he would not go. So they left him to watch and wait while they
returned to their work.
Before noon they recovered and fixed the broken wire cable. The iron
cradle had disappeared, but to rig up a sling and carry out an endless
line was no difficult job, and when this was done Taffy crossed over
to the island rock and began to inspect damages. His working gear had
suffered heavily, two of his windlasses were disabled, scaffolding,
platforms, hods, and loose planks had vanished; a few small tools only
remained mixed together in a mash of puddled lime. But the masonry
stood unhurt, all except a few feet of the upper course on the seaward
side, where the gale, giving the cement no time to set, had shaken the
dove-tailed stones in their sockets—a matter easily repaired.
Shortly before three a shout recalled them to the mainland. The tide
was drawing toward low water, and three of the men set to work at once
to open a channel and drain off the pool about the base of the big
rock. While this was doing, half a dozen splashed in with iron bars and
pickaxes; the rest rigged two stout ropes with tackles, and hauled. The
stone did not budge. For more than an hour they prized and levered and
strained. And all the while the sailor ran to and fro, snatching up now
a pick and now a crowbar, now lending a hand to haul and again breaking
off to lament aloud.
The tide turned, the winter dark came down, and at half-past four Taffy
gave the word to desist. They had to hold back the sailor, or he would
have jumped in and drowned beside his brother.
Taffy slept little that night, though he needed sleep. The salving of
this body had become almost a personal dispute between the sea and him.
The gale had shattered two of his windlasses; but two remained, and by
one o'clock next day he had both slung over to the mainland and fixed
beside the rock. The news spreading inland fetched two or three score
onlookers before ebb of tide—miners for the most part, whose help could
be counted on. The men of the coast-guard had left the wreck, to bear a
hand if needed. George had come, too. And, happening to glance upward
while he directed his men, Taffy saw a carriage with two horses drawn
up on the grassy edge of the cliff, a groom at the horses' heads and in
the carriage a figure seated, silhouetted there high against the clear
blue heaven. Well he recognized, even at that distance, the poise of
her head, though for two whole years he had never set eyes on her, nor
wished to.
He knew that her eyes were on him now. He felt like a general on the
eve of an engagement. By the almanac the tide would not turn until
4.35. At four, perhaps, they could begin; but even at four the winter
twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide torches and
distribute them among the crowd. His own men were making the most of the
daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the upper surface of the
bowlder fixing the Lewis-wedges and rings. They looked to him for every
order, and he gave it in a clear, ringing voice which he knew must carry
to the cliff-top. He did not look at George.
He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold; but
to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under the
jutting base of the bowlder. The mason who fixed it, standing waist-high
in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched it round the
ankle of the dead man. The dead man's brother jumped down beside him
and grasped the slack of it.
At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches. He looked
at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the windlasses. Then
with a glance toward the cliff he started the working-chant—"_Ayee-ho!
Ayee-ho!_" The two gangs—twenty men to each windlass—took it up with one
voice, and to the deep intoned chant the chains tautened, shuddered for
a moment, and began to lift.
"_Ayee-ho!_"
Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed. To Taffy
it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments, before the
brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches down toward the pit
where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look, but gave the word to pass
down the coffin which had been brought in readiness. A clergyman—his
father's successor, but a stranger to him—climbed down after it; and he
stood in the quiet crowd watching the light-house above and the lamps
which the groom had lit in Honoria's carriage, and listening to the
bated voices of the few at their dreadful task below.
It was five o'clock and past before the word came up to lower the tackle
and draw the coffin up. The Vicar clambered out to wait it, and when
it came, borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers. The crowd fell in
behind.
"_I am the resurrection and the life...._"
They began to shuffle forward and up the difficult track; but presently
came to a halt with one accord, the Vicar ceasing in the middle of a
sentence.
Out of the night, over the hidden sea, came the sound of man's voices
lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice: the sound of three British
cheers.
Whose were the voices? They never knew. A few had noticed as twilight
fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked down channel.
She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed
in close before going about, her crew gathered forward, her master
perhaps watching through his night-glass; had guessed the act, saluted
it, and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny.
They strained their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see
something—the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. Taffy
could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. The Vicar,
pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page
which he held close to his lantern.
"_Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the
land that is very far off._
"_Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of deeper speech
than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou canst not
understand._
"_But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers
and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant
ship pass thereby._
"_For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our
king; he will save us._
"_Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast,
they could not spread the sail; there is the prey of a great spoil
divided; the lame take the prey._"
Here the Vicar turned back a page and his voice rang higher:
"_Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule
in judgment._
"_And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from
the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great
rock in a weary land._
"_And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken._"
Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts; for the cheers of
those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart. A finger,
as it were, had come out of the night and touched his brain, unsealing
the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt of. Through the
bright confusion of this sudden vision the Vicar's sentences sounded and
fell on his ears unheeded. And yet while they faded that happened which
froze and bit each separate word into his memory, to lose distinctness
only when death should interfere, stop the active brain and wipe the
slate.
For while the procession halted and broke up its formation for a moment
on the brow of the cliff, a woman came running into the torchlight.
"Is my Joey there? Where's he _to_, anybody? Hev anyone seen my Joey?"
It was Lizzie Pezzack, panting and bareheaded, with a scared face.
"He's lame—you'd know en. Have'ee got en there? He's wandered off!"
"Hush up, woman," said a bearer. "Don't keep such a pore."
"The cheeld's right enough somewheres," said another. "'Tis a man's body
we've got. Stand out of the way, for shame!"
But Lizzie, who, as a rule, shrank away from men and kept herself
hidden, pressed nearer, turning her tragical face upon each in turn.
Her eyes met George's; but she appealed to him as to the others.
"He's wandered off. Oh, say you've seen en, somebody!"
Catching sight of Taffy she ran and gripped him by the arm.
"_You'll_ help! It's my Joey. Help me find en!"
He turned half about; and almost before he knew what he sought, his eyes
met George's. George stepped quietly to his side.
"Let me get my mare," said George, and walked away toward the
light-house railing where he had tethered her.
"We'll find the child. Our work's done here. Mr. Saul!" Taffy turned to
the Chief Officer—"Spare us a man or two and some flares."
"I'll come myself," said the Chief Officer. "Go you back, my dear, and
we'll fetch home your cheeld as right as ninepence. Hi, Rawlings, take
a couple of men and scatter along the cliffs there to the right. Lame,
you say? He can't have gone far."
Taffy, with the Chief Officer and a couple of volunteers, moved off to
the left, and in less than a minute George caught them up, on horseback.
"I say," he asked, walking his mare close alongside of Taffy, "you don't
think this serious, eh?"
"I don't know. Joey wasn't in the crowd, or I should have noticed him.
He's daring beyond his strength." He pulled a whistle from his pocket,
blew it twice and listened. This had been his signal when firing a
charge; he had often blown it to warn the child to creep away into
shelter.
There was no answer.
"Mr. Vyell had best trot along the upper slope," the Chief Officer
suggested, "while we search down by the creek."
"Wait a moment," Taffy answered. "Let's try the wreck first."
"But the tide's running. He'd never go there."
"He's a queer child. I know him better than you."
They ran downhill toward the creek, calling as they went, but getting
no answer.
"But the wreck!" exclaimed the Chief Officer. "It's out of reason!"
"Hi! What was that?"
"Oh, my good Lord," groaned one of the volunteers, "it's the crake,
master! It's Langona crake, calling the drowned!"
"Hush, you fool! Listen—I thought as much! Light a flare, Mr. Saul—he's
out there calling!"
The first match sputtered and went out. They drew close around the
Chief Officer while he struck the second, to keep off the wind, and in
those few moments the child's wail reached them distinctly across the
darkness.
The flame leapt up and shone, and they drew back a pace, shading their
eyes from it and peering into the steel-blue landscape which sprang on
them out of the night. They had halted a few yards only from the cliff,
and the flare cast the shadow of its breast-high fence of tamarisks
forward and almost half-way across the creek; and there on the sands,
a little beyond the edge of this shadow, stood the child.
They could even see his white face. He stood on an island of sand,
around which the tide swirled in silence, cutting him off from shore,
cutting him off from the wreck behind. He did not cry any more, but
stood with his crutch planted by the edge of the widening stream, and
looked toward them.
And Taffy looked at George.
"I know," said George, and gathered up his reins. "Stand aside, please."
As they drew aside, not understanding, he called to his mare. One
living creature, at any rate, could still trust all to George Vyell.
She hurtled past them and rose at the tamarisk hedge blindly. Silence
followed—a long silence; then a thud on the beach below and a scuffle of
stones; silence again, and then the cracking of twigs as Taffy plunged
after, through the tamarisks, and slithered down the cliff.
The light died down as his feet touched the flat slippery stones; died
down, and was renewed again and showed up horse and rider, scarce twenty
yards ahead, laboring forward, the mare sinking fetlock deep at every
plunge.
At his fourth stride Taffy's feet, too, began to sink; but at every
stride he gained something. The riding may be superb, but thirteen stone
is thirteen stone. Taffy weighed less than eleven.
He caught up with George on the very edge of the water. "Make her swim
it!" he panted; "her feet mustn't touch here." George grunted. A moment
later all three were in the water, the tide swirling them sideways,
sweeping Taffy against the mare. His right hand touched her flank at
every stroke.
The tide swept them upward—upward for fifteen yards at least; though
the channel measured less than eight feet. The child, who had been
standing opposite the point where they took the water, hobbled wildly
along shore. The light on the cliff behind sank and rose again.
"The crutch," Taffy gasped. The child obeyed, laying it flat on the
brink and pushing it toward them. Taffy gripped it with his left hand,
and with his right found the mare's bridle. George was bending forward.
"No—not that way! You can't go back! The wreck, man!—it's firmer——"
But George reached out his hand and dragged the child toward him and
onto his saddle-bow. "Mine," he said, quietly, and twitched the rein.
The brave mare snorted, jerked the bridle from Taffy's hand, and headed
back for the shore she had left.
Rider, horse, and child seemed to fall away from him into the night. He
scrambled out, and snatching the crutch, ran along the brink, staring
at their black shadows. By and by the shadows came to a standstill. He
heard the mare panting, the creaking of saddle-leather came across the
nine or ten feet of dark water.
"It's no go," said George's voice; then to the mare, "Sally, my dear,
it's no go." A moment later he asked more sharply,
"How far can you reach?"
Taffy stepped in until the waves ran by his knees. The sand held his
feet, but beyond this he could not stand against the current. He reached
forward, holding the crutch at arm's length.
"Can you catch hold?"
"All right." Both knew that swimming would be useless now; they were
too near the upper apex of the sand-bank.
"The child first. Here, Joey, my son, reach out and catch hold for your
life!"
Taffy felt the child's grip on the crutch-head, and drawing it steadily
toward him, hauled the poor child through. The light from the cliff sank
and rose on his scared face.
"Got him?"
"Yes." The sand was closing around Taffy's legs, but he managed to shift
his footing a little.
"Quick, then; the bank's breaking up."
George was sinking, knee
|
hot and stary through
the mist in Clinton's eyes, but its saucy, knowing look put him out, for
it seemed to have too much information for a well-balanced sun.
Presently he came to a fresh bit of grass, by such a lordly old tree; so
he threw himself down, all breathless and rosier than ever, and folding
his inky fingers under his head, he fell to watching a domestic robin up
in the tree, and thinking about the detested lessons at the same time.
"Now," said he--for he had a great habit of talking to himself
aloud--"what good can there be in a fellow's learning that horrible
stuff? I'll never have the faintest idea of what it all means, I'm sure,
any more than that round robin up above me."
Whereupon the round robin looked very wise, as if it knew what it knew;
but Clinton didn't mind it, but went on talking to himself.
"I was always rather shaky on the subject of fairies, but I'm blest if I
wouldn't like to get a glimpse of one this moment, for I don't believe
anybody else could help me."
And just then the robin looked down from his nest, and called out,
"You're right there."
Clinton glanced up, and to his surprise saw that the lordly old tree had
grown into a ragged pair of stairs, and the round robin nodded to him as
if it said as plainly as possible, "Come up." So he began climbing up;
but as fast as he climbed, it hopped on above him, and the stairs began
to grow and grow. But he kept bravely on, for he knew the stairs would
stop some time, and he was sure the round robin would, though he was
somewhat astonished when he found the stairs making directly for the
sun, and he was still more so when, as he came near the brilliant orb of
day, he saw its mouth open like a great portcullis, and on its huge
upper lip was written in long black letters,
THE GRAMMAR COURT.
And here the stairs stopped, and he saw the round robin go in with a
crowd of gay and festive people; so, when he came up to the top of the
stairs, he went in too. And he found himself in a lofty chamber of
clouds, and away up at one end under a great rainbow sat a
haughty-looking King, and the gay and festive people ranged themselves
on either side of him. By-and-by the King called out in a loud voice:
"Where is little Article, our page?"
Immediately a small boy, in a pair of mighty slippers, who looked like a
very little article indeed, stood trembling before the King.
"Come," roared the King, "don't stand loafing about, but run as fast as
you can to the royal presence of Queen Noun, and tell her we request her
attendance." Whereat the little Article, trembling a great deal, skipped
backward to the door, and then ran off as fast as he could. "For how,"
said the King, trying to get off a poor joke, as kings are apt to--"how
could King Verb be merry if the _object_ of his thoughts and the
_subject_ of his affections be absent from the throne?"
And this seemed to tickle all the gay and festive people immensely, for
they giggled a great deal, and were much annoyed because Clinton did not
giggle too, though he could not for the world tell what they were having
such fun about. One of them even would have spoken to him, had not his
Majesty just then called out lustily to the man at the door, "Admit them
instantly, Sir Preposition." And obediently Sir Preposition drew back
the curtain, and led forward a lady enveloped in a long thick veil. The
King hopped down from his throne, he was in such a hurry, exclaiming, as
he went, in a very hoarse voice, "Allow thy lord to rend the midnight
cloud, and behold the moon in all her glory." At the same time he lifted
up the cloud, as he called it, and disclosed, not the slightest hint of
a beauty, but the withered face of a hideous old woman.
Then the King, I am ashamed to say, turned round and shook his fist in
the timid little Article's face. "How dare you, minion," shrieked he,
"point out this ugly old Aunt Pronoun, placing her instead of the
fairest princess living--Soldiers! soldiers!"--here he turned almost
blue in the face, and pointed to the puny little Article as if he were a
very lion--"soldiers, seize the traitor!" he hissed.
The soldiers were about to obey him, when a piercing scream rung out
through the apartment. Everybody looked round to see what had happened;
and sure enough, almost next to where Clinton stood, a very spare
court lady had fallen into hysterics. "Oh! alas!" cried she, gasping
all the while like any fish; "ah me! alack! fiddle-dee-dee!
How--can--he--be--so--cruel!" Here she flung herself into somebody's
arms, and was dragged from the room.
"Ho! ho!" said the King; "who's that?"
"Lady Interjection," squeaked the little Article, nervously touching his
hat.
"Lady Interjection, is it? Well, she'd better stop this kind of
business, as it is growing rather dreary. However, that won't hinder our
making short work of Aunt Pronoun. Soldiers!"
Again the soldiers marched up in a most decorous way, when a handsome
young courtier rushed forward, and threw himself at the feet of the
King. "My dear brother-in-law--I mean your Majesty," he
exclaimed--"can't you make up your royal mind to spare this dear old
party, remembering her infirmities? Oh, do make up your mind to do so,
and to spare also my sister, Queen Noun! Call to mind her many pleasing
qualities. She is beautiful, charming, graceful, witty, loving,
gentle--"
"Stop! stop! Adjective," shouted the King; "you'll drive me mad. Get up
and listen to my Lord Adverb, and don't kneel there chattering like a
magpie."
Immediately an aged and venerable man approached King Verb. As Adjective
departed, he heard him whisper in the Prime Minister's ear, "Do your
best to _modify_ him."
The old man nodded sagaciously, and then addressed his sovereign in a
low, clear voice: "Your grace will pardon the rashness of an aged man if
I say you have acted somewhat hastily. The advice I give you is to think
slowly, coolly, deliberately, and wisely, and then act--kindly."
"Excellent!" said the testy monarch, for he had cooled down a great
deal. "Let us hear what Aunt Pronoun can say for herself."
The old lady seemed very cross at the way she had been abused. She drew
herself up, and made the King wince, she looked at him so hard. "I have
nothing, sire, to say for myself," she said, "save that the Queen, on
receiving your message, bid me come to you with the news that you have a
young prince born to you."
How the people did shout for joy at this announcement, and how the King
did smile, you can not imagine. At any rate Clinton couldn't.
"We thank you for this glorious news, Madam Pronoun," said King Verb,
"and we beg you to pardon our sudden displeasure. In recompense, we will
have to make you the Prince's godmother. Come, what shall his name be?"
Ladies of Pronoun's age are not so easy to make up with; so she looked
very injured at first, but by-and-by began smiling. "King Verb," said
she, "I was much grieved at your anger, for it was entirely unmerited;
but I rejoice at your kindness, and in token of your having taken the
Queen and myself again into court favor and your friendship, I will name
the young Prince--Conjunction."
"Hurrah!" cried Clinton, he was so mightily pleased; "I see it all now."
* * * * *
"I am glad you do," said his teacher's voice, close beside him; "but
you'd better get up now, else you'll take cold. It's pretty near sunset,
and you've been sleeping on this grass nearly two hours."
Clinton sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked about him. There he was in
the woods, as natural as life. Could it have been a dream? Ha! what was
that? He happens to spy the round robin looking over his nest,
and--yes--_winking at him_. He got up and meekly followed his teacher,
never speaking a word. But from that day to this he firmly believes that
what he saw was true, and from that day to this I don't believe he ever
missed a grammar lesson.
HOW THE PRIZE KITTEN WON HER MEDAL.
BY AGNES CARR.
Pretty little Kitty Kimo was sent by her mistress to the cat show, where
her silky fur, bright eyes like great yellow daisies, and pink
sea-shell-like ears, soon won her a prize, and she came home with a
beautiful silver medal hung round her neck by a blue ribbon, and just
the proudest little kit in all catdom.
[Illustration]
Oh, how Miss Alice petted her, and fed her on chicken and cream for a
week afterward! and how all the poor black, white, and gray cats who had
not been to the show watched her with envy as she promenaded up and down
the fence with the pretty medal glittering on her neck, and turning her
vain little head right and left that every one might see it.
"She puts on as many airs as though she had killed a dozen rats," said
Tabby Tortoiseshell, a scraggy-looking old cat, who was blind in one
eye.
"When she couldn't catch even a mouse to save her life," said Tommy
Scratchclaw, a famous hunter and mouser.
"She hissed and spat at me this morning, when I met her in the violet
bed," said Pussy Clover, "and then scampered off up the elm-tree to show
her tin locket to Dandy Maltese, who presented her with the neck of a
sparrow he had just killed on the spot."
"Silly kitten!" sniffed old Granny Grimalkin, taking a pinch of catnip
snuff. "Beauty isn't everything. I once won a brass button on a cord by
turning door handles and jumping over a cane; but she hasn't done a
thing except look as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth."
"Let us take her medal away, and make her win it back," suggested Sancho
Squaller, a powerful black cat, with eyes like buttercups.
"Hurrah! so we will," shouted Tommy Scratchclaw; and all the cats and
kits purred a glad assent, and all set up such a mewing and
caterwauling, as they discussed how it should be done, that the cook at
the corner came rushing out with a broom to drive "those plaguey cats"
off the fence.
[Illustration]
Kitty Kimo meanwhile, quite unconscious of the plans of her enemies, had
enjoyed her sparrow neck exceedingly, and then curled herself up in the
shade of a rose-bush for a noon-day nap, and slept so soundly that she
never even opened one eye when tiny Topsy Titmouse crept slyly up on her
velvety paws, and with her little white teeth gnawed the blue ribbon,
and bore off the medal in triumph. Fancy Kitty Kimo's dismay, when she
awoke, to see her precious medal shining on the breast of ugly Tabby
Tortoiseshell, while all the other cats sat round in a circle, twirling
their whiskers and chuckling at the success of their trick.
"Me-ow! me-ow! me-ow!" she wailed. "Oh, give me back my medal, my
beautiful medal!"
"Not until you have earned it," replied black Sancho Squaller, with the
sternness of a judge.
"What must I do?" she cried.
"Bring us the head of the wicked old rat who steals our meat and milk,"
said Tommy Scratchclaw, "and you shall have your prize."
And all the cats laughed a scornful "Ha! ha! ha!" for they well knew
little Miss Kimo would stand no chance against his ratship, who was as
strong as he was bad, and had fought and conquered the most renowned
warriors in the block.
So at these words poor Kitty Kimo wailed louder than ever, and gave up
her prize for lost, until Dandy Maltese, who sympathized with her,
suggested that she should engage, the services of Ratty Terrier, a smart
little dog that lived next door.
[Illustration]
Now Kitty was rather afraid of Ratty, but she felt that she must make
every effort to regain her lost trinket; so taking a wish-bone with her
as a peace-offering, she that afternoon ventured to call on Mr. Terrier.
Not being very fond of cats, he showed his teeth at sight of her, and
looked rather savage, but she quickly laid the chicken bone before him,
and it so gratified him that he listened quite pleasantly to her
petition.
"So you want me to kill Mr. Gray Rat for you?" he said. "He is a plucky
old fellow, and has given me many a good laugh at the way he snips bits
out of the cats' ears; but I think you have been badly treated, and if
you will bring me a nice marrow-bone, I'll see what I can do for you."
Kitty looked very doleful at this, but as Ratty turned away, and began
snapping at flies, she murmured, "I'll try," and tripped off round the
corner to where a fat jolly butcher was chopping up meat.
"Mew, mew, mew," said Kitty, rubbing against his foot.
"Why, little cat, what do you want?" asked the butcher.
"Mew, mew, mew," cried Kitty again; but the butcher did not understand
cat language, so she took hold of a big bone that lay on the counter,
with her teeth, when he said,
"Oh no, Miss Kitty, you can't have that unless you pay me a penny for
it."
[Illustration]
This made Kitty very sad. "For where can I get a penny?" she thought, as
she walked slowly out of the shop. But just outside she met a monkey who
was dancing gayly to the sound of a hand-organ, and for doing so people
gave him a great many pennies, which he slipped into his coat pocket. He
sat down after a while to rest, and refresh himself with an apple, and
then Kitty stole up, and begged:
"Please, Mr. Jack, give me one of your pennies to buy a marrow-bone for
Ratty Terrier, and then he will kill the wicked old rat for me, and I
shall get back the medal I won at the cat show."
"Chatter, chatter, chatter," said the monkey. "Most of these belong to
my master; but I will give you one of mine if you will get me a handful
of pea-nuts from yonder stand. I am very fond of them, and they sell
very few for a cent."
This stand was kept by a toothless old woman, and Kitty knew it was
useless to try and make her understand kitten talk; but she ran across
the way, and heard the old lady mumbling to herself, "I'd give a lot of
pea-nuts for a few drops of fresh milk to put in my tea."
[Illustration]
At these words Kitty purred for joy, and fairly skipped over the ground,
for she was acquainted with a goat, who, she thought, would be sure to
give her some milk. But when she came to the pasture where the goat was
feeding, she found Nanny as selfish as the rest of the world, and not a
drop of milk would she give, unless Kitty brought her a head of green
lettuce for her supper.
Poor Kitty felt terribly discouraged; but she thought, "I might as well
keep on now," and pattered away once more on her tired little paws to a
farm on the border of the town, where lay a beautiful field of young
lettuce, watched over by a funny old scarecrow in a red waistcoat and
shabby hat, who stood there to frighten away the birds that destroyed
the delicate leaves.
"He looks rather cross," thought Kitty, as she approached this figure,
and her heart went pitapat as she stopped, and began, "Mew! mew!"
"Hey! hey!" cried the scarecrow, whirling round, for he thought it was a
cat-bird.
"Please, Mr. Crow, don't scare me," stammered Kitty; "for I am only a
kitten; and, oh, do please give me a head of your nice lettuce for Nanny
the goat."
"And what will she give you for it?" asked the scarecrow.
"Some milk for the pea-nut woman to put in her tea."
"And what will the pea-nut woman give you?"
"A handful of pea-nuts for Jack the monkey."
"And what will Master Jack give you?"
"A penny to buy a marrow-bone for Ratty Terrier."
"Who will probably bite off your head for your pains."
"Oh no, indeed. He has promised to kill the wicked rat that steals our
food for me; and then Tabby and Sancho will give me back the beautiful
medal I won at the cat show."
"You are winning it twice, I think; but can you frighten birds?"
"Oh yes, indeed."
"Well, then, just scare away that old crow over there, who has no
respect for me, and feasts in the field here under my very eyes, and I
will give you a head of lettuce."
[Illustration]
"That I will, right gladly," said Kitty; and she rushed the crow with
such vigor that he almost choked to death in his fright, and flew away
so far that he could never find his way back again.
"Thank you very much," said the scarecrow, when Kitty came back quite
breathless from the race, and with her nose as red as a rose-bud. "I can
manage all the other birds myself. Now help yourself to a head of
lettuce."
Kitty did as she was told; and bidding the old scarecrow, who was so
much kinder than he looked, "good-night," hurried away to Nanny the
goat, who shook her horns with delight at sight of the fresh young
leaves, and gave the kitten some milk in an egg-shell, and also a drink
for herself.
[Illustration]
The toothless old woman, who had just made up her mind to take her tea
clear, was as pleased as she was surprised at the milk pussy brought
her, but forgot all about the pea-nuts, until Kitty patted them with her
paw. "Oh! Do you want pea-nuts? You shall have them; help yourself to a
good handful. You deserve them for being such a smart little cat, and
bringing me just what I wanted."
Away went Kitty with her mouth and paws full of nuts, at receiving which
the monkey chattered like a whole flock of magpies, and gave her the
brightest penny he had in his pocket.
[Illustration]
"So you've brought the penny!" exclaimed the butcher, in open-mouthed
astonishment, as Kitty laid it in front of him, and seizing the
marrow-bone, made off before he could say so much as "Scat!"
"Bow-wow-wow! you deserve a medal, and that's a fact," said Ratty
Terrier, wagging his tail at sight of the bone which fairly made his
mouth water. And after he had devoured half of it, and hidden the rest
in his under-ground store-house, he set out on the promised rat-hunt.
[Illustration]
And oh! a fierce battle took place that night, for the old thief fought
bravely, and the terrier received many a deep scratch on his saucy
little nose, but he came off victor at last, and the rat's head,
carefully wrapped in a large leaf, was sent next morning to little Kitty
Kimo, who gayly delivered it to the other cats, all of whom rejoiced
over the death of their enemy.
[Illustration]
"You have well earned your prize at last," said Granny Grimalkin, after
Kitty had related her adventures, "for you are as persevering as you are
pretty." And Tabby Tortoiseshell herself tied the blue ribbon round
Kitty Kimo's neck, while Mademoiselle Catalina Squallita led off in a
gay chorus in which all joined, the principal burden of which was,
"Me-ow, me-ow-ow, me-ow-ow-ow."
Kitty Kimo was never known to put on airs again, but was always willing
to lend her medal to Pussy Clover or Topsy Titmouse to wear to balls or
serenades, and she was known far and wide as the Prize Kitten, and the
brightest and prettiest cat of the square.
[Illustration: OUR POST-OFFICE BOX]
DEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS.
I am a grandmother, eighty-four years old, and I wish to tell the
dear readers of YOUNG PEOPLE of an episode in the life of my three
little grandchildren.
The youngest, a boy, when two years old, had a canary given him. He
and two sisters older than he delighted in watching and feeding the
little pet, seeing him plunge into his bowl of water to wash, and
then sitting on his perch to brush his bright plumage and give them
a sweet morning song.
One hot morning his cage was hung out under the portico. The bees,
attracted by his sweet food, flew into the cage for some honey to
fill the curious cells they had made. The birdie looked upon them
as intruders, and probably pecked at them, but the little busy
bees, claiming their right to gather honey anywhere in God's wide
domain, covered him with stings. Hearing a loud buzzing, we went
out to see what had happened. The bird was covered with bees, and
before we could rescue it, they had poisoned it so badly that it
gasped a few minutes, and died.
When the children found their pet was dead, after gazing very
sorrowfully for a while, they got a spade, and without saying a
word, took the dead bird and marched slowly to the garden. The
sisters dug a grave, and the little boy laid his pet in its last
resting-place, and silently covered it with earth.
S. H.
* * * * *
RICHMOND, STATEN ISLAND.
This is the first letter I ever wrote to any paper. I am only seven
years old.
Papa has one of the funniest crows you ever saw. He tries to talk.
We had to cut his wing, because he used to fly away.
My little sister Lucy, who is almost four years old, sends YOUNG
PEOPLE a picture she drew. It has four kisses on it. We love the
Post-office Box best of all.
HALLETT S.
I have a garden of my own. I fixed it all myself, and I planted
seeds in it. They are coming up nicely.
I went eeling with my little brother Hallett, and we caught enough
for dinner.
WILLIE S.
* * * * *
NEW CASTLE, KENTUCKY.
I live out in the country four miles. I read all the letters in the
Post-office Box, and I am so much interested in them! I am reading
_Robinson Crusoe_ now, and I like it so much!
We had a very long winter. It snowed fifty or sixty times. We have
such nice times in the summer. Sometimes we all go down to Drennon
Creek, and take our dinners, and stay all day.
I wrote a composition on Toby Tyler.
CHARLIE S.
* * * * *
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.
I live here with my aunt, and I go to school. I have not seen my
mother or father for two years, but mother is coming soon. My
father is Captain of Company H, Eleventh United States Infantry. He
is in Montana Territory, at Fort Custer, not far from the place
where General Custer was killed by Sitting Bull and his tribe. The
fort is on a hill between the Little and Big Horn rivers. Bismarck
is the nearest railroad station, but a railroad is going to be
built nearer. Then the station will be Big Horn City or Terry's
Landing. Big Horn City is a small place, with only one store and a
few houses. Terry's Landing is a kind of fort. It has breastworks
and a stockade. It is a landing-place for boats, and one company is
stationed there. It is near Fort Custer, and every year the company
there is changed.
I have the skin of a wild-cat that was killed out in the Big Horn
Mountains. It is a great deal bigger than that of an ordinary cat.
It measures three feet three inches from head to tail, and fourteen
inches round. It has claws like a cat.
WILLIAM S. G.
* * * * *
WOODBURY, NEW JERSEY.
I have two cunning little gray squirrels, named Frisky and Fluff.
They are not tame enough to be let out of their cage. The other day
somebody left the cage door open, and the window in the room was
wide open. When mamma came up stairs, there sat Mr. Frisky on the
door-sill, looking very much as if he meant to run away. When he
saw mamma, he scampered into his bed, and she locked the cage door
pretty quickly. I am only six years old, and my hand is tired
writing.
FLORENCE R. H.
* * * * *
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.
I wish to notify correspondents that I have no more stamps to
exchange. I have had over one hundred letters to answer, and each
day brings more. Several have sent stamps, but no address, so that
I can not return them.
YOUNG PEOPLE must go to all parts of the world, as the answers to
my offer of exchange testify.
MADGIE B. RAUCH.
* * * * *
My old issues of United States stamps are all gone, but I will
exchange some green 2-cent revenue stamps, and foreign postage
stamps, for 7, 12, 24, 30, or 90 cent stamps of any issue, for
coins, stamps from Africa, China, or South or Central America, or
for any department stamps except 1, 3, and 6 cent Treasury.
CHARLES W. TALLMAN,
P. O. Drawer 5, Hillsdale, Mich.
* * * * *
I have had so many applications for my Sandwich Island stamps that
my stock is exhausted.
I will now exchange stamps from Porto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica,
Barbadoes, Hong-Kong, Japan, Cape of Good Hope, Egypt, India,
Bavaria, and "Thurn und Taxis," for other rare stamps and for
coins; South American and African stamps particularly desired. I
will also give twenty-five foreign stamps for two good arrow-heads.
SHEPPARD G. SCHERMERHORN,
46 West Nineteenth Street, New York City.
* * * * *
I wish to notify correspondents that I have no more postmarks left.
I have a number of Jules Verne's stories in pamphlet form which I
would like to exchange. I will give one for a United States cent,
date 1840 or 1846, or for a half-cent of any date but 1851. I will
send the complete story of _A Voyage Around the World_ for the
cents between 1833 and 1837.
ROLAND GODFREY,
Gardner, Centre P. O., Worcester Co., Mass.
* * * * *
My stock of foreign stamps is exhausted. I will now give ten United
States postmarks for five from any foreign country, or from Nevada,
Arizona, Idaho, or Washington Territory. I will exchange even for
postmarks from other States.
LAWRENCE B. JONES,
P. O. Box 1036, Wilkesbarre, Penn.
* * * * *
The following correspondents withdraw their names from our exchange
list, their stock of shells, ores, stamps, and other things being
exhausted: E. P. Snivelly, Columbus, Ohio; Charles R. Crowther,
Bridgeport, Conn.; Ned Robinson, Fairfield, Ill.; Walter C. Freeland,
Brooklyn, N. Y.; Charles H. Purdy, Jersey City Heights, N. J.; and G.
Vasa Edwards, Plattsburgh, N. Y. Exchangers will please take notice.
* * * * *
I would like to exchange fifty foreign stamps, for a star-fish one
foot nine inches in circumference. Or one hundred foreign stamps,
for fifteen perfect arrow-heads, twelve perfect spear-heads, or two
good-sized stone hatchets. Also one hundred and twenty-eight
foreign stamps, for a genuine Indian bow and two good arrows. There
are no duplicates among my stamps, and some of them are unused. I
will also exchange stamps for other Indian relics besides those
named above. Correspondents will please give the locality where
each curiosity was found.
D. O. L., care of E. A. Moore,
741 Cherry Street, Kansas City, Missouri.
* * * * *
I have just received a large supply of gold ore, and of rock from
the Mammoth Cave, which I will exchange for curiosities. I will
also exchange petrifactions. I especially desire to obtain the claw
of a grizzly bear.
DELLIE H. PORTER,
Russellville, Logan Co., Ky.
* * * * *
Isaac S. Yerks, Brooklyn, New York, wishes the address of the
correspondent who sent him a specimen of gypsum in a parlor-match box.
* * * * *
Paul L. Ford, Brooklyn, New York, wishes the address of the
correspondent who sent a stone from Natural Bridge.
Bertha A. Brumagim, Summerdale, New York, has received three unused
foreign stamps, and will return used foreign stamps if the correspondent
will send address, and the number of stamps wished for.
* * * * *
Any more correspondents wishing to exchange foreign stamps for
those from Hong-Kong or Japan, will please address me at Lake
Mahopac, Putnam County, New York, instead of 27 East Twenty-second
Street, as heretofore. I should like to ask those correspondents
who are owing me stamps to send them to my new address as soon as
possible.
HARRIETTE B. WOODRUFF.
* * * * *
I will exchange woods and ores for curiosities, but I do not wish
to exchange for stamps any longer. Nearly every correspondent sends
me 1, 2, and 3 cent cancelled United States stamps, and wishes
woods in return, and I do not think it is fair.
JOHN L. HANNA, 219 East Madison Street,
Fort, Wayne, Allen Co., Ind.
It certainly is not fair to send these common United States stamps,
which every boy and girl can obtain by the hundred, and expect anything
of value in return. Stamps which are so very common, and are so very
easily obtained by every one, can not be considered of any value for
exchange. We refer only to the stamps of low denominations in use at the
present time. Certain old issues of 1, 2, and 3 cent United States
stamps are much more difficult to obtain than many kinds of foreign
stamps.
* * * * *
The following exchanges are offered by correspondents:
Amethyst, onyx, carnelian, topaz, moss-agate, blood-stone, sard,
garnet, and malachite, for stamps from Buenos Ayres, Bolivia,
Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, United States of Colombia, Nicaragua,
Guatemala, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Hanover, Modena,
Philippine Islands, and Azores; or for a genuine Indian bow and
arrow, stone hatchet, spear-heads, or arrow-heads.
WILLIE BROWN,
15 South Thirteenth Street, Newark, N. J.
* * * * *
Rock from the Hoosac Tunnel, for Indian relics, shells, minerals,
or foreign stamps. Correspondents will please label specimens.
ARTHUR C. BOUCHARD,
51 Eagle Street, North Adams, Mass.
* * * * *
Unpolished specimens of pear, cherry, pine, black or white oak,
maple, willow, silver-poplar, or horse-chestnut, or a bottle of
sand or water from Lake Michigan, for a bottle of water from any
river, or soil from any State except Illinois, or tin, silver,
copper, or iron ore. Please label specimens.
MAX BAIRD, care of Baird & Bradley,
90 La Salle Street, Chicago, Ill.
* * * * *
Coins, minerals, stamps, fossils, relics of Indians or
Mound-Builders, shells, ocean curiosities, pressed flowers, etc,
for other specimens.
W. E. BREHMER,
P. O. Box 747, Penn Yan, Yates Co., N. Y.
* * * * *
Varieties of iron ore, for other minerals or curiosities.
EDDIE C. BROWN, care of E. J. Farnum,
Wellsville, Allegany Co., N. Y.
* * * * *
A Seltz's American Boy's Theatre, with nine different plays, wires
for working, in perfect order, cost eight dollars, for a
printing-press and type. Please send postal to arrange for exchange
before sending package.
C. H. B., JUN.,
34 Clifford Street, Boston, Mass.
* * * * *
Pressed flowers, for Indian arrow-heads.
A. A. BEEBE, Falmouth, Barnstable Co., Mass.
* * * * *
Stones from five different States, for minerals, ores, or
curiosities of any kind except stamps.
A. L. CLARKE,
133 South Shaffer Street, Springfield, Ohio.
* * * * *
A sea-shell, a curious stone, or a piece of forest moss, for five
stamps from Asia, or South America or adjacent islands.
J. F. C.,
West Yarmouth, Mass.
* * * * *
Florida moss, silk cocoons, stones from Georgia or North Carolina,
and specimens of wood, for gold or silver ore, fossils, or any
other curiosity.
ANSON CUTTS, Eden, Effingham Co., Ga.
* * * * *
Forty-two postmarks or three foreign stamps, for ocean curiosities.
GEORGE O. DAWSON,
133 East Eleventh Street, Leadville, Col.
* * * * *
Stamps from Jamaica, Cuba, Danish West Indies, France, Australia,
and past and present issues of Canada, for stamps from Mexico,
Turkey, Persia, Portugal, Newfoundland, and other countries.
T. C. DES BARRES, JUN.,
93 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
* * * * *
Ten postmarks from Ohio (no duplicates), for the same number from
|
Whatever ye do, my gude maister,
Take God your Guide to be.’"
—OLD BALLAD.
While Earl Edmund was governing across the sea, his little son Roger
grew in health and stature under the loving care of his grandmother at
Wigmore. The Earls of March had many castles and seats, but Wigmore
Castle was the family seat of the Mortimers. The old Countess was
extremely anxious that the boy should grow up a good man; the rather
because she recognised in him a quality beyond her own energy and
activity—that passionate, impetuous nature which belonged to his
mother’s blood. She brought him up on a course of philosophy, and above
all of Scripture, in the hope of calming it down. The eradication was
hopeless enough; but the Scripture sank deep. Young as he was when he
lost her, Roger Mortimer never forgot those lessons at his grandmother’s
knee. But the quiet years of holy teaching were not long. In the
spring of 1381, Earl Edmund sent letters to his mother, requesting that
his eldest son might be sent over to him, as he wished him to make
acquaintance with the tenants on his Irish lands. The whole province of
Ulster would lie one day at the pleasure of its future Earl.
Sir Thomas Mortimer, a distant relative of the Earl, brought his noble
kinsman’s letters. He was appointed the governor of little Roger, and
was to take care of him on his perilous journey. In order to impress
the Irish with a sense of the child’s grandeur and importance, he was to
have a distinct establishment; and the Earl had suggested that the
majority of the new servants had better come from his Welsh estates.
Two Celtic races, which centuries ago were one, would, as he thought, be
more likely to amalgamate with each other than either with the Saxon.
Perhaps he forgot that the meeting of two fires will scarcely extinguish
a conflagration.
Sir Thomas therefore had come through Usk, where he had imparted the
Earl’s commands to the keeper of the Castle, ordering him to have ready
by a certain day, to meet him at Holyhead, such and such persons—so many
men and boys to fill so many offices—much as he might have ordered as
many garments or loaves of bread. The villeins were bound to serve in
the menial offices; and for higher places, the neighbouring gentry and
their sons would only be too glad to hear of the vacancies.
One appointment was to be made, at her son’s request, by the Countess
herself. This was perhaps the most important of all, for it was the
choice of a woman who should look after the child’s necessities, and
fill so far as possible the place of the dead mother and the absent
grandmother. The boy, having passed his seventh birthday, was
ostensibly emancipated from the nursery: yet, with no lady at the head
of the household, the presence of some responsible woman about the child
became needful. The Countess’s choice was soon made. It fell on her own
waiting-woman, Guenllian, in whom she had more confidence than in any
one else. It was an additional recommendation that Guenllian had been
about the child from his infancy, so that he would feel her to be a
familiar friend. Yet, though she was sending with him the person of all
others in whom she most relied, the Countess suffered severe anxiety in
parting with her boy, who, after his father, was her one darling in all
the world. What would become of him? Suppose he were drowned in
crossing the sea, and never reached his father! Suppose he were
murdered by the "wild Irish," who, in the eyes of all English people of
that date, were savages of the most dreadful type. Or, worse
still,—suppose he grew up to be a monster of wickedness,—that pretty
little child who now lifted his pure blue eyes so honestly and
confidingly to hers! She thought it would break her heart. And strong
as that heart was to cleave to God and do the right, yet, as the event
proved, it was not one to bear much suffering.
"Very dear Lady," suggested Guenllian tenderly, "can you not trust the
young Lord into the merciful hands of God? Can my young Lord go whither
He is not?"
"Thy faith shames mine, my maid. May God verily go with you!
Wenteline, thou wilt surely promise me that my darling shall be bred up
to prize this," and she laid her hand on the French Bible. "Let the
Word of the Lord never be out of his reach, nor of his hearing. Rising
up and lying down—coming in and going out—let him pillow his soul upon
it, and be made strong."
Guenllian gave the required promise very quietly. Her mistress knew she
might be trusted.
"And if it should come—as we hear rumour afloat—that Dan John busieth
himself to render the Book into the English tongue, then will I send it
o’er so soon as may be. An whole Bible in English! Ay, that day that
seeth it shall be a merry day for England."
The French Bible was the Countess’s parting gift to her grandson. It
was no mean gift, for the writing of its fellow, which was to remain
with her, had cost her more than twenty pounds.
To the child himself she said comparatively little. She wished her words
to sink deep and take root; and she knew that an important means to that
end was that they should be few. So, as her last words, she gave him
two mottoes, in the language which was only then ceasing to be the
mother tongue of English nobles.
"_Fais ce que doy, advienne que fourra_." And—"_Un Dieu, un Roy, servir
je day_."
And thus, with a thousand prayers and blessings, the boy left her.
"Ah, when to meet again?" she sighed, as from the castle turret she
watched him go, turning to kiss his hand to her as he rode away towards
Shropshire. "O my darling, mine heart misgiveth me sore!—when to meet
again?"
Never any more, Philippa Mortimer, till both stand in the street of the
Golden City, and under the shade of the Tree of Life.
Little Roger and his suite travelled, as was usual at the time, on
horseback. The charette was reserved for short journeys in civilised
places, where there was some semblance of a road; while the litter was
the vehicle of ladies and invalids. A dark roan-coloured "trotter," or
saddle-horse, was selected for the little lord, and fitted with a black
velvet saddle embroidered in gold. The harness was also black. There
was no saddle-cloth, as this was an article used on ceremonial
occasions; and as the horse was going on a journey which would lie
chiefly upon turf, he was not shod.
Roger himself was dressed in a long robe of dark blue damask, relieved
by narrow stripes of white and red; and over it he wore a hood of black
velvet. On the top of this sat a brown felt hat, in shape something like
a modern "wide-awake," with one dark-green plume standing straight up in
its front, and fastened to the hat by a small golden clasp. A little
white frill surrounded his throat beneath the hood, which latter article
could be cast aside if the weather were sufficiently warm. The sleeves
of the robe were extremely wide and full, and lined with white; and
beneath them were closer sleeves of apple-green, but these were far
wider than gentlemen wear them now. Dark-green boots, with white
buttons, and spurs of gilt copper, completed the young gentleman’s
costume. His stirrups were of white metal, and in his hand was an
excessively long white whip, much taller than himself.[#] It was the
first time that Roger had been allowed to ride alone on a journey, and
he was as proud of the distinction as might be expected.
[#] This description is mainly taken from one of Creton’s illuminations.
Harl. MS. 1319, illum. ix.
Before the convoy went two running footmen, attired loosely in a costume
somewhat resembling the Highland kilt, one of whom bore a pennon with
the Earl’s arms, and the other a trumpet, which was sounded whenever
they drew near to any town or village. Every man carried a drinking-cup
at his girdle, and his dagger served for a knife. The travellers
beguiled the long day by singing songs and ballads, among which was a
new song just become popular, of which the first line only has descended
to us, and that has a decidedly minor tone—"_J’ay tout perdu mon temps
et mon labour_."
Thus accoutred and equipped, conducted by two knights, eight squires,
fifty men-at-arms, and a hundred archers, Roger set forth on his
journey. A pleasant ride of eight miles brought them to Clun Castle,
which belonged to Roger’s cousin, the young Lord Le Despenser, and the
keeper of the castle was delighted to show hospitality to one so nearly
related to the owner. Here they stayed for dinner, Roger being seated
in the place of honour at the head of the daïs, and all present anxious
to gratify his slightest fancy. Eight miles more, after dinner, brought
them to Montgomery, where the castle received its heir for the night.
In the streets of the towns, but especially on the bridges and in the
church porches—where in Roman Catholic countries they usually lie in
wait—were always congregated a larger or smaller swarm of beggars, who
invariably seized upon a group of travellers with avidity. And as
giving of alms, however indiscriminate, was a good work in the eyes of
the Church, Sir Thomas Mortimer had provided himself with a purse full
of pennies, out of which he doled twopences and fourpences to every
crowd of suppliants.
The next day was Sunday; but the only difference which it made in the
day’s programme was that, before the travellers set forth, they attended
mass in the fine old cruciform church of Montgomery. Mass being
conducted in a tongue unknown to the vulgar of all nations, may be
attended in any country with equal advantage—or disadvantage. The stage
that day was rather shorter, but they were now among the mountains, and
travelling became a slow and wearisome process. They reached before
night the village of Languadan, where they stayed the night, Sir Thomas
and his precious charge being accommodated at the village inn, and the
guard encamping outside in the open air. A third day’s journey of
thirteen miles brought them to Kemmer Abbey, and a fourth, long and
fatiguing, winding round the base of Snowdon, to Beddgelert. They made
up for their extra work by riding only ten miles on the Wednesday, which
ended at Caernarvon. Here they returned to more civilised life, and
found better accommodation than they had done since leaving Montgomery.
But the Thursday’s journey was again long and tedious, for they had to
sail across the Menai, and round Anglesey. Five boats awaited them
here, the St. Mary, the Michael, the Grace Dieu, the Margaret, and the
Katherine: their tonnage ran from sixty to a hundred and fifty tons.
They were simply large, deep brown boats, with one mast and no deck, and
neither cabin nor any other form of shelter. Sir Thomas and Roger
embarked on the Grace Dieu, which was the largest of the boats, and the
guard were packed into the other four, the squires going with their
betters.
On arrival at Holyhead, Sir Thomas was met by the deputy keeper of Usk
Castle, who presented to him two more squires, three "varlets," and a
boy, who were to serve in the household of the young Lord. One of the
squires was named Reginald de Pageham, and his family had been in the
service of the Earls of Ulster from time immemorial. The other was
named Constantine Byterre, and was the son of a squire of the Earl. The
varlets were villeins from Usk. And the boy was Lawrence Madison.
If any reader of modern ideas should desire to know how or why a child
of seven years old was selected for a servant, be it known that in the
Middle Ages that was the usual period for a boy to commence service. He
was to fill the posts of page of the chamber and whipping-boy: in other
words, and practically, he was to fetch and carry for his little master,
to learn and play with him, and when Roger was naughty and required
chastisement,—which could scarcely be expected not to occur,—Lawrence,
not Roger was to be whipped.
The combination of boy with boy was a curious one. Roger had been most
carefully brought up, led by tender hands every step of the way hitherto
traversed. Lawrence had scrambled up on hands and knees, as he might,
with no leading at all except the rare catechising in church, and the
personal influence of Beatrice and the fishes. But these three had been
for good. The Rev. Mr. Robesart, the only one of the clergy of the
parish church at Usk who cared to catechise the children, had been one
of those rare stars among the medieval priesthood who both loved the
perishing souls of men, and were themselves in possession of the Bread
of Life to break to them.
Little Beatrice had repeated her lessons to Lawrence, whom she was
pleased to like, in a funny, patronising little way, and they had done
him at least as much good as they did to her. And the fishes had also
had a share in his education, for their beauty had gratified his taste,
and their helpless condition had stirred feelings of pity which do not
often find such ready entrance into a boy’s heart as they did into that
of Lawrence Madison.
It was not on account of any intellectual or moral qualifications that
Lawrence had been chosen for his post of service. It was simply because
he was a pretty child, and would look well in the Earl’s livery. His
parents were only too thankful for such a chance of promotion for him.
He was one too many for their financial resources. On Lawrence’s part
there was only one person whom he was sorry to leave, and that was the
little playmate over the way. He had gone proudly across to the
fishmonger’s, to show himself in his new splendours, and to say
farewell.
"Love us, sweet Saint Mary!" was Philippa’s exclamation. "How fine art
thou!"
"Oh, how pretty, how pretty!" cried little Beatrice. "Lolly, where
gattest such pretty raiment?"
"’Tis my Lord his livery, child," said Blumond. "And what place hast
thou, lad? Kitchen knave?"
This was the lowest position that a boy could have in a noble household.
Lawrence’s head went up in a style which would have amused most students
of human nature.
"Nay, Master Blumond," said he: "I am to be page of the chamber to my
Lord’s son."
"Gramercy, how grand we are!" laughed Blumond. "Prithee, good Master
Lawrence, let me beseech thee to have a favour unto me."
Lawrence had an uneasy perception that the fishmonger was laughing at
him. He struggled for a moment with the new sense of dignity which sat
so stiffly upon him, and then, speaking in his natural way, said,—
"I shall never forget you, Master Blumond, nor Philippa, nor Beattie.
But I wis not when I shall see you all again. The little Lord goeth to
Ireland, and I withal."
"Where’s Ireland?" asked Beattie, with wide-open eyes, "Ireland" having
immediately presented to her imagination a large park with a castle in
the middle of it.
"That wis I not," answered ignorant Lawrence. "’Tis somewhere. I shall
see when we be there."
Blumond was a little wiser, but only a little. "Well, now, is’t not
across seas?" suggested he.
Lawrence’s eyes brightened, and Beatrice’s grew sorrowful.
"Wilt thou ever be back, Lolly?" she said in a mournful tone.
"To be sure!" quickly responded Blumond. "He shall come back a grand
young gentleman, a-riding of a big black courser, with a scarlet
saddle-cloth all broidered o’ gold and silver."
There was a general laugh at this highly improbable suggestion, which
was checked by Philippa’s query if Lawrence had taken leave of Dan
Robesart.
"Nay. Should I so?" asked the boy doubtfully.
"Aye, for sure. Haste thee up the hill, for he went into the church but
now."
And with a hasty farewell at last Lawrence ran off.
He found the priest pacing meditatively up and down the north aisle of
the church, with folded arms and a very grave face.
"Didst seek me, my son?" he inquired, pausing as Lawrence came up and
stood rather timidly at a little distance.
"An’t please you, good Father, I go hence as to-morrow, and Philippa
would have me ask you of your blessing ere I went."
"That shalt thou have, right heartily." And the thin white hand was
laid on the child’s head. "Our Lord bless thee, and make thee a
blessing. May He be thy Guide and Shield and Comforter; yea, may He
cover thee with His wings all the day long, and be unto thee a buckler
from the face of evil. Lawrence, my son, I would fain have thy promise
to a thing."
"What thing, Father?"
"Pass thy word to me, and never forget it, that in all thy life thou
wilt never go any whither without asking our Lord to go with thee."
The priest had somewhat failed to realise the extreme youth and worse
ignorance of the child to whom he was talking. The reply recalled him
to these facts.
"Where shall I find Him?—in the church? Must I hear mass every
morning?"
One of the strangest things in Romanism to a Protestant mind is the
fancy that prayer must be offered in a consecrated building to be
thoroughly acceptable. Of course, when a man localises the presence of
Christ as confined to a particular piece of stone, it is natural that he
should fancy he must go to the stone to find Him. From this
unscriptural notion the Lollards had to a great extent emancipated
themselves. Mr. Robesart therefore answered Lawrence as most priests
would not have done, for in his eyes the presence of Christ was not
restricted to the altar-stone and the consecrated wafer.
"My son, say in thine heart—thou needest not speak it loud—’Jesus, be
with me,’ before thou dost any matter, or goest any whither. Our Lord
will hear thee. Wilt thou so do?"
Lawrence gave the promise, with a child’s readiness to promise anything
asked by a person whom he loved and reverenced. The priest lifted his
eyes.
"Lord keep him in mind!" he said in a low voice. "Keep Thyself in the
child’s heart, and bear him upon Thine before the Father!—Now, my son,
go, and God be with thee."
Mr. Robesart laid his hand again on the child’s head, and with a slower
step than before, as if some awe rested upon him, Lawrence went down to
the hovel below the hill.
The journey from Usk to Ireland was a far more new and strange
experience to Lawrence than it could be to Roger. The latter had taken
various short journeys from one of his father’s castles to another, or
on occasional visits to friends and relatives of the family: but the
former had spent all his little life in the hovel at Usk, and his own
feet were the only mode of travelling with which he had hitherto been
acquainted. The sea was something completely new to both. Lawrence was
deeply interested in finding out that fishes lived in that mighty ocean
which seemed alike so potent and so interminable. He wanted to go down
to the bottom and see the fishes alive in their own haunts, and find out
what was there beside them. But after timidly hinting at these
aspirations to an archer and a squire, and perceiving that both were
inclined to laugh at him, Lawrence locked up the remainder of his
fancies in his own breast, and awaited further light and future
opportunities.
Meditations of this kind did not trouble Roger. He found quite enough to
look at in the visible world, without puzzling his brain by speculations
concerning the unseen. His nature disposed him at all times to action
rather than thought.
Two months were consumed on the voyage to Ireland: not by any means an
unreasonable time, when that period or longer was frequently required
between Dover and Calais. They were detained previously at Holyhead,
waiting for a south-east wind, only for a fortnight, which was rather a
matter for congratulation; as was also the fact that they were only
twice in danger of their lives during the voyage. Perils in the
wilderness, and perils in the sea, were much more intelligible to our
forefathers than to ourselves.
Roger was growing dreadfully tired of sea and sky long before the shore
of Antrim was sighted. Lawrence was tired of nothing but his own
ignorance and incapacity to understand what he saw. He wanted to
know—to dive to the bottom of every thing, literally and figuratively:
and he did not know how to get there, and nobody could or would tell
him. Surely things had an end somewhere—if one could only find it out!
The voyage came to one, at any rate; and on a beautiful summer morning,
the keel of the Grace Dieu at last grated upon the shingle of Ulster.
Half-a-dozen of the crew jumped out into the surf, and twice as many
came to help from the land. The great boat was dragged on shore by the
help of ropes, a ladder set against her side, and Roger carefully
carried ashore by a squire. Lawrence was left to climb down as he best
could. Both reached the ground in safety, and found themselves in
presence of a crowd of officers and retainers in the Earl of Ulster’s
livery; from among whom in a moment the Earl himself came forward, and
gave a warm fatherly welcome to his little son. After mutual greetings
had been sufficiently exchanged between old residents and new-comers,
the Earl mounted his horse, a superb bay caparisoned with a scarlet
saddle-cloth, and Roger having been lifted on a white pony beside him,
they rode away to the Castle of Carrickfergus.
Ulster was in the fourteenth century, as it still is in the nineteenth,
in a much more settled, and to English eyes a more civilised condition,
than the Milesian parts of Ireland: but even there, that hatred of rent
which seems characteristic of the Irish race, flourished quite as
luxuriantly as now. Fifty years before this date, Maud of Lancaster,
the girl-widow of the murdered Earl of Ulster, and great-grandmother of
little Roger, had been constrained to address piteous appeals to King
Edward III. for his charity, on the ground that while nominally
possessed of large property, she had really nothing to live upon, since
her Irish tenants would not pay their rents.
The English mind, which is apt to pride itself upon its steady-going,
law-abiding tendencies, was much exercised with this Irish peculiarity,
which it could not understand at all. Why a man should not pay rent for
land which the law affirmed was not his own, and what possible objection
he could have to doing so beyond a wish to keep his money in his pocket,
was wholly unintelligible to the Saxon mind, which never comprehended
that passionate love for the soil, that blind clinging to the homestead,
which are characteristic of the Celt. Those who have those qualities,
among our now mixed race, whatever their known pedigree be, may rest
assured that Celtic blood—whether British, Gaelic, or Erse—has entered
their veins from some quarter.
The Irish, on their part, were for ever looking back to that day when
they were lords of the soil, before the foot of the stranger had ever
pressed the turf of the Green Isle. It was the land which they yearned
to emancipate rather than themselves. In Celtic eyes a monarch is king
of the land, and the people who dwell on it are merely adventitious
coincidences: in Saxon eyes he is king of the people, and the land is
simply the piece of matter which holds the people in obedience to the
law of gravitation. The latter must necessarily be an emigrating and
colonising race: the former as certainly, by the very nature of things,
must feel subjection to a foreign nation an intolerable yoke, and exile
one of the bitterest penalties that can be visited on man. How are
these two types of mind ever to understand each other?
It has been well said that "there is not only one Mediator between God
and man, but also one Mediator between man and man, the Man Christ
Jesus." Never, as Man, was a truer patriot, and yet never was a more
thorough cosmopolitan, than He whose eyes as God are always upon the
Land of Israel, and who hath loved Zion. Can we not all learn of Him,
and bear with each other till the day comes when we shall see eye to
eye—when there shall be one nation upon the mountains of Israel, and one
King over all the earth,—one flock, and one Shepherd?
*CHAPTER III.*
*CAST ON THE WORLD.*
"But He who feeds the ravens young
Lets naething pass He disna see,
He’ll some time judge o’ richt and wrang,
And aye provide for you and me."
—JAMES HOGG.
"Would it please your good Lordship to stand still but one minute?"
"No, Wenteline, it wouldn’t." And little Roger twisted himself out of
the hands which were vainly endeavouring to smoothe down his vest of
violet velvet embroidered in silver, and to fasten it round the waist
with a richly-chased silver belt.
"Then, when my gracious Lord sends Master Constantine for your Lordship,
am I to say you will not be donned, so you cannot go down to hall?"
"Thou canst say what it list thee. I want to play at soldiers with
Lolly."
"So shall your Lordship when you be donned," answered Guenllian firmly.
Little Roger looked up into her face, and seeing no relenting, broke
into a merry little laugh, and resigned himself to the inevitable.
"Oh, come then, make haste!"
Vanity was not among Roger’s failings, and impatience very decidedly
was. Guenllian obeyed her little charge’s bidding, and in a few minutes
released him from bondage. He rewarded her with a hurried kiss, and
scampered off into the ante-chamber, calling out,—
"Lolly, Lolly, come and play at soldiers!"
The two boys, master and servant, were very fond of each other. This
was the more remarkable since not only their temperaments, but their
tastes, were diverse. Roger liked noise and show, was lively,
impulsive, ardent: he had no particular love for lessons, and no
capacity for sitting still. Lawrence was grave and calm, gifted with an
insatiable thirst for knowledge, and of a quiet, almost indolent
physical temperament. The one point on which their tastes met was a
liking for music; and even in this case Roger delighted in stirring
martial strains, while Lawrence preferred soft and plaintive airs.
Playing at soldiers, therefore, was rather in Roger’s line than in
Lawrence’s: but the latter never dreamed of setting his will in
antagonism to that of his master. The game had gone on for about half an
hour when a young man of twenty presented himself at the door of the
ante-chamber. He was clad in a blue tunic reaching nearly to the knee,
and girded with a black belt round the hips, studded with gold; a red
hood encircled his neck; his stockings were diverse, the right being of
the same shade as the hood, and the left of green stripped with black.
Low black shoes, with very pointed toes, completed his costume.
"Now, Master Constantine, you may go away. I want nought with you,"
shouted little Roger, still struggling with Lawrence, whom he had almost
forced into a corner.
"Please it your Lordship," returned Master Constantine with an amused
smile, "I want somewhat with you. My gracious Lord hath sent me to
fetch you to hall."
"O you bad man, you have spoiled my fun!" cried little Roger. "I had
nearly won the battle.—Come along then, Lolly, we will make an end at
after. Draw off the troops—right about face! March!"
A smile broke over the somewhat weary face of the Viceroy, when, two
minutes later, his little son came marching into the hall, shouldering
his toy spear, and followed by Lawrence, who carried a long stick in a
manner similar as to position, but dissimilar as to the appearance of
interest. At the edge of the dalts Lawrence dropped his stick, made a
low bow to his master, and retreated among the household beneath. Roger
bounded on the daïs, kissed his father’s hand, and squatted himself
down—for half a minute—on a hassock at the Earl’s feet. The father’s
hand lingered tenderly among the fair curls on the boy’s head.
"Little Roger," he said, "I have somewhat to tell thee."
"Is it a battle?" exclaimed Roger eagerly.
His father laughed. "Of a truth, thou art cut out for a soldier, my
lad. Nay, ’tis not a battle; it is a journey."
"Shall I take a journey?"
"Not yet a while. Perchance, some day. But what sayest? Canst do
without me for a month or twain?"
"Whither go you, my Lord?"
"I set forth for Cork this next Wednesday."
"Where’s Cork?"
"There shall be nigh all Ireland between us, little Roger."
"But musn’t I go?" said Roger in a very disappointed tone.
"Not yet a while," repeated his father. "Cork is wilder by far than
Antrim. I must ensure me first that it shall be safe to have thee. If
so be, I may send for thee in time."
"But must I be all alone?" demanded the child in a changed tone.
"All alone—with Wenteline and Master Byterre and Lawrence—for a little
while. Then thou shalt either come to me, or go back to my Lady thy
grandmother."
"Oh, let me come to your Lordship! I love not women!" cried Roger, with
the usual want of gallantry of small boys.
"In very deed, I am shocked!" said the Earl, with a twinkle of amusement
in his eyes which made more impression on Roger than the accompanying
words. "Howbeit, we shall see. Thou shouldst dearly love thy
grandmother, Roger, for she loveth thee right well."
"Oh aye, I love her all right!—but women wit nought of war and
knighthood, and such like. They think you be good if you sit still and
stare on a book. And that is monks’ gear, not soldiers’. I am a
soldier."
"Art thou, forsooth?" responded the Earl with a laugh. "Thou shalt be
one day, maybe. Now, my doughty warrior, run to thy nurse. I have ado
with these gentlemen."
Two years had passed when this dialogue took place, since little Roger
came from Wigmore to Ireland. He was growing a bright boy, still not
particularly fond of study, but less averse to it than he had been, and
developing a strong taste for military matters, and for the lighter
accomplishments. He danced and sang well for his age, and was learning
to play the cithern or guitar. He rode fearlessly, was a great climber
and leaper, and considering his years a good archer, and a first-rate
player of chess, foot-ball, club-ball (cricket), hand-tennis (fives),
mall battledore and shuttlecock, and tables or back-gammon. As to
drawing, nobody ever dreamed of teaching that to a medieval noble. The
three Rs were also progressing fairly for a boy in the fourteenth
century.
The small household left at Carrickfergus had but a dull time of it
after the Earl had ridden away for Cork. Two months, and half of a
third, dragged wearily along, and not a word came from either Cork or
Wigmore. The third month was drawing to its close when, late one snowy
winter night, the faint sound of a horn announced the approach of
visitors.
"The saints give it maybe my Lord!" exclaimed Constantine Byterre, who
was as weary of comparative solitude as a lively young man could well
be.
The drawbridge was thrown across, the portcullis pulled up, and Sir
Thomas Mortimer rode into the courtyard, followed by Reginald de Pageham
and various other members of the Earl’s household. They had evidently
ridden a long way, for their horses were exceedingly jaded.
"How does my Lord Roger?" were the first words of Sir Thomas, and the
porter perceived that he was either very tired, or very sad.
"Well, sweet Sir: in his bed, as a child should be at this hour."
"Thank God! Bid Mistress Wenteline down to hall, for I must speak with
her quickly."
"Sweet Sir, I pray you of your grace, is aught ill?"
"Very ill indeed, good Alan." But Sir Thomas did not explain himself
until Guenllian appeared.
It was necessary to rouse her gently, since she slept in little Roger’s
chamber, and Sir Thomas had given orders that if possible he should not
be disturbed. Fearing she knew not what, Guenllian wrapped herself in a
thick robe, and descended to the hall.
"Mistress, I give you good greeting: and I do you to wit right heavy
tidings, for Lord Edmund the Earl lieth dead in Cork Castle."
A low cry of pain and horror broke from Guenllian.
"Surely not slain of the wild men?"
"In no wise. He died a less glorious death, for he took ill rheum,
fording the Lee, and in five days therefrom he was no more."
It was as natural for a Lollard as for any other to respond, "Whose soul
God pardon!"
"Amen," said Sir Thomas, crossing himself. "I trust you, mistress mine,
to break these tidings to the young Earl. Have here my dead Lord’s
token"—and he held forth a chased gold ring. "I am bidden, if it shall
stand with the King’s pleasure, to have back his little Lordship to my
Lady his grandmother at Wigmore."
"Poor child!" said Guenllian tremulously. "Poor child!"
"Aye, ’tis sad news for him," was the answer. "Yet childre’s grief
lasteth not long. Methought, good my mistress, it were as well he
should not hear it until the morrow."
"Trust me, Sir. It were cruelty to wake a child up to such news. Aye,
but I am woe for my little child! Mereckoneth he were not one to grow
up well without a father—and without mother belike! The morrow’s tears
shall be the least part of his sorrow."
"Ah, well! God must do His will," replied Sir Thomas in a fatalistic
manner.
To him, God’s will was only another term for what a heathen would have
styled inevitable destiny. In connection with the expression, he no
more thought of God
|
last hour you
have not spoken one word, but taken off the lid of that kettle
and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon
over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and
catching and connecting the drops of hot water it falls into.
Are you not ashamed of spending your time in this way?"
To what extent the precocious boy ruminated upon the phenomenon must be
left to conjecture. Enough that the story has a solid foundation upon
which we can build. This more than justifies us in classing it with
"Newton and the Apple," "Bruce and the Spider," "Tell and the Apple,"
"Galvani and the Frog," "Volta and the Damp Cloth," "Washington and His
Little Hatchet," a string of gems, amongst the most precious of our
legendary possessions. Let no rude iconoclast attempt to undermine one
of them. Even if they never occurred, it matters little. They should
have occurred, for they are too good to lose. We could part with many of
the actual characters of the flesh in history without much loss; banish
the imaginary host of the spirit and we were poor indeed. So with these
inspiring legends; let us accept them and add others gladly as they
arise, inquiring not too curiously into their origin.
While Watt was still in boyhood, his wise father not only taught him
writing and arithmetic, but also provided a set of small tools for him
in the shop among the workmen--a wise and epoch-making gift, for young
Watt soon revealed such wonderful manual dexterity, and could do such
astonishing things, that the verdict of one of the workmen, "Jamie has a
fortune at his finger-ends," became a common saying among them. The most
complicated work seemed to come naturally to him. One model after
another was produced to the wonder and delight of his older
fellow-workmen. Jamie was the pride of the shop, and no doubt of his
fond father, who saw with pardonable pride that his promising son
inherited his own traits, and gave bright promise of excelling as a
skilled handicraftsman.
The mechanical dexterity of the Watts, grandfather, father and son, is
not to be belittled, for most of the mechanical inventions have come
from those who have been cunning of hand and have worked as manual
laborers, generally in charge of the machinery or devices which they
have improved. When new processes have been invented, these also have
usually suggested themselves to the able workmen as they experienced the
crudeness of existing methods. Indeed, few important inventions have
come from those who have not been thus employed. It is with inventors as
with poets; few have been born to the purple or with silver spoons in
their mouths, and we shall plainly see later on that had it not been for
Watt's inherited and acquired manual dexterity, it is probable that the
steam engine could never have been perfected, so often did failure of
experiments arise solely because it was in that day impossible to find
men capable of executing the plans of the inventor. His problem was to
teach them by example how to obtain the exact work required when the
tools of precision of our day were unknown and the men themselves were
only workmen of the crudest kind. Many of the most delicate parts, even
of working engines, passed through Watt's own hands, and for most of his
experimental devices he had himself to make the models. Never was there
an inventor who had such reason to thank fortune that in his youth he
had learned to work with his hands. It proved literally true, as his
fellow-workmen in the shop predicted, that "Jamie's fortune was at his
finger-ends."
As before stated, he proved a backward scholar for a time, at the
grammar school. No one seems to have divined the latent powers
smoldering within. Latin and Greek classics moved him not, for his mind
was stored with more entrancing classics learned at his mother's knee:
his heroes were of nobler mould than the Greek demigods, and the story
of his own romantic land more fruitful than that of any other of the
past. Busy working man has not time to draw his inspiration from more
than one national literature. Nor has any man yet drawn fully from any
but that of his native tongue. We can no more draw our mental sustenance
from two languages than we can think in two. Man can have but one deep
source from whence come healing waters, as he can have but one mother
tongue. So it was with Watt. He had Scotland and that sufficed. When the
boy absorbs, or rather is absorbed by, Wallace, The Bruce, and Sir John
Grahame, is fired by the story of the Martyrs, has at heart page after
page of the country's ballads, and also, in more recent times, is at
home with Burns' and Scott's prose and poetry, he has little room and
less desire, and still less need, for inferior heroes. So the dead
languages and their semi-supernatural, quarrelsome, self-seeking heroes
passed in review without gaining admittance to the soul of Watt. But the
spare that fired him came at last--Mathematics. "Happy is the man who
has found his work," says Carlyle. Watt found his when yet a boy at
school. Thereafter never a doubt existed as to the field of his labors.
The choice of an occupation is a serious matter with most young men.
There was never room for any question of choice with young Watt. The
occupation had chosen him, as is the case with genius. "Talent does what
it can, genius what it must." When the goddess lays her hand upon a
mortal dedicated to her shrine, concentration is the inevitable result;
there is no room for anything which does not contribute to her service,
or rather all things are made contributory to it, and nothing that the
devotee sees or reads, hears or feels, but some way or other is made to
yield sustenance for the one great, overmastering task. "The gods send
thread for a web begun," because the web absorbs everything that comes
within reach. So it proved with Watt.
At fifteen, he had twice carefully read "The Elements of Philosophy"
(Gravesend), and had made numerous chemical experiments, repeating them
again and again, until satisfied of their accuracy. A small electrical
machine was one of his productions with which he startled his
companions. Visits to his uncle Muirhead at Glasgow were frequent, and
here he formed acquaintance with several educated young men, who
appreciated his abilities and kindly nature; but the visits to the same
kind uncle "on the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond," where the
summer months were spent, gave the youth his happiest days.
Indefatigable in habits of observation and research, and devoted to the
lonely hills, he extended his knowledge by long excursions, adding to
his botanical and mineral treasures. Freely entering the cottages of the
people, he spent hours learning their traditions, superstitions,
ballads, and all the Celtic lore. He loved nature in her wildest moods,
and was a true child of the mist, brimful of poetry and romance, which
he was ever ready to shower upon his friends. An omniverous reader, in
after life he vindicated his practice of reading every book he found,
alleging that he had "never yet read a book or conversed with a
companion without gaining information, instruction or amusement." Scott
has left on record that he never had met and conversed with a man who
could not tell him something he did not know. Watt seems to have
resembled Sir Walter, "who spoke to every man he met as if he were a
brother"--as indeed he was--one of the many fine traits of that noble,
wholesome character. These two foremost Scots, each supreme in his
sphere, seem to have had many social traits in common, and both that
fine faculty of attracting others.
The only "sport" of the youth was angling, "the most fitting practice
for quiet men and lovers of peace," the "Brothers of the Angle,"
according to Izaak Walton, "being mostly men of mild and gentle
disposition." From the ruder athletic games of the school he was
debarred, not being robust, and this was a constant source of morbid
misery to him, entailing as it did separation from the other boys. The
prosecution of his favorite geometry now occupied his thoughts and time,
and astronomy also became a fascinating study. Long hours were often
spent, lying on his back in a grove near his home, studying the stars by
night and the clouds by day.
Watt met his first irreparable loss in 1753, when his mother suddenly
died. The relations between them had been such as are only possible
between mother and son. Often had the mother said to her intimates that
she had been enabled to bear the loss of her daughter only by the love
and care of her dutiful son. Home was home no longer for Jamie, and we
are not surprised to find him leaving it soon after she who had been to
him the light and leading of his life had passed out of it.
Watt now reached his seventeenth year. His father's affairs were greatly
embarrassed. It was clearly seen that the two brothers, John and James,
had to rely for their support upon their own unaided efforts. John, the
elder, some time before this had taken to the sea and been shipwrecked,
leaving only James at home. Of course, there was no question as to the
career he would adopt. His fortune "lay at his fingers' ends," and
accordingly he resolved at once to qualify himself for the trade of a
mathematical instrument maker, the career which led him directly in the
pathway of mathematics and mechanical science, and enabled him to
gratify his unquenchable thirst for knowledge thereof.
Naturally Glasgow was decided upon as the proper place in which to
begin, and Watt took up his abode there with his maternal relatives, the
Muirheads, carrying his tools with him.
No mathematical instrument maker was to be found in Glasgow, but Watt
entered the service of a kind of jack-of-all-trades, who called himself
an "optician" and sold and mended spectacles, repaired fiddles, tuned
spinets, made fishing-rods and tackle, etc. Watt, as a devoted brother
of the angle, was an adept at dressing trout and salmon flies, and handy
at so many things that he proved most useful to his employer, but there
was nothing to be learned by the ambitious youth.
His most intimate schoolfellow was Andrew Anderson, whose elder brother,
John Anderson, was the well-known Professor of natural philosophy, the
first to open classes for the instruction of working-men in its
principles. He bequeathed his property to found an institution for this
purpose, which is now a college of the university. The Professor came to
know young Watt through his brother, and Watt became a frequent visitor
at his house. He was given unrestricted access to the Professor's
valuable library, in which he spent many of his evenings.
One of the chief advantages of the public school is the enduring
friendships boys form there, first in importance through their
beneficial influence upon character, and, second, as aids to success in
after life. The writer has been impressed by this feature, for great is
the number of instances he has known where the prized working-boy or man
in position has been able, as additional force was required, to say the
needed word of recommendation, which gave a start or a lift upward to a
dearly-cherished schoolfellow. It seems a grave mistake for parents not
to educate their sons in the region of home, or in later years in
colleges and universities of their own land, so that early friendships
may not be broken, but grow closer with the years. Watt at all events
was fortunate in this respect. His schoolmate, Andrew Anderson, brought
into his life the noted Professor, with all his knowledge, kindness and
influence, and opened to him the kind of library he most needed.
CHAPTER II
GLASGOW TO LONDON--RETURN TO GLASGOW
Through Professor Muirhead, a kinsman of Watt's mother, he was
introduced to many others of the faculty of the university, and, as
usual, attracted their attention, especially that of Dr. Dick, Professor
of natural philosophy, who strongly advised him to proceed to London,
where he could receive better instruction than it was possible to obtain
in Scotland at that time. The kind Professor, diviner of latent genius,
went so far as to give him a personal introduction, which proved
efficient. How true it is that the worthy, aspiring youth rarely goes
unrecognised or unaided. Men with kind hearts, wise heads, and influence
strong to aid, stand ready at every turn to take modest merit by the
hand and give it the only aid needed, opportunity to speak, through
results, for itself. So London was determined upon. Fortunately, a
distant relative of the Watt family, a sea-captain, was about to set
forth upon that then long and toilsome journey. They started from
Glasgow June 7, 1755, on horseback, the journey taking twelve days.
The writer's parents often referred to the fact that when the leading
linen manufacturer of Dunfermline was about to take the journey to
London--the only man in the town then who ever did--special prayers were
always said in church for his safety.
The member of Parliament in Watt's day from the extreme north of
Scotland would have consumed nearly twice twelve days to reach
Westminster. To-day if the capital of the English-speaking race were in
America, which Lord Roseberry says he is willing it should be, if
thereby the union of our English-speaking race were secured, the members
of the Great Council from Britain could reach Washington in seven days,
the members from British Columbia and California, upon the Pacific, in
five days, both land and sea routes soon to be much quickened.
Those sanguine prophets who predict the reunion of our race on both
sides of the Atlantic can at least aver that in view of the union of
Scotland and England, the element of time required to traverse distances
to and from the capital is no obstacle, since the most distant points of
the new empire, Britain in the east and British Columbia and California
in the west, would be reached in less than one-third the time required
to travel from the north of Scotland to London at the time of the union.
Besides, the telegraph to-day binds the parts together, keeping all
citizens informed, and stirring their hearts simultaneously thousands of
miles apart--Glasgow to London, 1755, twelve days; 1905, eight hours.
Thus under the genius Steam, tamed and harnessed by Watt, the world
shrinks into a neighborhood, giving some countenance to the dreamers who
may perchance be proclaiming a coming reality. We may continue,
therefore, to indulge the hope of the coming "parliament of man, the
federation of the world," or even the older and wider prophecy of Burns,
that, "It's coming yet for a' that, when man to man the world o'er,
shall brithers be for a' that."
There comes to mind that jewel we owe to Plato, which surely ranks as
one of the most precious of all our treasures: "We should lure ourselves
as with enchantments, for the hope is great and the reward is noble." So
with this enchanting dream, better than most realities, even if it be
all a dream. Let the dreamers therefore dream on. The world, minus
enchanting dreams, would be commonplace indeed, and let us remember this
dream is only dreamable because Watt's steam engine is a reality.
After his twelve days on horseback, Watt arrived in London, a stranger
in a strange land, unknowing and unknown. But the fates had been kind
for, burdened with neither wealth nor rank, this poor would-be skilled
mechanic was to have a fair chance by beginning at the bottom among his
fellows, the sternest yet finest of all schools to call forth and
strengthen inherent qualities, and impel a poor young man to put forth
his utmost effort when launched upon the sea of life, where he must
either sink or swim, no bladders being in reserve for him.
Our young hero rose to the occasion and soon proved that, Cæsar-like, he
could "stem the waves with heart of controversy." Thus the rude school
of experience calls forth and strengthens the latent qualities of youth,
implants others, and forms the indomitable man, fit to endure and
overcome. Here, for the first time, alone in swarming London, not one
relative, not one friend, not even an acquaintance, except the kind
sea-captain, challenged by the cold world around to do or die, fate
called to Watt as it calls to every man who has his own way to make:
"This is Collingtogle ford,
And thou must keep thee with thy sword."
When the revelation first rushes upon a youth, hitherto directed by his
parents, that, boy no more, he must act for himself, presto! change! he
is a man, he has at last found himself. The supreme test, which proves
the man, can come in all its winnowing force only to those born to earn
their own support by training themselves to be able to render to society
services which command return. This training compels the development of
powers which otherwise would probably lie dormant. Scotch boy as Watt
was to the core, with the lowland broad, soft accent, and ignorant of
foreign literature, it is very certain that he then found support in
the lessons instilled at his mother's knee. He had been fed on Wallace
and Bruce, and when things looked darkest, even in very early years, his
national hero, Wallace, came to mind, and his struggles against fearful
odds, not for selfish ends, but for his country's independence. Did
Wallace give up the fight, or ever think of giving up? Never! It was
death or victory. Bruce and the spider! Did Bruce falter? Never! Neither
would he. "Scots wa hae," "Let us do or die," implanted before his
teens, has pulled many a Scottish boy through the crises of life when
all was dark, as it will pull others yet to come. Altho Burns and Scott
had yet to appear, to crystallise Scotland's characteristics and plant
the talismanic words into the hearts of young Scots, Watt had a copious
supply of the national sentiment, to give him the "stout heart for the
stye brae," when manhood arrived. His mother had planted deep in him,
and nurtured, precious seed from her Celtic garden, which was sure to
grow and bear good fruit.
We are often met with the question, "What is the best possible safeguard
for a young man, who goes forth from a pure home, to meet the
temptations that beset his path?" Various answers are given, but,
speaking that as a Scot, reared as Watt was, the writer believes all the
suggested safeguards combined scarcely weigh as much as preventives
against disgracing himself as the thought that it would not be only
himself he would disgrace, but that he would also bring disgrace upon
his family, and would cause father, mother, sister and brother to hang
their heads among their neighbors in secluded village, on far-away moor
or in lonely glen. The Scotch have strong traces of the Chinese and
Japanese religious devotion to "the family," and the filial instinct is
intensely strong. The fall of one member is the disgrace of all. Even
although Watt's mother had passed, there remained the venerated father
in Greenock, and the letters regularly written to him, some of which
have fortunately been preserved, abundantly prove that, tho far from
home, yet in home and family ties and family duties the young man had
his strong tower of defence, keeping him from "all sense of sin or
shame." Watt never gave his father reason for one anxious thought that
he would in any respect discredit the good name of his forbears.
Many London shops were visited, but the rules of the trade, requiring
apprentices to serve for seven years, or, being journeymen, to have
served that time, proved an insuperable obstacle to Watt's being
employed. His plan was to fit himself by a year's steady work for return
to Glasgow, there to begin on his own account. He had not seven years to
spend learning what he could learn in one. He would be his own master.
Wise young man in this he was. There is not much outcome in the youth
who does not already see himself captain in his dreams, and steers his
barque accordingly, true to the course already laid down, not to be
departed from, under any stress of weather. We see the kind of stuff
this young Scotch lad was made of in the tenacity with which he held to
his plan. At last some specimens of his work having seemed very
remarkable to Mr. John Morgan, mathematical instrument maker, Finch
Lane, Cornhill, he agreed to give the conquering young man the desired
year's instructions for his services and a premium of twenty pounds,
whereupon the plucky fellow who had kept to his course and made port,
wrote to his father of his success, praising his master "as being of as
good character, both for accuracy in his business, and good morals, as
any of his way in London." The order in which this aspiring young man of
the world records the virtues will not be overlooked. He then adds, "If
it had not been for Mr. Short, I could not have got a man in London that
would have undertaken to teach me, as I now find there are not above
five or six who could have taught me all I wanted."
Mr. Short was the gentleman to whom Professor Dick's letter of
introduction was addressed, who, no more than the Professor himself, nor
Mr. Morgan, could withstand the extraordinary youth, whom he could not
refuse taking into his service--glad to get him no doubt, and delighted
that he was privileged to instruct one so likely to redound to his
credit in after years. Thus Watt made his start in London, the twenty
pounds premium being duly remitted from home.
Up to this time, Watt had been a charge on his father, but it was very
small, for he lived in the most frugal style at a cost of only two
dollars per week. In one of his letters to his father he regrets being
unable to reduce it below that, knowing that his father's affairs were
not prosperous. He, however, was able to obtain some remunerative work
on his own account, which he did after his day's task was over, and soon
made his position secure as a workman. Specialisation he met with for
the first time, and he expresses surprise that "very few here know any
more than how to make a rule, others a pair of dividers, and suchlike."
Here we see that even at that early day division of labor had won its
way in London, though yet unknown in the country. The jack-of-all-trades,
the handyman, who can do everything, gives place to the specialist who
confines himself to one thing in which practice makes him perfect. Watt's
mission saved him from this, for to succeed he had to be master, not of
one process, but of all. Hence we find him first making brass scales,
parallel-rulers and quadrants. By the end of one month in this department
he was able to finish a Hadley quadrant. From this he proceeded to azimuth
compasses, brass sectors, theodolites, and other delicate instruments.
Before his year was finished he wrote his father that he had made
"a brass sector with a French joint, which is reckoned as nice a piece of
framing-work as is in the trade," and expressed the hope that he would
soon now be able to support himself and be no longer a charge upon him.
It is highly probable that this first tool finished by his own hands
brought to Watt more unalloyed pleasure than any of his greater triumphs
of later years, just as the first week's wages of youth, money earned by
service rendered, proclaiming coming manhood, brings with it a thrill
and glow of proud satisfaction, compared with which all the millions of
later years are as dross.
Writers upon labor, who have never labored, generally make the profound
mistake of considering labor as one solid mass, when the truth is that
it contains orders and degrees as distinct as those in aristocracy. The
workman skilled beyond his fellows, who is called upon by his
superintendent to undertake the difficult job in emergencies, ranks
high, and probably enjoys an honorable title, a pet name conferred by
his shopmates. Men measure each other as correctly in the workshop as in
the professions, and each has his deserved rank. When the right man is
promoted, they rally round and enable him to perform wonders. Where
favoritism or poor judgment is shown, the reverse occurs, and there is
apathy and dissatisfaction, leading to poor results and serious trouble.
The manual worker is as proud of his work, and rightly so, as men are in
other vocations. His life and thought centre in the shop as those of
members of Congress or Parliament centre in the House; and triumph for
him in the shop, his world, means exactly the same to him, and appears
not less important to his family and friends than what leadership is to
the public man, or in any of the professions. He has all their pride of
profession, and less vanity than most.
How far this "pride of profession" extends is well illustrated by the
Pittsburgh story of the street scrapers at their noon repast. MacCarthy,
recently deceased, was the subject of eulogy, one going so far as to
assert that he was "the best man that ever scraped a hoe on Liberty
Street." To this, one who had aspirations "allowed Mac was a good enough
man on plain work, but around the gas-posts he wasn't worth a cent."
A public character, stopping over night with a friend in the country,
the maid-of-all-work tells her mistress, after the guest departs, "I
have read so much about him, never expecting to see him; little did I
think I should have the honor of brushing his boots this morning." Happy
girl in her work, knowing that all service is honorable. Even
shoe-blacking, we see, has its rewards.
A Highland laird and lady, visiting some of their crofters on the moors,
are met and escorted by a delighted wife to her cot. The children and
the husband are duly presented. At an opportune moment the proud wife
cannot refrain from informing her visitors that "it was Donald himsel'
the laird had to send for to thatch the pretty golf-house at the Castle.
Donald did all that himsel'," with an admiring glance cast at the
embarrassed great man. Donald "sent for by the laird at the Castle"
ranks in Donald's circle and in Donald's own heart with the honor of
being sent for by His Majesty to govern the empire in Mr. Balfour's
circle and in Mr. Balfour's own heart. Ten to one the proud Highland
crofter and his circle reap more genuine, unalloyed satisfaction from
the message than the lowland statesman and his circle could reap from
his. But it made Balfour famous, you say. So was Donald made famous, his
circle not quite so wide as that of his colleague--that is all. Donald
is as much "uplifted" as the Prime Minister; probably more so. Thus is
human nature ever the same down to the roots. Many distinctions, few
differences in life. We are all kin, members of the one family, playing
with different toys.
So deep down into the ranks of labor goes the salt of pride of
profession, preventing rot and keeping all fresh in the main, because on
the humblest of the workers there shines the bright ray of hope of
recognition and advancement, progress and success. As long as this vista
is seen stretching before all is well with labor. There will be
friction, of course, between capital and labor, but it will be healthy
friction, needed by, and good for, both. There is the higgling of the
market in all business. As long as this valuable quality of honest pride
in one's work exists, and finds deserved recognition, society has
nothing to fear from the ranks of labor. Those who have had most
experience with it, and know its qualities and its failings best, have
no fear; on the contrary, they know that at heart labor is sound, and
only needs considerate treatment. The kindly personal attention of the
employer will be found far more appreciated than even a rise in wages.
Enforced confinement and unremitting labor soon told upon Watt's
delicate constitution, yet he persevered with the self-imposed extra
work, which brought in a little honest money and reduced the remittances
from home. He caught a severe cold during the winter and was afflicted
by a racking cough and severe rheumatic pains. With his father's
sanction, he decided to return home to recuperate, taking good care
however, forehanded as he always proved himself, to secure some new and
valuable tools and a stock of materials to make many others, which "he
knew he must make himself." A few valuable books were not forgotten,
among them Bion's work on the "Construction and Use of Mathematical
Instruments"--nothing pertaining to his craft but he would know. King he
would be in that, so everything was made to revolve around it. That was
the foundation upon which he had to build.
To the old home in Scotland our hero's face was now turned in the autumn
of 1756, his twentieth year. His native air, best medicine of all for
the invalid exile, soon restored his health, and to Glasgow he then
went, in pursuance of his plan of life early laid down, to begin
business on his own account. He thus became master before he was man.
There was not in all Scotland a mathematical instrument maker, and here
was one of the very best begging permission to establish himself in
Glasgow. As in London so in Glasgow, however, the rules of the Guild of
Hammermen, to which it was decided a mathematical instrument maker would
belong, if one of such high calling made his appearance, prevented Watt
from entrance if he had not consumed seven years in learning the trade.
He had mastered it in one, and was ready to demonstrate his ability to
excel by any kind of test proposed. Watt had entered in properly by the
door of knowledge and experience of the craft, the only door through
which entrance was possible, but he had travelled too quickly; besides
he was "neither the son of a burgess, nor had he served an
apprenticeship in the borough," and this was conclusive. How the world
has travelled onward since those days! and yet our day is likely to be
in as great contrast a hundred and fifty years hence. Protective tariffs
between nations, and probably wars, may then seem as strangely absurd as
the hammermen's rules. Even in 1905 we have still a far road to travel.
Failing in his efforts to establish himself in business, he asked the
guild to permit him to rent and use a small workshop to make
experiments, but even this was refused. We are disposed to wonder at
this, but it was in strict accordance with the spirit of the times.
When the sky was darkest, the clouds broke and revealed the university
as his guardian angel. Dr. Dick, Professor of natural philosophy,
knowing of Watt's skill from his first start in Glasgow, had already
employed him to repair some mathematical instruments bequeathed to the
university by a Scotch gentleman in the West Indies, and the work had
been well done, at a cost of five pounds--the first contract money ever
earned by Watt in Glasgow. Good work always tells. Ability cannot be
kept down forever; if crushed to earth, it rises again. So Watt's "good
work" brought the Professors to his aid, several of whom he had met and
impressed most favorably during its progress. The university charter,
gift of the Pope in 1451, gave absolute authority within the area of its
buildings, and the Professors resolved to give our hero shelter
there--the best day's work they ever did. May they ever be remembered
for this with feelings of deepest gratitude. What men these were! The
venerable Anderson has already been spoken of; Adam Smith, who did for
the science of economics what Watt did for steam, was one of Watt's
dearest friends; Black, discoverer of latent heat; Robinson, Dick of
whom we have spoken, and others. Such were the world's benefactors, who
resolved to take Watt under their protection, and thus enabled him to do
his appointed work. Glorious university, this of Glasgow, protector and
nurse of Watt, probably of all its decisions this has been of the
greatest service to man!
There are universities and universities. Glasgow's peculiar claim to
regard lies in the perfect equality of the various schools, the
humanities not neglected, the sciences appreciated, neither accorded
precedence. Its scientific Professor, Thompson, now Lord Kelvin, was
recently elevated to the Lord Chancellorship, the highest honor in its
power to bestow.
Every important university develops special qualities of its own, for
which it is noted. That of Glasgow is renowned for devotion to the
scientific field. What a record is hers! Protector of Watt, going to
extreme measures necessary, not alone to shelter him, but to enable him
to labor within its walls and support himself; first university to
establish an engineering school and professorship of engineering; first
to establish a chemical teaching laboratory for students; first to have
a physical laboratory for the exercise and instruction of students in
experimental work; nursery from which came the steam engine of Watt, the
discovery of latent heat by its Professor Black, and the successful
operation of telegraph cables by its Professor and present Lord
Chancellor (Lord Kelvin). May the future of Glasgow University copy
fair her glorious past! Her "atmosphere" favors and stimulates steady,
fruitful work. At all Scottish, as at all American universities, we may
rejoice that there is always found a large number of the most
distinguished students, who, figuratively speaking, cultivate knowledge
upon a little oatmeal, earning money between terms to pay their way. It
is highly probable that a greater proportion of these will be heard from
in later years than of any other class.
American universities have, fortunately, followed the Glasgow model, and
are giving more attention to the hitherto much neglected needs of
science, and the practical departments of education, making themselves
real universities, "where any man can study everything worth studying."
A room was assigned to Watt, only about twenty feet square, but it
served him as it has done others since for great work. When the
well-known author, Dr. Smiles, visited the room, he found in it the
galvanic apparatus employed by Professor Thompson (Lord Kelvin) for
perfecting his delicate invention which rendered ocean cables effective.
The kind and wise Professors did not stop here. They went pretty far,
one cannot but think, when they took the next step in Watt's behalf,
giving him a small room, which could be made accessible to the public,
and this he was at liberty to open as a shop for the sale of his
instruments, for Watt had to make a living by his handiwork. Strange
work this for a university, especially in those days; but our readers,
we are sure, will heartily approve the last, as they have no doubt
approved the first action of the faculty in favor of struggling genius.
Business was not prosperous at first with Watt, his instruments proving
slow of sale. Of quadrants he could make three per week with the help of
a lad, at a profit of forty shillings, but as sea-going ships could not
then reach Glasgow, few could be sold. A supply was sent to Greenock,
then the port of Glasgow, and sold by his father. He was reduced, as the
greatest artists have often been, to the necessity of making what are
known as "pot-boilers." Following the example of his first master in
Glasgow he made spectacles, fiddles, flutes, guitars, and, of course,
flies and fishing-tackle, and, as the record tells, "many dislocated
violins, fractured guitars, fiddles also, if intreated, did he mend with
good approbation." Such were his "pot-boilers" that met the situation.
His friend, Professor Black, who, like Professor Dick, had known of
Watt's talent, one day asked him if he couldn't make an organ for him.
By this time, Watt's reputation had begun to spread, and it finally
carried him to the height of passing among his associates as "one who
knew most things and could make anything." Watt knew nothing about
organs, but he immediately undertook the work (1762), and the result was
an indisputable success
|
would not avail anything to remain; it would not avail anything even to
die; nothing could avail anything at once, but in the end, his going
would avail most. He must go; it would break the child's heart to face
his shame, and she must face it. He did not think of his eldest
daughter, except to think that the impending disaster could not affect
her so ruinously.
"My God, my God!" he groaned, as he went up stairs. Adeline called from
the room he had left, "Did you speak, father?"
He had a conscience, that mechanical conscience which becomes so active
in times of great moral obliquity, against telling a little lie, and
saying he had not spoken. He went on up stairs without answering
anything. He indulged the self pity, a little longer, of feeling himself
an old man forced from his home, and he had a blind reasonless
resentment of the behavior of the men who were driving him away, and
whose interests, even at that moment, he was mindful of. But he threw
off this mood when he entered his room, and settled himself to business.
There was a good deal to be done in the arrangement of papers for his
indefinite absence, and he used the same care in providing for some
minor contingencies in the company's affairs as in leaving instructions
to his children for their action until they should hear from him again.
Afterwards this curious scrupulosity became a matter of comment among
those privy to it; some held it another proof of the ingrained rascality
of the man, a trick to suggest lenient construction of his general
conduct in the management of the company's finances, others saw in it an
interesting example of the involuntary operation of business instincts
which persisted at a juncture when the man might be supposed to have
been actuated only by the most intensely selfish motives.
The question was not settled even in the final retrospect, when it
appeared that at the very moment that Northwick showed himself mindful
of the company's interests on those minor points, he was defrauding it
further in the line of his defalcations, and keeping back a large sum of
money that belonged to it. But at that moment Northwick did not consider
that this money necessarily belonged to the company, any more than his
daughters' house and farm belonged to it. To be sure it was the fruit of
money he had borrowed or taken from the company and had used in an
enormously successful deal; but the company had not earned it, and in
driving him into a corner, in forcing him to make instant restitution of
all its involuntary loans, it was justifying him in withholding this
part of them. Northwick was a man of too much sense to reason explicitly
to this effect, but there was a sophistry, tacitly at work in him to
this effect, which made it possible for him to go on and steal more
where he had already stolen so much. In fact it presented the further
theft as a sort of duty. This sum, large as it was, really amounted to
nothing in comparison with the sum he owed the company; but it formed
his only means of restitution, and if he did not take it and use it to
that end, he might be held recreant to his moral obligations. He
contended, from that vestibule of his soul where he was not a thief,
with that self of his inmost where he was a thief, that it was all most
fortunate, if not providential, as it had fallen out. Not only had his
broker sent him that large check for his winnings in stocks the day
before, but Northwick had, contrary to his custom, cashed the check, and
put the money in his safe instead of banking it. Now he could perceive a
leading in the whole matter, though at the time it seemed a flagrant
defiance of chance, and a sort of invitation to burglars. He seemed to
himself like a burglar, when he had locked the doors and pulled down the
curtains, and stood before the safe working the combination. He
trembled, and when at last the mechanism announced its effect, with a
slight click of the withdrawing bolt, he gave a violent start. At the
same time there came a rough knock at the door, and Northwick called out
in the choking, incoherent voice of one suddenly roused from sleep:
"Hello! Who's there? What is it?"
"It's me," said Elbridge.
"Oh, yes! Well! All right! Hold on, a minute! Ah--you can come back in
ten or fifteen minutes. I'm not quite ready for you, yet." Northwick
spoke the first broken sentences from the safe, where he stood in a
frenzy of dismay; the more collected words were uttered from his desk,
where he ran to get his pistol. He did not know why he thought Elbridge
might try to force his way in; perhaps it was because any presence on
the outside of the door would have terrified him. He had time to
recognize that he was not afraid for the money, but that he was afraid
for himself in the act of taking it.
Elbridge gave a cough on the other side of the door, and said with a
little hesitation, "All right," and Northwick heard him tramp away, and
go down stairs.
He went back to the safe and pulled open the heavy door, whose
resistance helped him shake off his nervousness. Then he took the money
from the drawer where he had laid it, counted it, slipped it into the
inner pocket of his waistcoat, and buttoned it in there. He shut the
safe and locked it. The succession of these habitual acts calmed him
more and more, and after he had struck a match and kindled the fire on
his hearth, which he had hitherto forgotten, he was able to settle again
to his preparations in writing.
VI.
When Elbridge came back, Northwick called out, "Come in!" and then went
and unlocked the door for him. "I forgot it was locked," he said,
carelessly. "Do you think the colt's going to be lame?"
"Well, I don't like the way she behaves, very well. Them shoes have got
to come off." Elbridge stood at the corner of the desk, and diffused a
strong smell of stable through the hot room.
"You'll see to it, of course," said Northwick. "I'm going away in the
morning, and I don't know just how long I shall be gone." Northwick
satisfied his mechanical scruple against telling a lie by this formula;
and in its shelter he went on to give Elbridge instructions about the
management of the place in his absence. He took some money from his
pocket-book and handed it to him for certain expenses, and then he said,
"I want to take the five o'clock train, that reaches Ponkwasset at nine.
You can drive me up with the black mare."
"All right," said Elbridge; but his tone expressed a shadow of
reluctance that did not escape Northwick.
"Anything the matter?" he asked.
"I dunno. Our little boy don't seem to be very well."
"What ails him?" asked Northwick, with the sympathy it was a relief for
him to feel.
"Well, Dr. Morrell's just been there, and he's afraid it's the
membranous crou--" The last letter stuck in Elbridge's throat; he gulped
it down.
"Oh, I _hope_ not," said Northwick.
"He's comin' back again--he had to go off to another place--but I could
see 'twa'n't no use," said Elbridge with patient despair; he had got
himself in hand again, and spoke clearly.
Northwick shrank back from the shadow sweeping so near him; a shadow
thrown from the skies, no doubt, but terrible in its blackness on the
earth. "Why, of course, you mustn't think of leaving your wife. You must
telephone Simpson to come for me."
"All right." Elbridge took himself away.
Northwick watched him across the icy stable-yard, going to the
coachman's quarters in that cosy corner of the spreading barn; the
windows were still as cheerily bright with lamplight as when they struck
a pang of dumb envy to Northwick's heart. The child's sickness must have
been very sudden for his daughters not to have known of it. He thought
he ought to call Adeline, and send her in there to those poor people;
but he reflected that she could do no good, and he spared her the
useless pain; she would soon need all her strength for herself. His
thought returned to his own cares, from which the trouble of another had
lured it for a moment. But when he heard the doctor's sleigh-bells clash
into the stable-yard, he decided to go himself and show the interest his
family ought to feel in the matter.
No one answered his knock at Elbridge's door, and he opened it and found
his way into the room, where Elbridge and his wife were with the doctor.
The little boy had started up in his crib, and was struggling, with his
arms thrown wildly about.
"There! There, he's got another of them chokin' spells!" screamed the
mother. "Elbridge Newton, ain't you goin' to do anything? Oh help him,
save him, Dr. Morrell! Oh, I should think you'd be ashamed to let him
suffer so!" She sprang upon the child, and caught him from the doctor's
hands, and turned him this way and that trying to ease him; he was
suddenly quiet, and she said, "There, I just knew I could do it! What
are you big, strong men good for, any--" She looked down at the child's
face in her arms, and then up at the doctor's, and she gave a wild
screech, like the cry of one in piercing torment.
It turned Northwick heart-sick. He felt himself worse than helpless
there; but he went to the farmer's house, and told the farmer's wife to
go over to the Newtons'; their little boy had just died. He heard her
coming before he reached his own door, and when he reached his room, he
heard the bells of the doctor's sleigh clashing out of the avenue.
The voice and the look of that childless mother haunted him. She had
been one of the hat-shop hands, a flighty, nervous thing, madly in love
with Elbridge, whom she ruled with a sort of frantic devotion since
their marriage, compensating his cool quiet with a perpetual flutter of
exaggerated sensibilities in every direction. But somehow she had put
Northwick in mind of his own mother, and he thought of the chance or the
will that had bereaved one and spared the other, and he envied the
little boy who had just died.
He considered the case of the parents who would want to make full
outward show of their grief, and he wrote Elbridge a note, to be given
him in the morning, and enclosed one of the bills he was taking from the
company; he hoped Elbridge would accept it from him towards the expenses
he must meet at such a time.
Then he wheeled his chair about to the fire and stretched his legs out
to get what rest he could before the hour of starting. He would have
liked to go to bed, but he was afraid of oversleeping himself in case
Elbridge had neglected to telephone Simpson. But he did not believe this
possible, and he had smoothly confided himself to his experience of
Elbridge's infallibility, when he started awake at the sound of bells
before the front door, and then the titter of the electric bell over his
bed in the next room. He thought it was an officer come to arrest him,
but he remembered that only his household was acquainted with the use of
that bell, and then he wondered that Simpson should have found it out.
He put on his overcoat and arctics and caught up his bag, and hurried
down stairs and out of doors. It was Elbridge who was waiting for him on
the threshold, and took his bag from him.
"Why! Where's Simpson?" he asked. "Couldn't you get him?"
"It's all right," said Elbridge, opening the door of the booby, and
gently bundling Northwick into it. "I could come just's easy as not. I
thought you'd ride better in the booby; it's a little mite chilly for
the cutter." The stars seemed points of ice in the freezing sky; the
broken snow clinked like charcoal around Elbridge's feet. He shut the
booby door and then came back and opened it slightly. "I wa'n't agoin'
to let no Simpson carry you to no train, noway."
The tears came into Northwick's eyes, and he tried to say, "Why, thank
you, Elbridge," but the door shut upon his failure, and Elbridge mounted
to his place and drove away. Northwick had been able to get out of his
house only upon condition that he should behave as if he were going to
be gone on an ordinary journey. He had to keep the same terms with
himself on the way to the station. When he got out there he said to
Elbridge, "I've left a note for you on my desk. I'm sorry to be leaving
home--at such a time--when you've--"
"You'll telegraph when to meet you?" Elbridge suggested.
"Yes," said Northwick. He went inside the station, which was deliciously
warm from the large register in the centre of the room, and brilliantly
lighted in readiness for the train now almost due. The closing of the
door behind Northwick roused a little black figure drooping forward on
the benching in one corner. It was the drunken lawyer. There had been
some displeasures, general and personal, between the two men, and they
did not speak; but now, at sight of Northwick, Putney came forward, and
fixed him severely with his eye.
"Northwick! Do you know who you tried to drive over, last evening?"
Northwick returned his regard with the half-ironical, half-patronizing
look a dull man puts on with a person of less fortune but more brain. "I
didn't see you, Mr. Putney, until I was quite upon you. The horses--"
"It was the LAW you tried to drive over!" thundered the little man with
a voice out of keeping with his slender body. "Don't try it too often!
You can't drive over the Law, _yet_--you haven't quite millions enough
for that. Heigh? That so?" he queried, sensible of the anti-climax of
asking such a question in that way, but tipsily helpless in it.
Northwick did not answer; he walked to the other end of the station set
off for ladies, and Putney did not follow him. The train came in, and
Northwick went out and got aboard.
VII.
The president of the Board, who had called Northwick a thief, and yet
had got him a chance to make himself an honest man, was awake at the
hour the defaulter absconded, after passing quite as sleepless a night.
He had kept a dinner engagement, hoping to forget Northwick, but he
seemed to be eating and drinking him at every course. When he came home
toward eleven o'clock, he went to his library and sat down before the
fire. His wife had gone to bed, and his son and daughter were at a ball;
and he sat there alone, smoking impatiently.
He told the man who looked in to see if he wanted anything that he might
go to bed; he need not sit up for the young people. Hilary had that kind
of consideration for servants, and he liked to practise it; he liked to
realize that he was practising it now, in a moment when every habit of
his life might very well yield to the great and varying anxieties which
beset him.
He had an ideal of conduct, of what was due from him to himself, as a
gentleman and a citizen, and he could not conceal from himself that he
had been mainly instrumental in the escape of a rogue from justice, when
he got the Board to give Northwick a chance. His ideals had not hitherto
stood in the way of his comfort, his entire repose of mind, any more
than they had impaired his prosperity, though they were of a kind far
above those which commercial honor permits a man to be content with. He
held himself bound, as a man of a certain origin and social tradition,
to have public spirit, and he had a great deal of it. He believed that
he owed it to the community to do nothing to lower its standards of
personal integrity and responsibility; and he distinguished himself by a
gratified consciousness from those people of chromo-morality, who held
all sorts of loose notions on such points. His name stood not merely for
so much money; many names stood for far more; but it meant reliability,
it meant honesty, it meant good faith. He really loved these things,
though, no doubt, he loved them less for their own sake than because
they were spiritual properties of Eben Hilary. He did not expect
everybody else to have them, but his theory of life exacted that they
should be held the chief virtues. He was so conscious of their value
that he ignored all those minor qualities in himself which rendered him
not only bearable but even lovable; he was not aware of having any sort
of foibles, so that any error of conduct in himself surprised him even
more than it pained him. It was not easy to recognize it; but when he
once saw it, he was not only willing but eager to repair it.
The error that he had committed in Northwick's case, if it was an error,
was one that presented peculiar difficulties, as every error in life
does; the errors love an infinite complexity of disguise, and masquerade
as all sorts of things. There were moments when Hilary saw his mistake
so clearly that it seemed to him nothing less than the repayment of
Northwick's thefts from his own pocket would satisfy the claims of
justice to his fellow-losers if Northwick ran away; and then again, it
looked like the act of wise mercy which it had appeared to him when he
was urging the Board to give the man a chance as the only thing which
they could hopefully do in the circumstances, as common sense, as
business. But it was now so obvious that a man like Northwick could and
would do nothing but run away if he were given the chance, that he
seemed to have been his accomplice when he used the force of his
personal character with them in Northwick's behalf. He was in a
ridiculous position, there was no doubt of that, and he was not going to
get out of it without much painful wear and tear of pride, of
self-respect.
After a long time he looked at the clock, and found it still early for
the return of his young people. He was impatient to see his son, and to
get the situation in the light of his mind, and see how it looked there.
He had already told him of the defalcation, and of what the Board had
decided to do with Northwick; but this was while he was still in the
glow of action, and he had spoken very hurriedly with Matt who came in
just as he was going out to dinner; it was before his cold fit came on.
He had reached that time of life when a man likes to lay his troubles
before his son; and in the view his son usually took of his troubles,
Hilary seemed to find another mood of his own. It was a fresher,
different self dealing with them; for the fellow was not only younger
and more vigorous; he was another temperament with the same interests,
and often the same principles. He had disappointed Hilary in some ways,
but he had gratified his pride in the very ways he had disappointed him.
The father had expected the son to go into business, and Matt did go
into the mills at Ponkwasset, where he was to be superintendent in the
natural course. But one day he came home and told his father that he had
begun to have his doubts of the existing relations of labor and capital;
and until he could see his way clearer he would rather give up his
chance with the company. It was a keen disappointment to Hilary; he made
no concealment of that; but he did not quarrel with his son about it. He
robustly tolerated Matt's queer notions, not only because he was a
father who blindly doted on his children and behaved as if everything
they did was right, no matter if it put him in the wrong, but because he
chose to respect the fellow's principles, if those were his principles.
He had his own principles, and Matt should have his if he liked. He bore
entirely well the purpose of going abroad that Matt expressed, and he
wished to give him much more money than the fellow would take, to carry
on those researches which he made in his travels. When he came back and
published his monograph on work and wages in Europe, Hilary paid the
expense, and took as unselfish an interest in the slow and meagre sale
of the little book as if it had cost him nothing.
Eben Hilary had been a crank, too, in his day, so far as to have gone
counter to the most respectable feeling of business in Boston, when he
came out an abolitionist. His individual impulse to radicalism had
exhausted itself in that direction; we are each of us good for only a
certain degree of advance in opinion; few men are indefinitely
progressive; and Hilary had not caught on to the movement that was
carrying his son with it. But he understood how his son should be what
he was, and he loved him so much that he almost honored him for what he
called his balderdash about industrial slavery. His heart lifted when at
last he heard the scratching of the night-latch at the door below, and
he made lumbering haste down stairs to open and let the young people in.
He reached the door as they opened it, and in the momentary lightness of
his soul at sight of his children, he gave them a gay welcome, and took
his daughter, all a fluff of soft silken and furry wraps, into his arms.
"Oh, don't kiss my nose!" she called out. "It'll freeze you to death,
papa! What in the world are you up, for? Anything the matter with
mamma?"
"No. She was in bed when I came home; I thought I would sit up and ask
what sort of a time you'd had."
"Did you ever know me to have a bad one? I had the best time in the
world. I danced every dance, and I enjoyed it just as much as if I had
'shut and been a Bud again.' But don't you know it's very bad for old
gentlemen to be up so late?"
They were mounting the stairs, and when they reached the library, she
went in and poked her long-gloved hands well in over the fire on the
hearth while she lifted her eyes to the clock. "Oh, it isn't so very
late. Only five."
"No, it's early," said her father with the security in a feeble joke
which none but fathers can feel with none but their grown-up daughters.
"It's full an hour yet before Matt would be getting up to feed his
cattle, if he were in Vardley." Hilary had given Matt the old family
place there; and he always liked to make a joke of his getting an honest
living by farming it.
"Don't speak of that agricultural angel!" said the girl, putting her
draperies back with one hand and confining them with her elbow, so as to
give her other hand greater comfort of the fire. To do better yet she
dropped on both knees before it.
"Was he nice?" asked the father, with confidence.
"Nice! Ask all the plain girls he danced with, all the dull girls he
talked with! When I think what a good time I should have with him as a
plain girl, if I were not his sister, I lose all patience." She glanced
up in her father's face, with all the strange charm of features that had
no regular beauty; and then, as she had to do whenever she remembered
them, she asserted the grace which governed every movement and gesture
in her, and got as lightly to her feet as if she were a wind-bowed
flower tilting back to its perpendicular. Her father looked at her with
as fond a delight as a lover could have felt in her fascination. She
was, in fact, a youthful, feminine version of himself in her plainness;
though the grace was all her own. Her complexion was not the leathery
red of her father's, but a smooth and even white from cheek to throat.
She let her loose cloak fall to the chair behind her, and showed herself
tall and slim, with that odd visage of hers drooping from a perfect
neck. "Why," she said, "if we had all been horned cattle, he couldn't
have treated us better."
"Do you hear that, Matt?" asked the father, as his son came in, after a
methodical and deliberate bestowal of his outer garments below; his
method and his deliberation were part of the joke of him in the family.
"Complaining of me for making her walk home?" he asked in turn, with the
quiet which was another part of the joke. "I didn't suppose you'd give
me away, Louise."
"I didn't; I knew I only had to wait and you would give yourself away,"
said the girl.
"Did he make you walk home?" said the father. "That's the reason your
hands are so cold."
"They're not very cold--now; and if they were, I shouldn't mind it in
such a cause."
"What cause?"
"Oh the general shamefulness of disusing the feet God had given me. But
it was only three blocks, and I had my arctics." She moved a little away
toward the fire again and showed the arctics on the floor where she must
have been scuffling them off under her skirts. "Ugh! But it's cold!" She
now stretched a satin slipper in toward the fire.
"Yes, it's a cold night; but you seem to have got home alive, and I
don't think you'll be the worse for it now, if you go to bed at once,"
said her father.
"Is that a hint?" she asked, with a dreamy appreciation of the warmth
through the toe of her slipper.
"Not at all; we should be glad to have you sit up the whole night with
us."
"Ah, now I know you're hinting. Is it business?"
"Yes, it's business."
"Well, I'm just in the humor for business; I've had enough pleasure."
"I don't see why Louise shouldn't stay and talk business with us, if she
likes. I think it's a pity to keep women out of it, as if it didn't
concern them," said the son. "Nine-tenths of the time it concerns them
more than it does men." He had a bright, friendly, philosophical smile
in saying this, and he stood waiting for his sister to be gone, with a
patience which their father did not share. He stood something over six
feet in his low shoes, and his powerful frame seemed starting out of the
dress-suit, which it appeared so little related to. His whole face was
handsome and regular, and his full beard did not wholly hide a mouth of
singular sweetness.
"Yes; I think so too, in the abstract," said the father. "If the
business were mine, or were business in the ordinary sense of the
term--"
"Why, why did you say it was business at all, then?" The girl put her
arms round her father's neck and let her head-scarf fall on the rug a
little way from her cloak and her arctics. "If you hadn't said it was
business, I should have been in bed long ago." Then, as if feeling her
father's eagerness to have her gone, she said, "Good night," and gave
him a kiss, and a hug or two more, and said "Good night, Matt," and got
herself away, letting a long glove trail somewhere out of her dress, and
stretch its weak length upon the floor after her, as if it were trying
to follow her.
VIII.
Louise's father, in turning to look from her toward his son, felt
himself slightly pricked in the cheek by the pin that had transferred
itself from her neck-gear to his coat collar, and Matt went about
picking up the cloak, the arctics, the scarf and the glove. He laid the
cloak smoothly on the leathern lounge, and arranged the scarf and glove
on it, and set the arctics on the floor in a sort of normal relation to
it, and then came forward in time to relieve his father of the pin that
was pricking him, and that he was rolling his eyes out of his head to
get sight of.
"What in the devil is that?" he roared.
"Louise's pin," said Matt, as placidly as if that were quite the place
for it, and its function were to prick her father in the cheek. He went
and pinned it into her scarf, and then he said, "It's about Northwick, I
suppose."
"Yes," said his father, still furious from the pinprick. "I'm afraid the
miserable scoundrel is going to run away."
"Did you expect there was a chance of that?" asked Matt, quietly.
"Expect!" his father blustered. "I don't know what I expected. I might
have expected anything of him but common honesty. The position I took at
the meeting was that our only hope was to give him a chance. He made all
sorts of professions of ability to meet the loss. I didn't believe him,
but I thought that he might partially meet it, and that nothing was to
be gained by proceeding against him. You can't get blood out of a
turnip, even by crushing the turnip."
"That seems sound," said the son, with his reasonable smile.
"I didn't spare him, but I got the others to spare him. I told him he
was a thief."
"Oh!" said Matt.
"Why, wasn't he?" returned his father, angrily.
"Yes, yes. I suppose he might be called so." Matt admitted it with an
air of having his reservations, which vexed his father still more.
"Very well, sir!" he roared. "Then I called him so; and I think that it
will do him good to know it." Hilary did not repeat all of the violent
things he had said to Northwick, though he had meant to do so, being
rather proud of them; the tone of his son's voice somehow stopped him
for the moment. "I brought them round to my position, and we gave him
the chance he asked for."
"It was really the only thing you could do."
"Of course it was! It was the only business-like thing, though it won't
seem so when it comes out that he's gone to Canada. I told him I thought
the best thing for him would be a good, thorough, railroad accident on
his way home; and that if it were not for his family, for his daughter
who's been in and out here so much with Louise, I would like to see him
handcuffed, and going down the street with a couple of constables."
Matt made no comment upon this, perhaps because he saw no use in
criticising his father, and perhaps because his mind was more upon the
point he mentioned. "It will be hard for that pretty creature."
"It will be hard for a number of creatures, pretty and plain," said his
father. "It won't break any of us; but it will shake some of us up
abominably. I don't know but it may send one or two people to the wall,
for the time being."
"Ah, but that isn't the same thing at all. That's suffering; it isn't
shame. It isn't the misery that the sin of your father has brought on
you."
"Well, of course not!" said Hilary, impatiently granting it. "But Miss
Northwick always seemed to me a tolerably tough kind of young person. I
never quite saw what Louise found to like in her."
"They were at school together," said the son. "She's a sufficiently
offensive person, I fancy; or might be. But she sometimes struck me as a
person that one might be easily unjust to, for that very reason; I
suppose she has the fascination that a proud girl has for a girl like
Louise."
Hilary asked, with a divergence more apparent than real, "How is that
affair of hers with Jack Wilmington?"
"I don't know. It seems to have that quality of mystery that belongs to
all affairs of the kind when they hang fire. We expect people to get
married, and be done with it, though that may not really be the way to
be done with it."
"Wasn't there some scandal about him, of some kind?"
"Yes; but I never believed in it."
"He always struck me as something of a cub, but somehow he doesn't seem
the sort of a fellow to give the girl up because--"
"Because her father is a fraud?" Matt suggested. "No, I don't think he
is, quite. But there are always a great many things that enter into the
matter besides a man's feelings, or his principles, even. I can't say
what I think Wilmington would do. What steps do you propose to take next
in the matter?"
"I promised him he shouldn't be followed up, while he was trying to
right himself. If we find he's gone, we must give the case into the
hands of the detectives, I suppose." The disgust showed itself in
Hilary's face, which was an index to all his emotions, and his son said,
with a smile of sympathy:
"The apparatus of justice isn't exactly attractive, even when one isn't
a criminal. But I don't know that it's any more repulsive than the
apparatus of commerce, or business, as we call it. Some dirt seems to
get on everybody's bread by the time he's earned it, or on his money
even when he's made it in large sums as our class do."
The last words gave the father a chance to vent his vexation with
himself upon his son. "I wish you wouldn't talk that walking-delegate's
rant with me, Matt. If I let you alone in your nonsense, I think you may
fitly take it as a sign that I wish to be let alone myself."
"I beg your pardon," said the young man. "I didn't wish to annoy you."
"Don't do it, then." After a moment, Hilary added with a return to his
own sense of deficiency, "The whole thing's as thoroughly distasteful to
me as it can be. But I can't see how I could have acted otherwise than
I've done. I know I've made myself responsible, in a way, for
Northwick's getting off; but there was really nothing to do but to give
him the chance he asked for. His having abused it won't change that fact
at all; but I can't conceal from myself that I half-expected him to
abuse it."
He put this tentatively, and his son responded, "I suppose that
naturally inclines you to suppose he'll run away."
"Yes."
"But your supposition doesn't establish the fact."
"No. But the question is whether it doesn't oblige me to act as if it
had; whether I oughtn't, if I've got this suspicion, to take some steps
at once to find out whether Northwick's really gone or not, and to mix
myself actively up in the catchpole business of his pursuit, after I
promised him he shouldn't be shadowed in any way till his three days
were over."
"It's a nice question," said Matt, "or rather, it's a nasty one. Still,
you've only got your fears for evidence, and you must all have had your
fears before. I don't think that even a bad conscience ought to hurry
one into the catchpole business." Matt laughed again with that fondness
he had for his father. "Though as for any peculiar disgrace in
catchpoles as catchpoles, I don't see it. They're a necessary part of
the administration of justice, as we understand it, and have it; and I
don't see how a detective who arrests, say, a murderer, is not as
respectably employed as the judge who sentences him, or the hangman who
puts the rope round his neck. The distinction we make between them is
one of those tricks for shirking responsibility which are practised in
every part of the system. Not that I want you to turn catchpole. It's
all so sorrowful and sickening that I wish you hadn't any duty at all in
the matter. I suppose you feel at least that you ought to let the Board
know that you have
|
.[9] Of course there was no maximum limit of age. In
1638, at Valladolid, María Díaz, a hundred years old, was thrown into
the secret prison for Judaism and her trial went forward.[10]
Responsibility to the Inquisition varied with the grade of heresy, which
was carefully classified by the theologians. Material heresy is error in
a baptized person arising from ignorance and, if the ignorance is
inculpable, it is scarce to be considered as true heresy deserving of
punishment.[11] Formal or mixed heresy is voluntary and pertinacious
error, pertinacity being adherence to what is known to be contrary to
the teachings of the Church. This formal heresy is again distinguished
into internal, or mental, and external. Internal, or mental, heresy is
that which is secretly entertained and is not manifested by either word
or act. External heresy is subdivided into occult and public. Occult
external is that which is manifested by words or signs, either in secret
or to one or two persons only--as though a man in the solitude of his
chamber should say "There is no God," or should utter his thought in the
presence of another. Public external is that which is manifested openly,
either in public or to more than two persons.[12] The bearing of these
distinctions on the work of the Inquisition will be apparent hereafter.
[Sidenote: _EPISCOPAL JURISDICTION_]
There was still another definition of even greater importance. Heresy
was both a sin and a crime. As a sin it was subject to the _forum
internum_, or forum of conscience; as a crime, to the _forum externum_
or judicial forum. A penitent in sacramental confession, admitting
heretical belief, might receive sacramental absolution and be pardoned
in the sight of God, but the crime, like that of murder or any other
violation of human laws, would still remain to be punished in the
judicial forum. We shall see that in the Inquisition the penitent, who
confessed and repented and received absolution, was still subject to
penalties ranging, according to circumstances, from slight penance to
death.
* * * * *
Prior to the organization of the Inquisition in the thirteenth century,
the cognizance of heresy was a natural attribute of the episcopal
office. The duty of persecution was negligently performed and, when the
Catharan and Waldensian heresies threatened the predominance of the
Latin Church and the Albigensian Crusades left it master of the
situation, the Inquisition gradually sprang up as an assistance to the
bishops. There was some rivalry, but the bishops, as a rule, did not
share in the confiscations and, as few of them had persecuting zeal
sufficient to induce them to perform this gratuitous service, the field
was virtually abandoned to the new organization, in the lands where it
was introduced. Still the episcopal rights were undisputed. Jurisdiction
over heresy was recognized to be cumulative--that is, it was enjoyed by
both tribunals, either of which was entitled to any case in which it had
taken prior action. Finally, in 1312, the Council of Vienne, in response
to complaints of the cruelty of inquisitors, formulated a settlement
under which the combined action of both jurisdictions was required in
all commitments to harsh detentive prison, in all sentences to torture
and in all final sentences, unless the one called upon to coöperate
failed to come within eight days.[13] This, embodied in the acts of the
council, technically known as the Clementines, remained the law of the
Church. The bishops, however, remained indifferent and rarely took
independent action. The inquisitorial districts were large,
comprehending a number of dioceses; the episcopal jurisdiction was
limited to the subjects of a single diocese. It was impossible for the
bishops to assemble at the seat of the tribunal, and when an auto de fe
was in preparation they would usually delegate their Ordinaries to
represent them or commission an inquisitor to act.
Such was the somewhat cumbrous combination of episcopal and
inquisitorial jurisdiction which the founding of the Holy Office brought
into Spain. Independent action by bishops still continued occasionally,
of which we have seen example (Vol. I, p. 167) and it was recognized,
though subordinated to the inquisitorial jurisdiction in a brief of
Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, conferring on Torquemada appellate
power in cases before episcopal courts, whether they were acting
separately or in conjunction with inquisitors, provided appeal was made
before sentence was rendered.[14] The popes of the period, moreover,
were careful to maintain the assertion of episcopal participation in
inquisitorial proceedings, as is manifested in the superscription of
their letters addressed "Ordinariis et Inquisitoribus," or assuming that
inquisitors acted under episcopal as well as papal authority.[15]
Theoretically, this continued throughout the sixteenth century. The
writers of highest authority treat bishops and inquisitors as possessing
cumulative jurisdiction, so that both could prosecute, either separately
or conjointly and the old canons were still cited threatening with
deposition the bishop who was negligent in purifying his diocese of
heresy.[16]
[Sidenote: _CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION_]
Thus there was no legislation depriving the episcopal order of its
traditional jurisdiction over heresy, yet the Inquisition claimed, and
made good the claim, that its cognizance was exclusive and that the
Clementines merely gave to the bishops a consultative privilege in the
three sentences specified. No such privative right was conferred in the
papal commissions to the inquisitors-general and the only source of such
right is to be looked for in Ferdinand's masterful determination that
nothing should interfere with the swift operation of his favorite
institution, and no claim be admitted to a share in its pecuniary
results. It was natural that he should favor the Inquisition, for
procedure in the spiritual courts was public and was much less likely to
result in conviction than the secrecy of the tribunals, and by 1500 he
seems to have established the matter to his satisfaction for, in a
letter of August 19th of that year to the Archbishop of Cagliari, he
expresses surprise that the prelate, without his licence, or a
commission from the inquisitor-general, should have meddled with matters
belonging to the Inquisition and have collected certain pecuniary
penances, although he had already been forbidden to do so. This
prohibition is now emphatically repeated; he is to have nothing to do
with the affairs of the Inquisition, except to aid the inquisitor when
called upon, and he is at once to hand over his collections to the
receiver, Pedro López, who is going to Sardinia.[17] Nothing can be more
peremptory in tone than this missive, although the Sardinian tribunal
was thoroughly disorganized and was about to be reconstructed by sending
a full corps of officials. We may assume from this that if there had
been any resistance on the part of the Castilian episcopate it had by
this time been overcome.
That this concentration of exclusive jurisdiction in the Inquisition was
the work of the royal power and was not universally admitted, even by
the middle of the sixteenth century, is manifest from the remark of
Bishop Simancas, himself an experienced inquisitor, when he says that it
is the duty of bishops to enquire into cases of heresy, but they ought
to send the prisoner and the testimony to the inquisitor, for otherwise
their inexperience is apt to result in failure, as he had often found;
there ought to be a papal decree prescribing this and, in default of it,
the king is accustomed to order it of the bishops.[18] Of this we have
an example, in 1527, when the vicar-general of the Archbishop of Toledo
was required by Inquisitor-general Manrique to surrender a cleric whom
he had arrested and was prosecuting.[19]
Simancas still recognizes the duty of the bishop to make preliminary
inquiries into heresy, but even this had long before been forbidden,
although there was a prolonged struggle before it was surrendered. In
1532 the Ordinary of Huesca issued an Edict of Faith, modelled on that
of the Inquisition, calling for denunciation of heretics, for which the
empress-regent sharply rebuked him, in a letter of March 23d, calling it
an innovation unknown since the Inquisition had been introduced, and
threatening him with fitting measures for the repetition of such
intrusion on the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[20] In spite of this,
Archbishop Ayala of Valencia, in 1565, and his successor the Blessed
Juan de Ribera, in 1576, and another bishop in 1567 repeated the
indiscretion for which they were promptly called to account. When, in
1583, the Bishop of Tortosa committed the same offence, the Suprema
wrote, January 14, 1584, that the popes had given the Inquisition
exclusive jurisdiction over heresy and had prohibited its cognizance by
others and that he must not in future intervene in such matters.[21]
Undeterred by this, the Council of Tarragona, in 1591, reasserted the
ancient episcopal jurisdiction by ordering all bishops to be vigilant in
watching their flocks and, if they found any disseminators of heresy, to
see to their condign punishment according to the canons.[22] How
completely justified was the council in this and how false was the
assertion of the Suprema, was manifested in 1595, when the Archbishop of
Granada complained to Clement VIII that the inquisitors had forbidden
him to issue an edict on the subject of heresy and the pope forthwith
wrote to the inquisitor-general that this must not be allowed, for the
faculties delegated to inquisitors in no way abridged episcopal
jurisdiction.[23]
[Sidenote: _EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION ENFORCED_]
After this, at least, the Suprema could not plead ignorance and yet it
persisted in the assertion that it knew to be false. A savage quarrel
broke out in Guatimala between the bishop, Juan Ramírez, and the
commissioner of the Inquisition, Phelipe Rúiz del Carral, who was also
dean of the chapter. Ramírez imprisoned him and undertook to organize a
sort of inquisitorial tribunal of his own, whereupon, in 1609, the
Suprema presented to Philip III for signature a letter which it
describes as drawn in the form customary for cases where bishops
interfere in matters concerning the faith. This describes how the pope,
in instituting the Inquisition, evoked to himself all cases connected
with heresy and committed them to the inquisitor-general and his
deputies, inhibiting all judges and Ordinaries from intervening in them,
in consequence of which they have ceased to take cognizance of such
matters and have referred to the inquisitors whatever came to their
knowledge. As the bishop has laid his hand on things beyond his
jurisdiction, he is ordered in future not to meddle with anything
touching the Inquisition, as otherwise fitting measures will be
taken.[24] The only foundation for this mendacious assertion was, as we
shall see hereafter, that, in the struggle made by Ferdinand and Charles
V to prevent appeals to Rome from the Inquisition, briefs were sometimes
obtained from popes evoking to themselves all cases pending in the
tribunals and committing them to the inquisitor-general, with inhibition
to any one, including cardinals and officials of the curia, to entertain
appeals from him. In this there is absolutely nothing that relates to
original jurisdiction and nothing to limit the traditional functions of
the episcopate, but the Suprema held the records and could assert what
it pleased concerning them.
Still the bishops did not wholly abandon their rights and cases
continued occasionally to occur, in which of course they were worsted.
They were frequent enough to justify, in a Formulary of 1645, the
insertion of a formula framed to meet them. It is addressed to the
provisor of Badajoz and recites that the fiscal complains of him as
having commenced proceedings against a certain party for heretical
propositions; as this is a matter pertaining exclusively to the
Inquisition, he is commanded to surrender it under the customary
penalties of excommunication and fine. The fiscal also demands that the
provisor be prosecuted so that in future neither he nor any one else
shall dare to usurp the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and the document
ends with a statement that the prosecution has been commenced.[25] Such
methods were not easily resisted. When, in 1666, the Barcelona tribunal
learned that the Bishop of Solsona, on a visitation, had taken
considerable testimony against some parties in a matter of faith, it at
once claimed the papers, which he promptly surrendered. It had the
audacity to propose to prosecute him, but the Suprema wisely ordered it
to take no action against him.[26] Yet Benedict XIV repeated the
assertion of Clement VIII that the popes, in delegating powers to
inquisitors, had never intended to interfere with episcopal jurisdiction
or to relieve bishops from responsibility.[27]
Not content with thus depriving the episcopate of its immemorial
jurisdiction over heresy, inquisitors sought to obtain cognizance of a
class of cases clearly belonging to the spiritual courts, on the ground
of inferential heresy--bigamy, disregard of church observances,
infractions of discipline and the like. In 1536 the tribunal of Valencia
created much excitement by including in its Edict of Faith a number of
matters of the kind but, on complaint from the vicar-general, the
Suprema ordered the omission of everything not in the old edicts.[28]
The attempts continued and, in 1552, a decision was required from the
Suprema that eating pork on Saturdays was not a case for the
Inquisition,[29] and the Concordia of 1568 contains a clause prohibiting
inquisitors from entertaining cases belonging to the Ordinaries.
[Sidenote: _EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE_]
In a carta acordada of November 23, 1612, the Suprema made an attempt to
define the boundaries of the rival jurisdictions, in which it allowed to
the spiritual courts exclusive jurisdiction only over ecclesiastics in
matters touching their duties as pastors, the ministry of the Church,
simony and cases relating to Orders, benefices and spiritual affairs,
while it admitted cumulative jurisdiction in usury, gambling and
incontinence.[30] Restricted as were these admissions, the Suprema
itself did not observe them. In 1637, Sebastian de los Rios, cura of
Tombrio de Arriba, who met with one or two accidents in handling the
sacrament and feared accusation, by his enemies, of irreverence,
denounced himself to the provisor of Astorga and was fined in four
thousand maravedís. In spite of this he was prosecuted, in 1640, by the
tribunal of Valladolid; he vainly pleaded his previous trial; the
Suprema assumed its invalidity in ordering his incarceration in the
secret prison, where he died.[31] This process of encroachment continued
and towards the end, when there was little real heresy to occupy its
energies, its records are full of cases which, even under its own
definitions, belonged unquestionably to the spiritual
courts--inobservance of ecclesiastical precepts of all kinds,
irregularities in the celebration of mass, taking communion after
eating, eating flesh on fast days, working and inattendance at mass on
feast days and other miscellaneous business, wholly foreign to its
original functions.[32] It does not argue favorably for the Spanish
episcopate that they seem to have welcomed this relief from their duties
and strenuously resisted the abolition of the Inquisition in 1813, which
restored to them, under limitations, their original functions. After the
Restoration, the Archbishop of Seville, in 1818, gathered evidence to
show that the cura of San Marcos had not confessed for many years and
then, in place of punishing him, handed the papers over to the tribunal.
This was probably fortunate for the peccant priest, as the Suprema
ordered that nothing should be done except to keep him under
surveillance and that the archbishop should be warmly thanked and
assured that the necessary steps had been taken.[33]
* * * * *
There was one formality preserved which recognized the episcopal
jurisdiction over heresy. We have seen that, in the Clementines, the
concurrence of both bishop and inquisitor was requisite in ordering
severe detentive incarceration, in sentencing to torture and in the
final sentence. No allusion was made to this in the bull of Sixtus IV
authorizing the appointment of inquisitors for Castile. No allusion, in
fact, was necessary, as it had been for nearly two centuries a matter of
course in inquisitorial procedure, but the earliest inquisitors took no
count of it and Sixtus, in his brief of February 11, 1482, called forth
by complaints of their cruelty, insisted on the concurrence of episcopal
officials in all judgements.[34] Ferdinand was indisposed to anything
that threatened interference with the autonomy of the Inquisition and
his experience in Valencia with the representatives of Rodrigo Borgia,
the absent archbishop, showed him how this episcopal right could be
exercised to obstruct proceedings and compel division of the spoils. He
doubtless represented to Sixtus that there were many of Jewish blood
among the bishops and their officials, whom it would not be safe to
trust, for Sixtus, with Borgia behind him, met such objection with a
brief of May 25, 1483, addressed to all the Spanish archbishops. In
this he ordered them to warn any of their suffragans of Jewish
extraction not to meddle with the business of the Inquisition but to
appoint an Old Christian, approved by the archbishop, who should have
exclusive powers over all such matters. In case this was not done the
archbishop was to make the appointment for each diocese and the
appointee was to be wholly independent of the bishop.[35] Then a
question arose whether Torquemada's appellate jurisdiction, as
inquisitor-general, could override judgements in which bishops
participated, but this was settled in Torquemada's favor by a brief of
Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, thus completely subordinating
episcopal to inquisitorial jurisdiction.[36]
Ferdinand was not satisfied, but he had to acquiesce and adopt the
device of the bishops delegating one of the inquisitors as their
representative--an expedient for which precedents can be found in the
early Inquisition of Languedoc. That this soon became common is
indicated in the Instructions of 1484, which warns the inquisitor
holding the commission that he is not to deem himself superior to his
colleagues.[37] Another plan was to require the bishops to issue a
commission as vicar-general to whomsoever the inquisitors might
designate, as Ferdinand ordered the bishops of Aragon to do, in a letter
of January 27, 1484. The individual thus selected became an official of
the tribunal and was borne on its pay-roll for a salary to be paid out
of the confiscations for which he might vote. Of this we have examples
in Martin Navarro thus serving at Teruel, in 1486, on a yearly stipend
of two thousand sueldos and in Martin Garcia, included as vicar-general
at a salary of three thousand sueldos, in the Saragossa pay-roll of the
same year.[38]
[Sidenote: _EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE_]
It is possible that the bishops grew restive under this absorption of
their powers and that they remonstrated with the Holy See for, in 1494,
when Alexander VI issued commissions to the four new inquisitors-general
there appeared a new condition requiring them to exercise their
functions in conjunction with the Ordinaries of the sees or their vicars
or officials, or other persons deputized by the Ordinaries.[39]
Ferdinand, however, was not accustomed to brook opposition to his will.
The most efficient and economical expedient was the episcopal delegation
to an inquisitor and this he enforced by whatever pressure was
necessary. Thus when, in 1498, the Bishop of Tarazona demurred to do
this, Ferdinand, in a letter of November 21st, brushed aside his reasons
and imperatively ordered the delegation to be sent at once. Still the
bishop recalcitrated and Ferdinand wrote, January 4, 1499, that he must
do so at once; no excuse would be admitted and nothing would change his
determined purpose, but it was not until March that he learned the
bishop's submission. In this same year, 1499, he broke down, in similar
rude fashion, the resistance of two other bishops and when, in 1501, the
Archbishop of Tarragona notified the tribunal of Barcelona not to hear,
without his participation, certain cases committed to them on appeal,
Ferdinand expressed his indignant surprise; the archbishop must remove
the obstruction at once and not await a second command.[40]
Ferdinand's resolve was to render episcopal concurrence a mere
perfunctory form and, when bishops presumed to act or their
vicars-general were distasteful to him, there are various cases which
attest his imperious methods of dealing with them. He had some trouble,
on this account, with his son, Alfonso Archbishop of Saragossa, who, in
1511, obtained the perpetual administratorship of Valencia and who
persisted in retaining as his delegate the vicar-general of Valencia,
Micer Soler, against the commands of his father, so that in 1512 and
again in 1513, there was delay in the celebration of autos de fe,
greatly to Ferdinand's annoyance.[41] These occasional obstructions
explain why, as he wrote November 27, 1512, he endeavored to reduce it
to a rule that the Ordinary should confer his powers on the inquisitors
and should not be allowed to see the cases.[42]
The people did not view the matter in the same light and regarded the
participation of the bishop or his representative as some guarantee
against the arbitrary proceedings of the inquisitors. Among the
complaints of the prisoners of Jaen, in 1506, to Philip and Juana, is
one reciting that the inquisitors act independently of the episcopal
provisor and communicate nothing to him, so as to be able to work their
wicked will without interference.[43] Similarly the Córtes of Monzon, in
1512, included among the abuses requiring redress the royal letters
concerning episcopal concurrence, the delegation of powers to
inquisitors and other methods by which the participation of the bishops
was evaded, and when Leo X, in 1516, confirmed the Concordia, he ordered
that the Ordinaries should resume their functions.[44] It was the same
in Castile, where, as we have seen (Vol. I, p. 217) one of the petitions
of the Córtes of Valladolid, in 1518, was that the episcopal Ordinaries
should take part in the judgements.
[Sidenote: _EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE_]
While the petitions of Valladolid for the most part received scant
attention, this one at least bore fruit for, with the removal of
Ferdinand's pressure, the bishops had an opportunity to reassert
themselves. In 1520, a decision of Cardinal Adrian required the presence
of both inquisitors and Ordinary at abjurations and confessions under
Edicts of Grace and, in 1527, Manrique and the Suprema declared that the
Ordinary concurred in the cases required by the law--an ambiguous phrase
which seems to have been variously construed.[45] This was not conducive
to harmony, the inquisitors grudging any intrusion on their jurisdiction
and the Ordinaries insisting on their rights under the Clementines. In
1529, when the Suprema chanced to be at Toledo, the matter was brought
before it by Diego Artiz de Angulo, fiscal of the local tribunal, in a
memorial arguing that to require the presence of the Ordinary would
entail great delay, as he often could not attend when summoned; besides,
he was always in contradiction with the tribunal, as was notorious to
all connected with the trials, objecting to pecuniary and light
penalties and endeavoring to acquire jurisdiction at the expense of the
Holy Office. At Angulo's request, the Suprema had a number of witnesses
examined, of whom the most important was Martin Ximenes, who had been
occupied for forty years in the tribunals of Barcelona, Toledo, and
Seville. He testified that the Ordinaries were only called in for the
three acts specified in the Clementines, but in explaining details he
showed that the inquisitors construed them in a fashion to exclude the
Ordinary from much of his functions, for, in place of participating in
all sentences, he was allowed to join only in convictions for heresy and
bore no part in the lighter cases, the object being to prevent his
claiming a share in the pecuniary penalties, although he was summoned to
the _consulta de fe_ in which they were voted on. Other witnesses bore
the same testimony and it is not difficult to understand why the
Ordinaries took little interest in the exercise of the jurisdiction thus
arbitrarily limited.[46] It was probably owing to this discussion that
the Suprema, January 25, 1530, told the tribunals that differences with
the Ordinary must be avoided. In the same year it notified Valencia that
all cases sent up to it must have been voted on by him and, in 1532, it
sent similar orders to Barcelona, adding that the presence of the
Ordinary was requisite at all abjurations.[47] Evidently the tribunals
were jealous, the Ordinaries were rebuffed and discouraged, and the
coöperation of the two jurisdictions was little more than a formal
recognition of a virtually obsolete right.
The routine practice and its working are exemplified in the report of a
summons served, August 8, 1534, on Blas Ortiz, then vicar-general of
Toledo. It cited him to come and assist in despatching the accumulation
of cases since the last auto de fe, held nearly four years before. He
was to lay aside all other business and present himself daily at the
morning audience to witness the torture in nine specified cases and, at
the afternoon audience, to vote on ten of which the trials had been
completed. He was notified that, if he did not come, the inquisitors,
after the delay specified by law (eight days) would proceed without him.
The summons was borne by the fiscal, accompanied by a notary, who made a
formal act of the service. When the fiscal stated his errand, Blas Ortiz
negligently told him that there was no necessity of reading the paper;
he was not well but, if he were able, he would be present at all the
cases; if he did not come he committed his powers to the two
inquisitors, or to either of them who was willing to accept the
commission.[48] Apparently Ortiz did not come, for in several sentences
rendered this year at Toledo the inquisitors styled themselves
"apostolic inquisitors holding the powers of the Ordinary."[49]
From some motive, not clearly apparent, a custom arose to some extent of
appointing episcopal Ordinaries or provisors as inquisitors. This was
frequent enough to lead the Córtes of Madrid, in 1552, to complain of
the combination of the two offices, because when a provisor arrested a
layman, which he could not do legally, he claimed that he acted as
inquisitor, with the result that many persons were subjected to infamy.
They therefore petitioned that no provisor should also be inquisitor, to
which the answer was returned that in such cases royal cédulas had been
issued and that this would be continued.[50] Discouraging as was this
reply, the petition seems to have made an impression for, in 1556, both
Charles V and Philip II rebuked Inquisitor-general Valdés, who was also
Archbishop of Seville, because his provisor was also inquisitor in that
tribunal. His defence was that this had been the case in Seville for
half a century, owing to the poverty of the tribunal, which paid only
one-third the customary salaries and that he himself defrayed the
stipend of the provisor.[51]
[Sidenote: _EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE_]
During the remainder of the century we generally find the participation
of the Ordinary carefully recorded, whether it was by a special
representative or by delegation to the inquisitors. In 1561, Inquisitor
Cervantes takes the Barcelona tribunal to task for not keeping record of
this and he orders the fiscal to observe it sedulously for, without the
concurrence of the Ordinary, the sentence is invalid.[52] A carta
acordada of October 15, 1574, reminds the tribunals that he must sign
all sentences of torture and all final sentences on which he has a vote,
but there was a rule that he did not sign sentences of acquittal, even
though he had voted on them.[53] Yet how purely perfunctory was his
participation appears in the case of Fray Hieronimo de la Madre de Dios,
at Toledo, in 1618. In the consulta de fe, Melgoso, the provisor, agreed
with one of the inquisitors and a consultor on a certain punishment;
another inquisitor voted for a heavier penalty and, when the matter was
submitted to the Suprema, it adopted the latter, but Melgoso obediently
signed the sentence.[54] The inquisitorial jurisdiction, for all
practical purposes, had absorbed the episcopal.
As the inquisitorial districts usually embraced several dioceses and it
was impossible for the bishop or provisor of those at a distance from a
tribunal to be personally present when their subjects were tortured or
sentenced, it became customary for them to delegate their powers to some
resident of the city which was the seat of the tribunal. That they were
not always careful in their selection would appear when the tribunal of
Sicily was obliged, in 1574, to notify an archbishop that he must
appoint ecclesiastics and not laymen to sit in judgement on matters of
faith.[55] Taking advantage of this carelessness the Inquisition
undertook to control the character of appointees and it issued, August
17, 1637, instructions to bishops that their provisors must be graduates
in canon law but, as canonists proved to be scarce, it was obliged,
October 12, to modify this and permit the appointment of theologians. In
accordance with this there is an entry by the tribunal of Valencia, that
it will recognize Don Luis Crispi as Ordinary of Tortosa, although he is
a theologian.[56]
Thus a further encroachment was made on episcopal jurisdiction by the
Inquisition in claiming and exercising the right to determine whom it
would recognize as a fit representative of the bishop. How offensively
this was sometimes used was manifested in 1752, in Lima, when the
inquisitors Amusquibar and Rodríguez were involved in a prolonged
quarrel with the secular and ecclesiastical organizations. To annoy the
inquisitors, Archbishop Barroeta notified them that in view of their
bitter competencia with the viceroy, he withdrew the faculty of Don
Fernando de la Sota as his representative and appointed Padre Francisco
Larreta, S. J. To this they replied that they recognized his right to
withdraw the faculty, but as for Larreta he was incapacitated by his
profession from exercising the functions; if the archbishop would
appoint some one in accordance with the statutes of the Holy Office and
possessing the necessary qualifications, he would be received. The
assumption that they would recognize only whom they pleased staggered
the archbishop and he asked them to explain the disqualification of
Larreta, to which they insolently replied that they had already stated
what was sufficient for his guidance. He submitted and appointed the
Franciscan Thomas de la Concha, who was accepted, but when the
archbishop transmitted the correspondence to Inquisitor-general Prado y
Cuesta and asked for reparation he obtained none.[57]
Episcopal concurrence had never been more than a bare formality in
recognition of the immemorial jurisdiction of bishops over heresy and,
as time wore on, the Inquisition became careless even of this. In a
number of trials by the tribunal of Madrid, between 1703 and 1710, the
inquisitors are recorded as acting sometimes with and sometimes without
the episcopal representatives and, in the latter half of the century, a
writer informs us that the concurrence of the Ordinary is unusual; it
depends on the will of the inquisitors, who sometimes summon him and
sometimes do not.[58] Still there were some bishops, zealous for the
claims of their order, who persisted in asserting this remnant of
jurisdiction. Antonio Tavira, Bishop of Canaries, and subsequently of
Salamanca, expressed their feelings when, in 1792, he complained to
Carlos IV of the treatment of the episcopal order by the Inquisition,
saying that they had ceased to vote in cases of faith in order to escape
the humiliation and degradation to which they were exposed; they sent
their vicars, although this was indecorous and wholly useless, but they
felt that they must preserve this little shadow of a jurisdiction which
was rightly theirs.[59]
[Sidenote: _THE FORUM OF CONSCIENCE_]
Under the Restoration greater attention seems to have been paid to
episcopal concurrence and the adherence to strict formalities is shown
in a duplicate trial of Juan Antonio Manzano, a physician of Lumbrales
in the diocese of Ciudad-Rodrigo and inquisitorial district of Llerena.
In 1817 he was tried for heretical propositions by the tribunal of
Logroño, which inquired of the Suprema whether the Ordinary of its own
diocese could act and was told that the authority of the culprit's own
bishop was imperative and that the Bishop of Ciudad-Rodrigo must
appoint a representative. The next year Manzano was again arrested, for
the same offence, by the tribunal of Llerena and was transferred to
Seville because Llerena had no prison. April 17, 1819, the Seville
tribunal asked whether its own Ordinary could join in the sentence and
received the same answer--that it must apply to the Bishop of
Ciudad-Rodrigo to make an appointment.[60] It was all the merest
technicality, for by this time the Suprema decided all cases,
irrespective of how the consulta de fe might vote and thus the
incontestable episcopal jurisdiction over heresy was practically
abolished.
* * * * *
As regards the internal forum, or forum of conscience, the Inquisition
claimed and enjoyed a still more absolute jurisdiction than in the
external forum for which it had been primarily instituted. While in a
formal and perfunctory manner it recognized the episcopal claims in the
judicial forum, it so employed its delegated papal authority as to
vindicate with the utmost jealousy exclusive control over the forum of
conscience in matters of heresy. Bishops, in fact, had long before been
ousted from this by the invention of papal reserved cases--cases in
which sacramental absolution could only be had from the Holy See, thus
creating a profitable market for its indulgences, confessional letters
and the absolutions of its Penitentiary. Heresy was the chief sin
anathematized in the early form of the bull, subsequently known as _in
Coena Domini_, from its annual publication on Holy Thursday and, in
1364, Urban V placed all the offences enumerated in it under the
jurisdiction of the papal chamberlain.[61] The papacy thus assumed
exclusive control over the sin of heresy, for which no absolution could
be granted save by papal delegation, and Paul II, in 1469, and Sixtus
|
--the men cheering and shouting,
shaking each other by the hand, placing their hats on their bayonets,
and waving them in answer to the wild applause of the women on the
housetops. Some, however, were not content at being called back, instead
of being allowed to complete what they considered their partial victory;
forgetting that they would have been met in a very different manner by
the troops in support, who would have been prepared for the attack and
would have reserved their fire until the last moment. As soon as it
became evident that the French intended to make their next move against
the gate of San Pancrazio, the greater portion of the volunteers marched
in that direction, Captain Percival accompanying them.
"You have done well so far," Garibaldi said, as he joined them. "Now it
will be our turn, and we shall have tougher work than you had, for they
will be prepared. I suppose your loss was not heavy?"
"Very trifling indeed; there were but three dead brought in, and there
were some ten or twelve wounded."
"It was just the sort of action to raise the spirits of the men, and
they are all in the humour for fighting. I shall therefore lead them out
here. But we cannot hope to succeed with a rush as you did--they will be
prepared for us this time; the best men would be killed before we
reached them, and the mass behind, but few of whom have guns, would be
simply massacred."
The volunteers, who had undergone a rough sort of drill, were assembled
before the French had concluded their preparations for an assault.
Garibaldi appointed Captain Percival to take charge of the gate, having
with him two hundred of the volunteers, behind whom were the armed
citizens. These clamoured to go out as before; but Garibaldi raised his
hand for silence, and then told them that he would not lead them to a
useless massacre against an army of well-armed soldiers.
"Your duty," he said, "is to remain here. If we have to fall back, you
will open to let us pass. We shall be ready to do our share when
necessary; but the defence of the gate will be for a while entrusted to
you. If the enemy force an entrance, fall upon them as you would upon
wild beasts; their discipline and their arms would be of no great
advantage in a hand-to-hand fight. Each man must fight as he would were
he protecting his family from a band of wolves--hatchet and pike must
meet musket and bayonet, those who have knives must dive among the
throng and use them fearlessly. It is a great charge that we entrust to
you: we go out to fight; you will guard the city and all you hold dear."
A loud cheer showed that he had struck the right chord, and the mob drew
back as he led out some five thousand volunteers. These advanced to
within musket-shot of the enemy, and then scattering, took shelter
behind houses and cottages, walls and ruins. The French cannon opened
fire as the movement was going on. These were answered by the guns on
the walls, and as the French advanced a murderous fire was opened by
their hidden foes. The battle raged for several hours. Sometimes the
French advanced close up to the position held by the Garibaldians, but
as soon as they did so, they were exposed also to the fire from the men
on the walls; and in spite of Captain Percival's efforts, groups of men
made their way down the road and joined the firing line, lying down
until the moment should come when they could spring like wild cats upon
the French.
Once or twice, when the assailants pressed back the Garibaldians in
spite of their efforts, they found themselves presently opposed by a
crowd that seemed to leap from the ground, and who, with wild shouts,
rushed upon them so furiously that they recoiled almost panic-struck
before so unaccustomed an enemy. Men were pulled down, and as Garibaldi
had given strict orders that no French soldier should be killed except
when fighting, these were carried back triumphantly into the city. At
last General Oudïnot, seeing that his troops were making no progress,
and that, even if they could force their way into the city, they would
suffer terribly in street-fighting with such assailants, gave the order
for his men to retire. This they did sullenly, while a roar of
triumphant shouting rose from the volunteers, the men on the walls, and
the crowd that covered every house and vantage-ground, from which a view
of what was passing outside could be obtained.
The Italian loss was only about a hundred men killed and wounded,
whereas the French lost three hundred killed and wounded and five
hundred prisoners. So unprepared was the French general for such a
resistance, that he had to undergo the humiliation of sending in to
Garibaldi to ask him to supply him with surgeons to dress the wounds of
the French soldiers. During the fighting the French artillery had done
far more injury to works of art in Rome than they had inflicted upon the
defenders, as the artillery played principally upon the dome of St.
Peter's and the Vatican, both of which buildings were much damaged.
The joy caused in Rome by this victory was prodigious. Fires blazed that
night on all the hills, every house was illuminated, the people thronged
the streets, shouting and cheering. They had, indeed, much to be proud
of: five thousand almost undrilled volunteers had defeated seven
thousand of the best troops of France.
[Illustration: "WALKING UP AND DOWN THE ROOM LIKE A CAGED LION"]
The French retired at once to Palo, on the road to Civita Vecchia.
Garibaldi gave his troops a few hours' rest, and then moved out to
attack the French, and took up a most advantageous position. His troops
were flushed with victory, while the French were cowed and dispirited;
and he was on the point of attacking, when General Oudïnot sent a
messenger to treat for an armistice, and as a proof of his sincerity
offered to give up Ugo Bassi, a priest who had remained by the side of a
wounded man when the Garibaldians had for a moment retired. Garibaldi
would peremptorily have refused the request, for he was confident that
he should defeat and capture the whole of the French. Mazzini, however,
with his two associates in the triumvirate, still clung to the hope that
the French would aid them, and determined to accept the armistice,
fearing that were the whole French army destroyed, the national feeling
would be so embittered that there would no longer be any hope
whatever of an alliance. Garibaldi protested, declaring that the
armistice would but enable the French reinforcements to arrive. Mazzini,
however, persisted in the decision, and actually released the five
hundred prisoners in exchange for the priest.
The folly of this violent democrat sealed the fate of Rome. Had
Garibaldi been permitted to carry out his plans, the French army would
have been destroyed or made prisoners to a man, and the enthusiasm that
such a glorious victory would have excited throughout all Italy would
have aroused the whole population to burst their bonds. Furious at this
act of folly, Garibaldi and his troops re-entered Rome. He was greeted
with enthusiasm by the people, but disliking such ovations, he slipped
away with Captain Percival to the latter's house. Professor Forli had
taken no part in the fighting outside the walls, but stationing himself
with the troops that manned them, had kept up a vigorous fire whenever
the enemy were within gunshot. After the repulse of the second attack he
had returned home.
"The stupidity of these people is incredible," Garibaldi, who had
scarcely spoken a word since he had turned back towards Rome, burst out,
waving aside the chair that the professor offered him, and walking up
and down the room like a caged lion. "We held the French in the palms of
our hands, and they have allowed them to escape. A fortnight, and we
shall have three times their number to face, and you know what the
result will be. I regard the cause as lost, thrown away by Mazzini--a
man who has never taken part in a battle, who kept himself shut up in
the capital when the fighting was going on, a man of the tongue and not
of action. It is too disgusting. I am a republican; but if a republic
is to be in the hands of men like these, they will drive me to become a
monarchist again. Carlo Alberto was weak, but he was at least a man; he
staked his throne for the cause, and when it was lost, retired. Mazzini
stakes nothing, for he has a safe-conduct; if he loses, he will set to
to intrigue again, careless who may fall or what may come to Italy, if
his own wild ideas cannot prevail; he desires a republic, but it is a
republic that he himself shall manipulate. Well, if it must be, it must.
I am no statesman, but simply a fighting man. I shall fight till the
last; and the failure must rest upon the head of him who has brought it
about."
"It is a bad business," Captain Percival said quietly. "I thoroughly
agree with you, Garibaldi, in all you say; but as you know of old, I am
not much given to words. I began this thing, and shall go through with
it. I think, as you do, the cause is lost; but every blow we strike will
find an echo in Italy, and a harvest will grow from the seeds some day.
As to Mazzini and his two companions, I am not surprised. When you stir
up muddy water, the scum will at first rise to the top. So it was in the
first throes of the French Revolution, so it is here; the mob orators,
the schemers, come to power, and there they remain until overthrown by
men of heart and action. After Robespierre and Marat came Napoleon, a
great man whom I acknowledge I admire heartily, enemy though he was of
England; after Mazzini Italy may find her great men. I know you do not
like Cavour; I admire him immensely. He is obliged to be prudent and
cautious now; but when the time comes he will be regarded as the
champion of free Italy; and from what I have heard of him, the young
King Victor Emmanuel will be a sovereign worthy of him."
"I hope it may prove so," Garibaldi said shortly; "at present the
prospect does not seem to me a fair one. And you, professor?"
"I shall carry out my plans, and when Rome falls, as fall it doubtless
will, I shall, if I escape, join my wife at Leghorn, and go and
establish myself in England. I have friends and correspondents there,
and I have my son-in-law, who has promised me a home. Here I could not
stay--I am a marked man; and the day that the Pope enters in triumph I
should be consigned to a dungeon under St. Angelo."
"There should be no difficulty in escaping," Garibaldi said. "With
fifteen miles of wall it would need fifty thousand men to surround them;
and the French will want all their strength at the point where they
attack us."
It was evident that some time must elapse before there would be any
change in the situation at Rome. Mazzini was sending despatches to Ledru
Rollin and the French Assembly, imploring them to abstain from
interference that would lead to the destruction of the Roman Republic;
and until these could be acted upon, or, on the other hand, fresh troops
arrived from France, matters would be at a standstill. In the meantime,
danger threatened from another quarter; for the King of Naples was
preparing to move with ten thousand men to reinstate the Pope. This
force, with twenty pieces of cannon, had advanced as far as Albano.
Three days after the battle, Garibaldi told Captain Percival that he was
about to start that evening with four thousand men to meet the
Neapolitan army, and asked him to accompany him.
"The troops will not be warned till an hour before we set out. It is
important that no whisper shall reach the enemy as to our intentions or
strength."
"I shall be glad to go with you," the Englishman said. "After the way
your men fought against the French, I have no doubt that they will make
short work of the Neapolitans, however great the odds against them.
Bomba is hated by his own subjects; and it is hardly likely that they
will fight with any zeal in his cause. They are very different foes from
the French."
Accordingly, at eight o'clock on the evening of May 4th, Captain
Percival mounted and joined Garibaldi and his staff, and they rode to
Tivoli, halting among the ruins of Adrian's Villa.
The next morning scouts were sent off towards Albano, and returned in
the evening with the news that the Neapolitans were still there, and
showed no signs of any intention to advance, the news of the defeat of
the French having, no doubt, greatly quenched King Ferdinand's ardour.
On the 8th the Garibaldians moved to Palestrina, and the general
despatched a body of men to drive back the scattered parties of
Neapolitans who were raiding the country. This was done with little
loss, the Neapolitans in all cases retiring hastily when approached.
Garibaldi had information that evening that orders had been given for
the main body of the enemy to advance and attack him on the following
day. The information proved correct; and before noon the Neapolitan
force was seen approaching, seven thousand strong. Garibaldi had no
cannon with him, having set out in the lightest marching order. He
distributed a portion of his force as skirmishers, keeping the rest in
hand for the decisive moment. The Neapolitan artillery opened fire, and
the main body advanced in good order; but as soon as a heavy fire was
opened by the skirmishers, much confusion was observed in their ranks.
Two other parties were at once sent out; and these, taking every
advantage of cover, soon joined in the fray, opening a galling fire upon
each flank.
Several times the Neapolitans attempted to advance, urged on by their
officers; but the skirmishing line in their front was strengthened from
the reserves whenever they did so, until the whole of the Garibaldians,
with the exception of a thousand of the steadiest troops, were engaged,
and an incessant fire was maintained against the heavy ranks of the
enemy, whose artillery produced but little effect against their almost
unseen foes. For three hours the conflict continued; then, as the
Garibaldian reserve advanced, the confusion among the enemy reached a
point at which it could no longer be controlled, and Ferdinand's army
fled like a flock of sheep. Garibaldi and his staff had exposed
themselves recklessly during the fight, riding about among their troops,
encouraging them, and warning them not to be carried away by their
impetuosity into making an attack, until the enemy were thoroughly
shaken and the orders issued for a general charge.
A heavy fire was maintained upon the staff by the Neapolitans; and it
seemed to them that Garibaldi had a charmed life, for although several
of the staff fell, he continued to ride up and down as if altogether
oblivious of the rain of bullets. He did not, however, escape unscathed,
being wounded both in the hand and foot. The fugitives did not halt
until they had crossed the frontier into Neapolitan territory. The
Garibaldians remained for two or three days at Palestrina; and seeing
that the Neapolitans showed no signs of an intention to advance again,
returned by a rapid march to Rome.
Mazzini's efforts had been to some extent successful. The French
Assembly declared that for France to aid in suppressing a people
determined to obtain their freedom was altogether in contradiction with
the condition on which the republic had been instituted, and sent M. de
Lesseps as an envoy to Rome. Napoleon, however, was of opinion that the
reverse to the French arms must be wiped out, and on his own authority
despatched large reinforcements to Oudïnot.
To the indignation of Garibaldi's friends and of the greater part of the
population of Rome, it was found, on the return of the force to the
capital, that, in spite of the brilliant successes that had been gained,
Mazzini and the demagogues had superseded him in his command, and had
appointed Colonel Roselli over his head. This step was the result of
their jealousy of the popularity that Garibaldi had gained. His friends
advised him not to submit to so extraordinary a slight; but the general
simply replied that a question of this kind had never troubled him, and
that he was ready to serve, even as a common soldier, under any one who
would give him a chance of fighting the enemy of his country. On the
14th the Neapolitan army again advanced and occupied Palestrina; and the
Roman army, now ten thousand strong, marched out on the 16th. Garibaldi,
with two thousand men, moved in advance. Although Roselli was nominally
in command of the army, he was conscious of Garibaldi's greater
abilities, and deferred, on all points, to the opinion of the man who
was regarded by all as being still their Commander-in-chief.
When within two miles of Velletri Garibaldi met a strong column of
Neapolitans; these, however, after but a slight resistance, took to
flight, and shut themselves up in the town. Garibaldi sent back for
reinforcements, but none arrived until too late in the day for the
attack to be made; and in the morning it was found that the enemy had
evacuated the place, the soldiers being so cowed by their superstitious
fear of Garibaldi that the officers in vain attempted to rally them, and
they fled in a disorderly mob. The panic reached the other portion of
the army, and before morning the whole had again crossed the frontier.
Garibaldi, at the head of his division, followed them up; and receiving
authority to carry the war into the enemy's country, was marching upon
Naples, when he was recalled in all haste to aid in the defence of Rome,
Oudïnot having given notice, in spite of a treaty agreed upon between M.
de Lesseps, on the part of the French Assembly, and Mazzini, that he
would attack Rome on Monday, June 4th.
Oudïnot was, however, guilty of an act of gross treachery, for, relying
upon his intimation, the city was lulled into a sense of security that
no attack would be made until the day named, whereas before daybreak on
the 3rd his troops stole up and took possession of the buildings just
outside the gate of San Pancrazio, and, before the Roman troops could
assemble, captured the Porta Molle, after a desperate resistance by a
few men who had gathered together on the alarm being given. The firing
was the first intimation that Rome received of the treacherous
manoeuvre of Oudïnot. Again the church bells pealed out, and the
populace rushed to defend their walls. Garibaldi felt that the
occupation by the enemy of two great villas, a short distance from the
wall, would enable them to place their batteries in such close proximity
to the San Pancrazio gate that it was necessary at all hazards to
recapture them; and, with his brave Lombard volunteers, he sallied out
and attacked the French desperately.
All day long the fight continued, both parties being strongly reinforced
from time to time; but in fighting of this kind the discipline of the
French soldiers, and the military knowledge of their officers, gave them
a great advantage over the Italians, who fought with desperate bravery,
but without that order and community of effort essential in such a
struggle. In vain did Garibaldi and Colonel Medici, the best of his
officers, expose themselves recklessly in their endeavours to get their
men to attack in military order and to concentrate their efforts at the
given point; in vain did the soldiers show a contempt for death beyond
all praise. When night fell the French still held possession of the
outposts they had gained, and the Italians fell back within the walls.
That night Garibaldi held a council of war, at which Captain Percival
was present. The latter and Colonel Medici were strongly of opinion that
a renewal of the fighting of that day would be disastrous. The loss had
already been very great, and it had been proved that, however valiantly
they fought, the volunteers were unable to wrest the strong positions
held by a superior force of well-disciplined men; for the French army
now numbered forty thousand, while that of the defenders was but twelve
thousand, and of these more than half had joined within the last three
weeks. A series of such failures as those they had encountered would
very quickly break the spirit of the young troops, and would but
precipitate the end. These opinions prevailed, and it was decided that
for the present they should remain on the defensive, maintaining a heavy
cannonade from the walls, and making occasional sorties to harass the
besiegers. In the meantime, the bridge across the Tiber should be
destroyed, and, if possible, mines should be driven to blow up the
batteries that would be erected by the French under cover of the
positions they held.
These tactics were followed out. The French engaged upon the erection of
the batteries were harassed by a continuous cannonade. Sorties were
frequently made, but these were ere long abandoned; the loss suffered on
each occasion being so heavy that the troops no longer fought with the
courage and enthusiasm that had so animated them during the first day's
fighting. The attempt to blow up the bridge across the river by means of
a barge loaded with explosives failed, and none of the defenders
possessed the knowledge that would have enabled them to blow in the
centres of the arches. The mines were equally unsuccessful, as the
French countermined, and by letting in the water formed a streamlet that
ran into the Tiber, filled the Italian works, and compelled the
defenders to desist from their labours. Nevertheless, the progress of
the siege was hindered; and although it was certain that the city, if
unaided, must fall ere long, Mazzini still clung to the hope that the
treaty made by Lesseps and carried by him to Paris would be recognised.
This last hope was crushed by the arrival of a French envoy with the
declaration that the French Government disavowed any participation in
the Convention signed by M. de Lesseps.
Even Garibaldi now admitted that further resistance would only bring
disaster upon the city, and cause an absolutely useless loss of life.
Mazzini and his two colleagues persisted in their resolution to defend
the town to the last, even if the French laid it in ashes, and they even
reproached Garibaldi with cowardice. On the night of the 21st the French
gained possession of the San Pancrazio gate, having driven a passage up
to it unnoticed by the defenders. They at once seized the wall and
captured two bastions, after a desperate defence by Garibaldi. They then
planted cannon upon these and began to bombard the city. Twelve guns
were also planted in a breach that had been effected in the wall, and
terrible havoc was made among the villas and palaces in the western part
of the city.
Roselli proposed that the whole defending force should join in an attack
on the French batteries; but to that Garibaldi would not consent, on the
grounds that these could not be carried without immense loss, and that,
even if captured, they could not be held against the force the French
would bring up to retake them. Gradually the assailants pushed their way
forward, encountering a determined resistance at the capture of the
Villa Savorelli. On the evening of the 27th no fewer than four hundred
of its defenders fell by bayonet wounds, showing how desperately they
had contested every foot of the advance. On the morning of the 30th
three heavy columns of French advanced simultaneously, and carried the
barricades the Romans had erected. Garibaldi, with the most determined
of his men, flung himself upon the enemy; and for a time the desperation
with which they fought arrested the advance. But it was a last effort,
and Garibaldi sent to Mazzini to say that further resistance was
impossible.
He was summoned before the triumvirate, and there stated that, unless
they were resolved to make Rome a second Saragossa, there was no
possible course but to surrender. In the end the triumvirate resigned,
issuing a proclamation that the republic gave up a defence which had
become impossible. The assembly then appointed Garibaldi as dictator,
and he opened negotiations with the French. So enthusiastic were the
citizens that, in spite of the disasters that had befallen them, many
were still in favour of erecting barricades in every street and
defending every house. The majority, however, acquiesced in Garibaldi's
decision that further resistance would be a crime, since it would only
entail immense loss of life and the destruction of the city. For three
days negotiations were carried on, and then Garibaldi, with four
thousand men, left the city and marched for Tuscany, while the French
occupied Rome. But in Tuscany the patriots met with but a poor
reception, for the people, though favourable, dared not receive them.
The French had followed in hot pursuit; the Austrians in Tuscany were on
the look-out for them; and at last, exhausted and starving, they took
refuge in the little republic of San Marino. Here they were kindly
received; but an Austrian army was advancing, and the authorities of the
republic were constrained to petition that the Garibaldians, now reduced
to but fifteen hundred men, should be allowed to capitulate, and that
they themselves should not be punished for having given them refuge.
These terms were granted, but the Archduke insisted upon Garibaldi
himself surrendering. The general, however, effected his escape with his
wife and twelve followers, embarking on board a fishing-boat, and they
reached the mouth of the Po; the rest of the band were permitted by the
Austrians to return to their homes. Garibaldi, alone, with his dying
wife, was able to conceal himself among some bushes near the river; his
companions were all taken by the Austrians and shot. Nine other boats,
laden with his followers, could not get off before the pursuing
Austrians arrived; and a heavy fire being directed upon them, they were
forced to surrender. Garibaldi's faithful wife, who had been his
companion throughout all his trials, died a few days later. The Austrian
pursuit was so hot that he was forced to leave her body; and after many
dangers, he reached Genoa. He was not allowed to remain in Sardinia; and
from thence took ship to Liverpool, and there embarked for New York.
Fortunately for Captain Percival, he and Professor Forli had, when on
June 27th Garibaldi himself recognised that all further resistance was
useless, determined to leave the city. When he stated his decision to
Garibaldi, the latter warmly approved.
"You have done all that could be done, comrade," he said; "it would be
worse than folly for you to remain here, and throw away your life. Would
that all my countrymen had fought as nobly for freedom as you have done,
for a cause that is not yours!"
"I have a right to consider it so, having made Rome my home for years,
and being married to the daughter of a Roman. However, we may again
fight side by side, for assuredly this will not be the last time that an
attempt will be made to drive out the despots; and I feel sure that
Italy will yet be free. I trust that you do not mean to stay here until
it is too late to retire. You must remember that your life is of the
greatest value to the cause, and that it is your duty, above all things,
to preserve it for your country."
"I mean to do so," Garibaldi said. "As soon as all see that further
resistance is useless, I shall leave Rome. If I find that any spark of
life yet remains in the movement, I shall try to fan it into flame; if
not, I shall again cross the Atlantic until my country calls for me."
That evening Captain Percival and the professor left the town. There
was no difficulty in doing so, as the whole French force was
concentrated at the point of attack. The professor had exchanged his
ordinary clothes for some of his companion's, and their appearance was
that of two English tourists, when in the morning they entered Ostia, at
the mouth of the Tiber, by the road leading from Albano. As many
fugitives from Rome had, during the past month, embarked from the little
port, and it was no unusual thing for English tourists to find their way
down there, they had no difficulty in chartering a fishing-craft to take
them to Leghorn, it being agreed that they should be landed a mile or
two from the town, so that they could walk into it without attracting
any attention, as they would assuredly be asked for passports were they
to land at the port.
The voyage was altogether unattended by incident; and on landing they
made a detour and entered the town from the west, sauntering quietly
along, as if they had merely been taking a walk in the country. Ten
minutes later they entered the lodging that Madame Forli had taken,
after staying for a few days at an hotel. Great indeed was the joy which
their arrival excited. The two ladies had been suffering terrible
anxiety since the fighting began at Rome, and especially since it was
known that the French had obtained possession of one of the gates, and
that a fierce struggle was going on. They were sure their husbands would
keep their promise to leave the city when the situation became
desperate; but it was too likely that Captain Percival might have
fallen, for it was certain that he would be in the thick of the fighting
by the side of Garibaldi. It was, then, with rapturous delight that they
were greeted, and it was found that both were unharmed.
It was at once decided to start by a steamer that would leave the next
day. Both the ladies possessed passports: Muriel that which had been
made out for her husband and herself on their return from their visit to
England; while her mother had one which the professor had obtained for
both of them when the troubles first began, and he foresaw that it was
probable he might have to leave the country. Therefore no difficulty was
experienced on this score; and when the party went on board the next day
the documents were stamped without any questions being asked. Not the
least delighted among them to quit Leghorn was Frank, who was now four
years old. He had found it dull indeed in their quiet lodging at
Leghorn, and missed his father greatly, and his grandfather also, for
the professor was almost as fond of the child as its parents.
There were but few passengers besides themselves, for in the disturbed
state of Italy, and, indeed, of all Europe, there were very few English
tourists in 1848; and even those who permanently resided in Italy had
for the most part left. The passengers, therefore, were, with the
exception of the two ladies and Captain Percival, all Italians, who
were, like Signor Forli, leaving because they feared that the liberal
opinions they had ventured to express--when it seemed that with the
accession of a liberal pontiff to the papal chair better times were
dawning for Italy--would bring them into trouble now it was but too
evident that the reign of despotism was more firmly established than
ever.
The steamer touched at Genoa, and here the greater portion of her
passengers left, among them Professor Forli's party. They took train to
Milan, where they stopped for a few days, crossed the Alps by the St.
Gothard's Pass, spent a fortnight in Switzerland, and then journeyed
through Bâle, down the Rhine to Cologne, and thence to England. They
were in no hurry, for time was no object to any of them, as they were
well supplied with money; and after the excitement and trouble of the
last few months, the quiet and absence of all cause for uneasiness was
very pleasant to them. On their arrival at Tom Percival's town residence
in Cadogan Place sad news awaited them. Only a fortnight before, his
yacht had been run down at sea, and he and the greater part of the crew
had perished.
CHAPTER III.
TROUBLES.
The death of Tom Percival naturally made a great difference to his
brother's position. He was now a large land-owner, with a fine place in
the country and a house in town. The next nine years of his life were
unmarked by any particular incident. Signor Forli and his wife were
permanently established in Cadogan Place. The professor had never been
accustomed to a country life, and in London he was able to indulge in
all his former pursuits. He had always laid by a certain amount of his
income, and could have lived in some comfort in London, as until the
troubles began he had received, in addition to his modest salary as a
professor, the rents of a property he possessed near Naples, of which
place he was a native. But neither Captain Percival nor his wife would
hear of his setting up an establishment of his own.
"We shall not be up in town above three months of the year at the
outside," the former said; "and of course Muriel will always want to
have you with us for that time, for I know very well that you will
seldom tear yourself from your work and come down and stay with us in
the country. It will be far better for us that the house shall be always
used, instead of being left for nine months in the year to caretakers.
You can fit up the library with cases for your coins and manuscripts.
You have already made the acquaintance of many of the scientific and
learned men you formerly corresponded with, and will soon get a very
pleasant society of your own. It will be better in all respects. You can
shut up the rooms you don't use, while the servants whom I keep to look
after the house must in any case be told to consider you as their
master; and you can, if you choose, get a couple of Italian servants as
your own special domestics." And so, after much argument, it was
settled, and for some years things went on to the satisfaction of all.
When ten years old Frank was sent to a preparatory school for Harrow,
and three years later to the great school itself. Just at this time the
professor determined to pay a visit to Italy. Since the fall of Rome
everything had gone on quietly there; and although persons suspected of
liberal ideas had been seized and thrown into prison without any public
inquiry, he considered that now that he had been settled in England for
years, and had become a naturalised British subject, he could without
any risk go over to make an effort to obtain a reversal of the
confiscation of his property in the Neapolitan territory. Before
starting he had called upon the official representative of the
Neapolitan government, and had been assured by him that his passport as
a British subject would be respected, and that if he refrained from
taking any part in politics he could travel in King Ferdinand's
territories without any fear of his movements being in any way
interfered with.
Up to this time Captain Percival and his wife had been strongly against
the proposed visit, but after the professor had received this official
assurance they believed with him that he could in perfect safety
undertake the journey. He wrote on his arrival at Naples, stating that
he had, as soon as he landed, called upon one of the ministers, and
reported to him the assurance that the envoy in London had given him,
and had been told that, while expressing no opinion upon the probability
of his obtaining a reversal of the confiscation of his estate, there
could be no objection whatever to his endeavouring to do so, but that he
did not think the government would authorise his establishing himself
permanently in the kingdom, as his well-known political opinions would
naturally render him obnoxious. He had given his assurance that he had
no intention whatever of remaining beyond the time necessary for the
purpose for which he had come; that he had now permanently settled in
England, and had only come over for the purpose that he had
|
all goes to prove what a dangerous thing impulse can be. And yet as I
looked at his simple face, and reflected on what safe areas of
normally-hidden epidermis he possessed for such pictorial ebullition, I
found myself envying such a lack of self-protectiveness; and I asked
myself if, after all, those who will have nothing to do with
self-protectiveness are not the salt of the earth. The gamblers, the
careless, the sippers of all the honey the moment contains: are not
these the best?
Most young ardencies are not as reckless as his--and, of course, it may
all end happily: what the young man did may turn out also to be right.
With all my heart I hope so.
[Illustration: LAURA RISES FOR THE DAY. _See "The Innocent's
Progress"--Plate 1_]
POSSESSIONS
Some one has offered me a very remarkable and beautiful and valuable
gift--and I don't know what to do. A few years ago I should have
accepted it with rapture. To-day I hesitate, because the older one grows
the less does one wish to accumulate possessions.
It is said that the reason why Jews so often become fishmongers and
fruiterers and dealers in precious stones is because in every child of
Israel there is a subconscious conviction that at any moment he may be
called upon to return to his country, and naturally wishing to lose as
little as possible by a sudden departure he chooses to traffic either in
a stock which he can carry on his person, such as diamonds, or in one
which, being perishable and renewable day by day, such as fruit and
fish, can be abandoned at any moment with almost no loss at all.
Similarly the Jews are said to favour such household things as can be
easily removed: rugs, for example, rather than carpets. I have not, so
far as I know, any Jewish blood, but in the few years that are left me I
too want to be ready to obey the impulse towards whatever Jerusalem I
hear calling me, even should it be the platonically-loved city itself,
although that is unlikely. Without possessions one would be the readier
also for the longer last journey. Naked we come into this world and
naked we should go. Nor should we wilfully add to the difficulties of
leaving it.
I was lately led by its owner, rebuilder, and renovator through the
rooms and gardens of a Tudor house which, with infinite thought and
discretion, has been reclaimed from decay and made modernly debonair. At
every step, indoors and out, was something charming or adequate, whether
furniture or porcelain, whether flower or shrub. Within were long cool
passages where through the diamond panes sunlight splashed on the white
walls, and bedrooms of the gayest daintiness; without were lawns, and
vistas, and arrangements of the loveliest colours. "Well," my hostess
asked me, "what do you think of it all?" I thought many things, but the
one which was uppermost was this: "You are making it very hard to die."
I had a grandfather who, after he had reached a certain age, used
birthdays as occasions on which to give away rather than receive
presents; and I am sure he was right. But I would go beyond that. The
presents which he distributed were bought for the purpose. I would fix a
period in life when the wise man should begin to unload his
acquisitions--accumulating only up to that point and then dispersing
among the young. Ah! but you say, why be so illogical? If possessions
are undesirable, are they not undesirable also for the young? Well,
there are answers to that. For one thing, who said anything about being
logical? And then, are we not all different? Because I choose to cease
accumulating, that is no reason why others, who like to increase their
possessions, should cease also. And again, even I, with all my talk of
renunciation, have not suggested that it should begin till a middling
period has been reached; and I am all for circulating _objets d'art_,
too. I should like a continual progression of pictures and other
beautiful things throughout the kingdom, so that the great towns could
have the chance of seeing the best as well as London.
So far am I from withholding possessions from others, that as I walked
down Bond Street the other day and paused at this window and that,
filled with exquisite jewels and enamelled boxes and other voluptuous
trifles, I thought how delightful it would be to be rich enough to buy
them all--not to own them, but to give them away. To women for choice;
to one woman for choice. And a letter which I remember receiving from
France during the War had some bearing upon this aspect of the case, for
it mentioned a variety of possessions which carried with them, in the
trenches, extraordinary and constant pleasure and consolation. The
writer was a lady who worked at a canteen in the big Paris terminus for
the front, and she said that the soldiers returning from their leave
often displayed to her the mascots and other treasures which comforted
them in their vigils, and with which they were always well supplied.
Sometimes these possessions were living creatures. One soldier had
produced from a basket a small fox which he had found and brought up,
and which this lady fed with bread and milk while its owner ate his
soup. Another had a starling. A third took out of his pocket a venerable
handkerchief, which, on being unrolled, revealed the person of
Marguerite--a magpie whom he adored, and who apparently adored him. They
were inseparable. Marguerite had accompanied him into action and while
he was on _permission_, and she was now cheering him on his return to
the danger zone. She was placed on the table, where she immediately fell
asleep; at the end of the meal the poor fellow rolled her again in the
handkerchief, popped her in his pocket, and ran for his tragic train.
But for the companionship of Marguerite his heart would have been far
heavier; and she was thus a possession worth having.
DRAKE AND HIS GAME
The British Navy did not begin with Drake. On consulting the authorities
I find that the Navy proper, as an organization, may be said to have
begun in the reign of King John, and to have been put on its modern
basis by Henry VII. But Drake's is the first name to conjure with.
Any one wishing to lay a tangible tribute at the feet of Britain's
earliest naval hero of world-wide fame would have to visit either the
monument which was erected to him--not certainly in any indecent
haste--at Tavistock, in 1883, when he had been dead for nearly two
hundred and ninety years, or the replica of it, which was set up on
Plymouth Hoe in the year following. To go to the Hoe is, I think,
better; for at the Hoe you can look out on Drake's own sea.
London has no Drake monuments. But had a certain imaginative enthusiast
had his way in the year 1581 a memorial of the great seaman, more
interesting and stimulating than any statue, would have added excitement
to Ludgate Hill and to every Londoner passing that way, for it was
seriously proposed that the _Golden Hind_, the vessel in which Drake
sailed round the world, and the first English ship to make such a
voyage, should be bodily lifted to the top of St. Paul's (which had a
spire in those days) and permanently fixed there. Even had the project
been carried out we personally should be none the richer, for the Fire
of London was to intervene; but it was a fine idea. I wish something of
the kind might still be done; for if such a fascinating little model
galleon as the weathercock on Lord Astor's beautiful Embankment house by
the Essex Street steps can rejoice the eyes as it does, how would not a
real one, high over Ludgate Hill, quicken the mind and the pulse?
And we ought in London to think far more of ships than we do. By ships
we live, whether merchant ships bringing us food, or ironclads
preserving those ships; and not only should the docks be known to
Londoners, instead of being, as now, foreign parts infinitely more
remote than, say, Brighton, but the Navy should visit us too. The old
_Britannia_ ought to have been brought to the Thames when she was
superannuated. "There," the guides should have been able to say, "was
the training college of our admirals. There, in that hulk, Beatty
learned to navigate, Sturdee to tie knots, and Jellicoe to signal!" The
_Victory_ should be brought to London, as a constant and glorious
reminder of what Nelson did, before steam came in. She is wasted at
Portsmouth, which is all shipping. In London, either in the Thames or on
the top of St. Paul's, she would have noble results, and every
errand-boy would become a stowaway, as every errand-boy should.
A second proposal, to preserve the _Golden Hind_ as a ship for ever,
also fell through, and she was either allowed to decay or was broken up
(as the _Britannia_ has been); but whereas the relics from the
_Britannia_ are many, the only authentic memorial of the _Golden Hind_
is an arm-chair fashioned from her wood which is a valued possession of
the Bodleian. Why the Bodleian, I cannot explain, for Drake was neither
an Oxford graduate nor a scholar. His University was the sea.
That he was a Devonian, we know, but not much else is known. The years
1539, 1540, 1541, and 1545 all claim his birth, and the historians are
at conflict as to whether his father was a parson or not. Some say that,
having, owing to religious persecution, to flee to Kent, the elder Drake
inhabited a hulk (like Rudder Grange), and, in the intervals of reading
prayers to the sailors in the Medway, brought up his twelve sons to the
sea. But that matters little; what matters is that one of his sons
became a master mariner, a buccaneer, a circumnavigator, a knight, an
admiral, and in 1588 destroyed (under God) the Spanish Armada. This
successful and intrepid commander was a man "of small size, with reddish
beard," who treated his companions with affection, as they him with
respect, and got the last drop of energy and devotion out of all. He had
"every possible luxury, even to perfume," but remained hard as nails.
His death came to pass off Porto Rico, whither he had been sent by Queen
Elizabeth to bring back another haul of treasure from the West Indies.
Hitherto he had succeeded, returning always with more spoil, but this
time he succumbed to various disorders.
The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb;
But for his fame the ocean sea is not sufficient room.
Even in the six-and-thirty years that Drake has stood, in bronze, on the
Hoe, he has seen wonderful changes; but had his statue been there ever
since his death--as it should have been--what amazing naval developments
would have passed beneath his eyes: wood to iron, canvas to
paddle-wheel, paddle-wheel to screw, coal to oil, and then the
submarine!
Turning from the Hoe with the intention of descending to the town by one
of the paths through the lawns at the back of the great sailor's
statue, what should confront me but the most perfect bowling-green I
have ever seen, with little sets of phlegmatic Devonians absorbed in
their contests. Here, thought I, is, beyond praise, devotion to
tradition. Of national games we have all heard, but there is something,
in a way, even finer in a municipal game--and such a municipal game, the
most famous of all. For years I have never heard Plymouth Hoe mentioned
without thinking of Drake and the game of bowls in which he was playing,
and which he refused to interrupt, when, that July afternoon, in 1588,
news came that the Spaniards were off the Lizard. ("Plenty of time," he
said, "to finish the game and beat the Spaniards too.") But it had never
occurred to me that bowls and the Hoe were still associated. England has
commonly a shorter memory than that. And, indeed, why should they be
associated? There is, for example, no archery at Tell's Chapel on the
shore of the Lake of Lucerne, no wood-chopping at Mount Vernon. But
Devon, with excellent piety, remembers and honours its own prophet; and
I now understand how it is that the Plymouth Museum should be destitute
of relics of Drake. Why trouble about his personal trappings when this
pleasant sward is in existence, to connect the eye instantly with the
mighty admiral at one of the most engaging moments of his life?
I stood by the railings of the green for two hours watching the
latter-day Plymouth champions at their play. Only the descent of the sun
and the encroaching gloom drove me away, and even then a few enthusiasts
remained bowling and bowling; for every one who is devoted to bowls
knows that the twilight favours form, although it does not favour the
spectators. The players seemed to me to be chiefly of the mercantile
class, and I wondered if among them were any of the bearers of the odd
names which I had noticed above the Plymouth shops as I was drifting
about its streets that morning. Were any of the great Devon tribe of Yeo
there? Was Mr. Condy U'Ren winning or losing? What kind of a "wood" did
Mr. Odam project towards the "jack"? Could the admirable elderly player
who always lifted his right foot and held it poised in the air while
delivering the bowl be Mr. Jethro Ham? I judged the players to be, in
many cases, old antagonists, and these games on this sunny October
afternoon merely items in a series of battles spread over years past,
and to continue, I hope, for years to come; for the pastime of bowls,
unlike cricket and baseball and lawn tennis, has a kindly, welcoming
smile for old age. The late Sir William Osler's rule as to forty being
the culmination of man's power becomes an absurdity on the green. There,
seventy is nothing. At eighty you are not necessarily to be sneezed at.
Even nonagenarians, I believe, have earned the thrill contained in the
phrase "Good wood!" So then I confidently expect, if I am alive, and am
on Plymouth Hoe in twenty years' time, when prosperity will again be
established, with amity among the nations, to find many of the same
players at this at once the gentlest, but not the least exciting, of
games--to me, at any rate, more exciting than horse-racing with all its
speed.
They played exceedingly well, these men of Plymouth, one veteran in
particular exacting a deadly amount of work out of the last four feet of
the bowls' stealthy journey. And how serious they were--with their
india-rubber over-shoes, and a mat to start from! I doubt if Sir Francis
had it all so spick-and-span--for in his day we were very nearly as far
from lawn mowers as from turbines. And how intent they were on the
progress not only of their own bowls but of their opponents' too--but of
course with a more personal, more intimate, interest in their own, even
to following its curve with their back-bones, and to some extent
spinally reproducing it, as conscientious players involuntarily do.
ADMIRALS ALL--TO BE
It is fitting that the naval training college from which the English
midshipmen go straight to sea should be situated in Drake's county. This
means that they breathe the right air, and, through the gap made by the
rocky mouth of the Dart, look out from their commanding eminence upon a
triangle of the right blue water. Drake also gives his noble name to one
of the Terms (or companies of cadets).
I have seen Dartmouth both at work and at play, and am still not sure
which was which. Whether the boys were at football on those high
table-lands where, at the first glimpse--so many players are there--all
the games seem one; or cleaning boilers; or solving the problems of
knots; or winding accumulators; or learning to steer; or drawing
machinery sections; or poring over charts; or assembling an engine; or
sailing their cutters in the Dart; or listening to signal instructors in
the gun-rooms; or acquiring the principles of navigation; or collecting
the constituents of a variegated tea in the canteen; or singing "God
Save the King" in chapel (all three verses); or grappling with
logarithms; or swimming vociferously in the bath--whatever they are
doing, there seems to be at the back of it the same spirit and zeal.
Even the four or five offenders whom I saw expiating in punishment drill
their most recent misdeeds appeared to have a zest.
Literature and the Navy have always had their liaison; and after
studying two or three typical numbers of _The Britannia Magazine_, the
organ of the cadets, I see every chance of a new crop of Captain
Marryats and Basil Hoods; while there is promise of an excellent
caricaturist or so, too. Compared with the ordinary run of school
periodicals, this is rather striking. I fancy that I discern a fresher
and more independent outlook and a rather wider range of interest. The
natural history articles, for example, are unusually good, and some of
the experiences of war, by midshipmen, are vivid and well done; and amid
the fun and nonsense, of which there is a plentiful infusion, there is
often a sagacious irony. Among this fun I find, in prose, an account of
the Battle of St. Vincent, by a young disciple of George Ade, which
would not disgrace a seriously comic periodical and must be quoted.
Nelson, I should premise, has just defeated the Spaniards. Then--
"Say, stranger," asked H. N., as the dons mushed around with
their surrenders, "is this a business proposition or a
sad-faced competition at a dime show?"
"Gee-whizz!" said the Spanish Ad., "we reckon we're bored
some. My name is Muckheap, and I don't seem to get gay any
old way."
"Bully for you, old Corpse-face," Nels replied; "hand out
your ham-carvers and then run around and fix yourself an
eye-wizzler!"
And so they passed in real swift.
And did the British Fleet push in the glad cry right away
when Nels put in his entrance? Why, sure!
As for the verse, which is both grave and humorous, nothing gives me
more pleasure and satisfaction than the rapid but exhaustive summary of
England's blockading efforts at sea in the Great War, which begins thus:
Observe how doth the British Navy
Baulk the Bavarian of his gravy;
While the fat Boche from Köln to Munich
Cannot expand to fill his tunic....
The British Navy, we know, "does not advertise"; but there is no harm in
its nestlings saying a good word for it now and then.
Of all the things that I saw at Dartmouth, I shall retain, I think,
longest--against that comely smiling background of gay towers and
brickwork on the hill--the memory of the gymnasium and the swimming
bath. Compared with Dartmouth's physical training, with its
originality, ingenuity, thoroughness, and keenness, all other varieties
become unintelligent and savourless. This is fitness with fun--and is
there a better mixture? As for the swimming bath, it is always the abode
of high spirits, but to see it at its best you must go there directly
after morning service on Sunday. It is then that the boys really become
porpoises--or, rather, it is then that you really understand why
porpoises are always referred to as moving in "schools." I know nothing
of the doctrine that is preached normally at the College, for I heard
only a sermon by a visiting dignitary of notable earnestness and
eloquence, but I assume it to be beyond question. If, however, a heresy
should ever be propounded no harm would be done; for the waters of the
swimming bath would instantly wash it away. As one of the officers
remarked to me (of course in confidence), he always looked upon this
after-service riot of splashing and plunging as an instinctive
corrective of theological excess. On these occasions the bath becomes a
very cauldron, bubbling with boy.
It was cheering indeed, as I roamed about this great competent
establishment, to be conscious of such an undercurrent of content and
_joie de vivre_. At Dartmouth in particular is this a matter for
satisfaction, since the College is likely to be, for the boys, a last
link with the land--with solid England, the England of fields and trees
and games and friends--for many years. Of all boys who deserve a jolly
boyhood, these naval cadets, I think, come first; for the sea is a hard
mistress and they are plighted to her. Once they embark as midshipmen
responsibility is upon them; none of our sons need to grow up more
quickly. As to the glamour of the sea, one of the cadet poets becomes
lyrical about it--"I hear," he sings:
I hear the sea a-calling,
Calling me;
Calling of its charms,
Of its tempests and its calms;
I've lived upon the mainland,
But I'll die upon the sea!
May the fulfilment of his wish be long deferred! But, beneath the
glamour, the fact remains that, for all her pearls, the sea demands
everything that her sailors can give, often in every kind of danger,
discomfort, and dismay; and the division between herself and the
mainland is immense and profound. Let us rejoice then that the mainland
life of these boys dedicated to her service should be so blithe.
A STUDY IN SYMMETRY
Apropos of admirals, let me tell you the following story which, however
improbable it may seem to you, is true.
Once upon a time there was an artist with historical leanings not
unassociated with the desire for pelf--pelf being, even to idealists,
what gasoline is to a car. The blend brought him one day to Portsmouth,
where the _Victory_ lies, with the honourable purpose of painting a
picture of that famous ship with Nelson on board. The Admiral was of
course dying, and the meritorious intention of the artist, whose wife
wanted some new curtains, was to make the work as attractive as might be
and thus extract a little profit from the wave of naval enthusiasm which
was then passing over the country; for not only was the picture itself
to be saleable, but reproductions were to be made of it.
Permission having been obtained from the authorities, the artist boarded
the _Victory_, set up his easel on her deck, and settled down to his
task, the monotony of which was pleasantly alleviated by the chatter of
the old salts who guard the ship and act as guides to the tourists
visiting her. Since all these estimable men not only possessed views on
art, but had come by now to the firm belief that they had personally
fought with Nelson and witnessed his end, their criticisms were not too
easily combated: so that the artist had not a tedious moment. Thus,
painting, conversing, and learning (as one can learn only from a trained
imparter of information), three or four days passed quickly away and the
picture was done.
So far there has been nothing to strain credulity. But a time will
come--is, in fact, upon us.
On the evening of the last day, as the artist was sitting at early
dinner with a friend before catching the London train, his remarks
turned (as an artist's sometimes will) upon the work upon which he had
just been engaged. He expressed satisfaction with it in the main, but
could not, he said, help feeling that its chances of becoming a real
success would be sensibly increased if he could find as a model for the
central figure some one whose resemblance to Nelson was noticeable.
"It seems to be a law of nature," he went on, "that there cannot exist
at the same time--that is to say, among contemporaries--two faces
exactly alike. That is an axiom. Strange as it may sound, among all the
millions of countenances with two eyes, a nose in the middle and a mouth
below it, no two precisely resemble each other. There are differences,
however slight." (He was now beginning really to enjoy the sound of his
own voice.) "That is, as I say, among contemporaries: in the world at
the moment in which I am speaking. But," he continued, "I see no reason
why after the lapse of years Nature should not begin precisely to
reproduce physiognomies and so save herself the trouble of for ever
varying them. That being so, and surely the hypothesis is not too
far-fetched"--Here his friend said, "No, not at all--oh no!"--"that
being so, why," the artist continued, "should there not be at this
moment, more than a century later, some one whose resemblance to Nelson
is exact? He would not be necessarily a naval man--probably, indeed,
not, for Nelson's face was not characteristic of the sea--but whoever he
was, even if he were an archbishop, I," said the painter firmly, "should
not hesitate to go up to him and ask him to sit to me."
The friend agreed that this was a very proper attitude and that it
betokened true sincerity of purpose.
"Nelson's face," the painter continued, "was an uncommon one. So large
and so mobile a mouth is rare. But it is by no means impossible that a
duplicate exists, and no matter who was the owner of it, even were he an
archbishop, I should not hesitate to go up and ask him to sit to me."
(For the benefit of any feminine reader of this veracious history, I
should say that the repetition which she has just noticed is not a slip
on my part but has been carefully set down. It is an attempt to give
verisimilitude to the conversation--because men have a habit of saying
things like that twice.)
The friend again remarked that the painter's resolve did him infinite
credit, and the two started for the station, still conversing on this
theme.
On entering their carriage the first thing to take their attention was a
quiet little man in black, who was the absolute double of the hero of
Trafalgar.
"Good gracious!" whispered the painter excitedly, "do you see that?
There's the very man. The likeness to Nelson is astonishing. I never saw
anything like it. I don't care who he is, I must tackle him. It's the
most extraordinary chance that ever occurred."
Assuming his most silky and deferential manner--for, though clearly not
an archbishop, unless in mufti, this might yet be a person of
importance--the painter approached the stranger and tendered a card.
"I trust, sir, that you will excuse me," he began, "for the liberty I am
taking, but I am an artist and I happen to be engaged on a picture of
Nelson on the _Victory_. I have all the accessories and so forth, but
what I very seriously need is a brief sitting from some gentleman with a
likeness to the great Admiral. Such, sir, as yourself. It may be news to
you--it probably is--but you, sir, if I may say so, are so like the
famous and immortal warrior as almost to take one's breath away. It is
astonishing, wonderful! Might I--would it be--could you--would you, sir,
be so very kind as to allow me to paint you? I would, of course, make
every effort not to inconvenience you--I would arrange so that your time
should be mine."
"Of course I will, guvnor," said the man. "Being a professional model,
I've been sitting for Nelson for years. Why, I've been doing it for an
artist this very afternoon."
DAVY JONES
A naval gentleman of importance having asked me who the original Davy
Jones was, I was rendered mute and ashamed. The shame ought properly to
have been his, since he is in the Admiralty, where the secrets of the
sea should be known, and is covered with buttons and gold braid; but
there is caprice in these matters, and it is I (as a defaulting literary
person) who felt it.
I left with bent head, determined, directly I reached London and books
were again accessible, to find the answer. But have I found it? You
shall decide.
I began with a "Glossary of Sea Terms," which is glib enough about the
meaning of Davy Jones's locker but silent as to derivation. I passed on
to "The Oxford Dictionary," there to find the meaning more precisely
stated, after directions how to pronounce Davy's name. You or I would
assume that he should be pronounced as he is spelt: just Davy; but the
late Dr. Murray knew better. You don't say Davy; you say _Dee.vi_.
Having invented and solved these difficulties, the Dictionary proceeds:
"Nautical slang. The spirit of the sea, the sailor's devil. Davy Jones's
locker: the ocean, the deep, especially as the grave of those who perish
at sea." Among the authors cited is Smollett in "Peregrine Pickle," and
also one J. Willock, to whom I shall return later.
Still on the search for an origin of Davy Jones I went next to "The
Dictionary of National Biography" (which, if only you could get it
ashore, is, no matter what the pundits say as to the Bible and Boswell
and Plato and "The Golden Treasury," and so forth, the best book for a
desert island), and there I found no fewer than eight David Joneses, all
of course Welsh, not one of whom, however, could possibly claim any
connexion with our hero; three being hymn-writers and antiquaries, one a
revivalist, one a soldier and translator, one a barrister, one a
missionary to Madagascar (the only one who knew anything of the sea),
and one a mad preacher whose troubles caused his "coal-black hair to
turn milk-white in a night"--as mine seemed likely soon to do. However,
I then bethought me of what I should have done first, and seeking the
shelves where "Notes and Queries" reside was at once rewarded. For
"Notes and Queries" had tackled the problem and done with it as long ago
as 1851. On June 14 of that year Mr. Henry Campkin requested the little
paper (which, since Captain Cuttle provided it with its excellent motto,
should have a certain friendliness towards nautical questions) to help
him. Mr. Campkin, however, did not, as my Admiralty friend did, say, "By
the way, who the devil _was_ Davy Jones?" He asked, as a gentleman
should, in gentlemanly, if precise, terms: "Who was the important
individual whose name has become so powerful a myth? And what occasioned
the identification of the ocean itself with the locker of this
mysterious person?"
Mr. Campkin, who obviously should have occupied a seat in the House of
Commons, was answered in record time, much quicker than would be his
fortune to-day; for on June 21 Mr. Pemberton, the only reader of "Notes
and Queries" ever to take up the challenge, made his reply, and with
that reply our knowledge begins and ends. Mr. Pemberton said that being
himself a seafarer and having given much consideration to the question,
he had come at length to the conclusion that the name of Davy Jones was
derived from the prophet Jonah (who, of course, was not Welsh at all but
an Israelite). Jonah, if not exactly a sailor, had had his marine
adventures, and in his prayer thus refers to them: "The waters
compassed me about... the depth closed me round about; the weeds were
wrapped about my head," and so forth. The sea, then, Mr. Pemberton
continued, "might not be misappropriately termed by a rude mariner
Jonah's locker"; while Jonah would naturally soon be familiarised into
Jones, and since all Joneses hail from the country from whose valleys
and mountains Mr. Lloyd George derives his moving perorations, and since
most Welshmen (Mr. Lloyd George being no exception) are named Davy, how
natural that "Davy Jones" should emerge! That was Mr. Pemberton's
theory, and the only one which I have discovered; but I am sure that
Mrs. Gamp would support him--although she might prefer to substitute for
the word "locker" the word which comic military poets always rhyme to
"réveillé."
But, indeed, the more one thinks of it, the more reasonable does the
story seem; for, as Mr. Pemberton might have gone on to say, there is
further evidence for linking up Jonah and Jones in the genus of fish
which swallowed the prophet but failed to retain him. To a dialectician
of any parts the fatal association of whales and Wales would be child's
play. Later I found that Dr. Brewer of "The Dictionary of Phrase and
Fable" supports the Jonah theory whole-heartedly; but he goes on--to my
mind very unnecessarily--to derive "Davy" from "duffy," a West Indian
spirit. Thus, says he, Davy Jones's locker is really Duffy Jonah's
locker--that is, the bottom of the sea, or the place where the sailors
intended to consign Jonah. The confusion is rather comic. First, a man
of God whom the crew throws overboard. Secondly a fish, divinely sent to
save the man of God. Thirdly, the use of the man of God's name to
signify the sailor's devil, with himself as sinister ruler of an element
which he had the best reasons for hating. Thus do myths grow.
So much for Davy Jones. J. Willock, however, another of the authorities
whom "The Oxford Dictionary" cites, plunges us into a further mystery.
In one of his _Voyages_ he says: "The great bugbear of the ocean is
Davie Jones. At the crossing of the line they call out that Davie Jones
and his wife are coming on board...."
"And his wife"!
But with the identity of Mrs. Davy Jones I refuse to concern myself--not
even though the whole Board of Admiralty command it.
THE MAN OF ROSS
I have several reasons for remembering Ross, but the first is that a
visit to that grey hillside town sent me to the authorities for more
particulars concerning John Kyrle. Others are the intensity and density
of the rain that can fall in Herefordshire; the sundial on Wilton
Bridge; and the most elementary Roman Catholic chapel I ever
saw--nothing but a bare room--made, however, when I pushed open the door
on that chill and aqueous afternoon, cheerful and smiling by its full
complement of votive candles all alight at once. In the honour of what
Saint they burned so gaily, like a little mass meeting of flames, I
cannot say, but probably the Gentle Spirit of Padua, who not only
befriends all tender young things but, it is notorious, if properly
approached, can find again whatever you have lost; and most people have
lost something. I remember Ross also because I had Dickens's Letters
(that generous feast) with me, and behold! on the wall of the hotel,
whose name I forget but which overlooks the sinuous Wye, was his
autograph and an intimation that under that very roof the novelist had
arranged with John Forster the details of his last American tour.
But these are digressions. The prime boast of Ross is that it had a Man;
and this Man is immanent. You cannot raise your eyes in Ross without
encountering a reminder of its Manhood, its Manliness; and the
uninstructed, as they wander hither and thither, naturally become more
and more curious as to his identity: how he obtained the definite
article and the capital M so definitely--The Man--and what was his
association with the place.
I cannot lay claim personally to total uninstruction
|
,
for if he is pale, it is not from having drunk wine, but for want
of drinking enough, from which cause he is so loosened that if he is
not stopped his very soul will escape by streams into his shoes."
"The poor we have always with us," said the provost, taking a deep
draught of wine from his tankard. "But tell me, my son, if thou,
who hast the eyes of a lynx, hast not seen the robbers?"
"I will keep good watch for them, Messire Provost," replied
Ulenspiegel.
"May God have you both in his joy, my children," said the provost,
"and live soberly. For it is from intemperance that many evils come
upon us in this vale of tears. Go in peace."
And he blessed them.
And he sucked another marrow bone in soup, and drank another great
draught of wine.
Ulenspiegel and Pompilius went out from him.
"This scurvy fellow," said Ulenspiegel, "would not have given you a
single drop of his wine to drink. It will be blessed bread to steal
more from him still. But what ails you that you are shivering?"
"My shoes are full of water," said Pompilius.
"Water dries quickly, my son," said Ulenspiegel. "But be merry,
to-night there will be flagon music in the Ketel-straat. And we will
fill up the three night watchmen, who will watch the town with snores."
Which was done.
However, they were close to Saint Martin's day: the church was adorned
for the feast. Ulenspiegel and Pompilius went in by night, shut the
doors close, lit all the wax candles, took a viol and bagpipe, and
began to play on these instruments all they might. And the candles
flared like suns. But that was not all. Their task being done, they
went to the provost, whom they found afoot, in spite of the late hour,
munching a thrush, drinking Rhenish wine and opening both eyes to
see the church windows lit up.
"Messire Provost," said Ulenspiegel to him, "would you know who eats
your meats and drinks your wines?"
"And this illumination," said the provost, pointing to the windows
of the church. "Ah! Lord God, dost thou allow Master Saint Martin
thus to burn, by night and without paying, poor monks' wax candles?"
"He is doing something besides, Messire Provost," said Ulenspiegel,
"but come."
The provost took his crozier and followed with them; they went into
the church.
There, he saw, in the middle of the great nave, all the saints come
down from their niches, ranged round and as it seemed commanded
by Saint Martin, who out-topped them all by a head, and from the
forefinger of his hand, outstretched to bless, held up a roast
turkey. The others had in their hands or were lifting to their mouths
pieces of chicken or goose, sausages, hams, fish raw and cooked,
and among other things a pike weighing full fourteen pounds. And
every one had at his feet a flask of wine.
At this sight the provost, losing himself wholly in anger, became
so red and his face was so congested, that Pompilius and Ulenspiegel
thought he would burst, but the provost, without paying any heed to
them, went straight up to Saint Martin, threatening him as if he would
have laid the crime of the others to his charge, tore the turkey away
from his finger and struck him such heavy blows that he broke his arm,
his nose, his crozier, and his mitre.
As for the others, he did not spare them bangs and thumps, and more
than one under his blows laid aside arms, hands, mitre, crozier,
scythe, axes, gridirons, saw, and other emblems of dignity and of
martyrdom. Then the provost, his belly shaking in front of him,
went himself to put out all the candles with rage and speed.
He carried away all he could of hams, fowl, and sausages, and bending
beneath the load he came back to his bedchamber so doleful and angry
that he drank, draught upon draught, three great flasks of wine.
Ulenspiegel, being well assured that he was sleeping, took away to
the Ketel-straat all the provost thought he had rescued, and also
all that remained in the church, not without first supping on the
best pieces. And they laid the remains and fragments at the feet of
the saints.
Next day Pompilius was ringing the bell for matins; Ulenspiegel went
up into the provost's sleeping chamber and asked him to come down
once more into the church.
There, showing him the broken pieces of saints and fowls, he said
to him:
"Messire Provost, you did all in vain, they have eaten all the same."
"Aye," replied the provost, "they have come up to my sleeping chamber,
like robbers, and taken what I had saved. Ah, master saints, I will
complain to the Pope about this."
"Aye," replied Ulenspiegel, "but the procession is the day after
to-morrow, the workmen will presently be coming into the church: if
they see there all these poor mutilated saints, are you not afraid
of being accused of iconoclasm?"
"Ah! Master Saint Martin," said the provost, "spare me the fire,
I knew not what I did!"
Then turning to Ulenspiegel, while the timid bellringer was swinging
to his bells:
"They could never," said he, "between now and Sunday, mend Saint
Martin. What am I to do, and what will the people say?"
"Messire," answered Ulenspiegel, "we must employ an innocent
subterfuge. We shall glue on a beard on the face of Pompilius; it is
always respectable, being always melancholic; we shall dight him up
with the Saint's mitre, alb, amice, and great cloak; we shall enjoin
upon him to stand well and fast on his pedestal, and the people will
take him for the wooden Saint Martin."
The provost went to Pompilius who was swaying on the ropes.
"Cease to ring," said he, "and listen to me: would you earn fifteen
ducats? On Sunday, the day of the procession, you shall be Saint
Martin. Ulenspiegel will get you up properly, and if when you are borne
by your four men you make one movement or utter one word, I will have
you boiled alive in oil in the great caldron the executioner has just
had built on the market square."
"Monseigneur, I give you thanks," said Pompilius; "but you know that
I find it hard to contain my water."
"You must obey," replied the provost.
"I shall obey, Monseigneur," said Pompilius, very pitifully.
VII
Next day, in bright sunshine, the procession issued forth from the
church. Ulenspiegel had, as best he could, patched up the twelve saints
that balanced themselves on their pedestals between the banners of
the guilds, then came the statue of Our Lady; then the daughters of
the Virgin all clad in white and singing anthems; then the archers
and crossbowmen; then the nearest to the dais and swaying more than
the others, Pompilius sinking under the heavy accoutrements of Master
Saint Martin.
Ulenspiegel, having provided himself with itching powder, had himself
clothed Pompilius with his episcopal costume, had put on his gloves and
given him his crozier and taught him the Latin fashion of blessing the
people. He had also helped the priests to clothe themselves. On some
he put their stole, on others their amice, on the deacons the alb. He
ran hither and thither through the church, restoring the folds of
doublet or breeches. He admired and praised the well-furbished weapons
of the crossbowmen, and the formidable bows of the confraternity of
the archers. And on everyone he poured, on ruff, on back or wrist,
a pinch of itching powder. But the dean and the four bearers of Saint
Martin were those that got most of it. As for the daughters of the
Virgin, he spared them for the sake of their sweetness and grace.
The procession went forth, banners in the wind, ensigns displayed,
in goodly order. Men and women crossed themselves as they saw it
passing. And the sun shone hot.
The dean was the first to feel the effect of the powder, and scratched
a little behind his ear. All, priests, archers, crossbowmen, were
scratching neck, legs, wrists, without daring to do it openly. The
four bearers were scratching, too, but the bellringer, itching worse
than any, for he was more exposed to the hot sun, did not dare even
to budge for fear of being boiled alive. Screwing up his nose, he
made an ugly grimace and trembled on his tottery legs, for he nearly
fell every time his bearers scratched themselves.
But he did not dare to move, and let his water go through fear,
and the bearers said:
"Great Saint Martin, is it going to rain now?"
The priests were singing a hymn to Our Lady.
"Si de coe... coe... coe... lo descenderes
O sanc... ta... ta... ta... Ma... ma... ria."
For their voices shook because of the itching, which became excessive,
but they scratched themselves modestly and parsimoniously. Even so
the dean and the four bearers of Saint Martin had their necks and
wrists torn to pieces. Pompilius stayed absolutely still, tottering
on his poor legs, which were itching the most.
But lo on a sudden all the crossbowmen, archers, deacons,
priests, dean, and the bearers of Saint Martin stopped to scratch
themselves. The powder made the soles of Pompilius's feet itch,
but he dared not budge for fear of falling.
And the curious said that Saint Martin rolled very fierce eyes and
showed a very threatening mien to the poor populace.
Then the dean started the procession going again.
Soon the hot sun that was falling straight down on all these
processional backs and bellies made the effect of the powder
intolerable.
And then priests, archers, crossbowmen, deacons, and dean were seen,
like a troop of apes, stopping and scratching shamelessly wherever
they itched.
The daughters of the Virgin sang their hymn, and it was as the angels'
singing, all those fresh pure voices mounting towards the sky.
All went off wherever and however they could: the dean, still
scratching, rescued the Holy Sacrament; the pious people carried the
relics into the church; Saint Martin's four bearers threw Pompilius
roughly on the ground. There, not daring to scratch, move, or speak,
the poor bellringer shut his eyes devoutly.
Two lads would have carried him away, but finding him too heavy, they
stood him upright against a wall, and there Pompilius shed big tears.
The populace assembled round about him; the women had gone to fetch
handkerchiefs of fine white linen and wiped his face to preserve his
tears as relics, and said to him: "Monseigneur, how hot you are!"
The bellringer looked at them piteously, and in spite of himself,
made grimaces with his nose.
But as the tears were rolling copiously from his eyes, the women said:
"Great Saint Martin, are you weeping for the sins of the town of
Ypres? Is not that your honoured nose moving? Yet we have followed the
counsel of Louis Vivès and the poor of Ypres will have wherewithal to
work and wherewithal to eat. Oh! the big tears! They are pearls. Our
salvation is here."
The men said:
"Must we, great Saint Martin, pull down the Ketel-straat in our
town? But teach us above all ways of preventing poor girls from going
out at night and so falling into a thousand adventures."
Suddenly the people cried out:
"Here is the beadle!"
Ulenspiegel then came up, and taking Pompilius round the body, carried
him off on his shoulders followed by the crowd of devout men and women.
"Alas!" said the poor ringer, whispering in his ear, "I shall die of
itch, my son."
"Keep stiff," answered Ulenspiegel; "do you forget that you are a
wooden saint?"
He ran on at full speed and set down Pompilius before the provost
who was currying himself with his nails till the blood came.
"Bellringer," said the provost, "have you scratched yourself like us?"
"No, Messire," answered Pompilius.
"Have you spoken or moved?"
"No, Messire," replied Pompilius.
"Then," said the provost, "you shall have your fifteen ducats. Now
go and scratch yourself."
VIII
The next day, the people, having learned from Ulenspiegel what had
happened, said it was a wicked mockery to make them worship as a
saint a whining fellow who could not hold in his water.
And many became heretics. And setting out with all their goods,
they hastened to swell the prince's army.
Ulenspiegel returned towards Liége.
Being alone in the wood he sat down and pondered. Looking at the
bright sky, he said:
"War, always war, so that the Spanish enemy may slay the poor people,
pillage our goods, violate our wives and daughters. And all the while
our goodly money goes, and our blood flows in rivers without profit
to any one, except for this royal churl that would fain add another
jewel of authority to his crown. A jewel that he imagines glorious,
a jewel of blood, a jewel of smoke. Ah! if I could jewel thee as I
desire, there would be none but flies to desire thy company."
As he thought on these things he saw pass before him a whole herd of
stags. There were some among them old and tall, with their dowcets
still, and proudly wearing their antlers with nine points. Graceful
brockets, which are their squires, trotted alongside them seeming all
prepared to give them succour with their pointed horns. Ulenspiegel
knew not where they were going, but judged that it was to their lair.
"Ah!" said he, "old stags and graceful brockets, ye are going, merry
and proud, into the depths of the woodland to your lair, eating
the young shoots, snuffling up the balmy scents, happy until the
hunter-murderer shall come. Even so with us, old stags and brockets!"
And the ashes of Claes beat upon Ulenspiegel's breast.
IX
In September, when the gnats cease from biting, the Silent One, with
six field guns and four great cannon to talk for him, and fourteen
thousand Flemings, Walloons, and Germans, crossed the Rhine at
Saint Vyt.
Under the yellow-and-red ensigns of the knotty staff of Burgundy, a
staff that bruised our countries for long, the rod of the beginning of
servitude that Alba wielded, the bloody duke, there marched twenty-six
thousand five hundred men, and rumbled along seventeen field pieces
and nine big guns.
But the Silent One was not to have any good success in this war,
for Alba continually refused battle.
And his brother Ludwig, the Bayard of Flanders, after many cities
won, and many ships held to ransom on the Rhine, lost at Jemmingen
in Frisia to the duke's son sixteen guns, fifteen hundred horses,
and twenty ensigns, all through certain cowardly mercenary troops,
who demanded money when it was the hour of battle.
And through ruin, blood, and tears, Ulenspiegel vainly sought the
salvation of the land of our fathers.
And the executioners throughout the countries were hanging, beheading,
burning the poor innocent victims.
And the king was inheriting.
X
Going through the Walloon country, Ulenspiegel saw that the prince
had no succour to hope for thence, and so he came up to the town
of Bouillon.
Little by little he saw appearing on the road more and more hunchbacks
of every age, sex, and condition. All of them, equipped with large
rosaries, were devoutly telling their beads on them.
And their prayers were as the croakings of frogs in a pond at night
when the weather is warm.
There were hunchback mothers carrying hunchback children, whilst
other children of the same brood clung to their skirts. And there were
hunchbacks on the hills and hunchbacks in the plains. And everywhere
Ulenspiegel saw their thin silhouettes standing out against the
clear sky.
He went to one and said to him:
"Whither go all these poor men, women, and children?"
The man replied:
"We are going to the tomb of Master Saint Remacle to pray him that
he will grant what our hearts desire, by taking from off our backs
his lump of humiliation."
Ulenspiegel rejoined:
"Could Master Saint Remacle give me also what my heart desireth,
by taking from off the back of the poor communes the bloody duke,
who weighs upon them like a leaden hump?"
"He hath not charge to remove humps of penance," replied the pilgrim.
"Did he remove others?" asked Ulenspiegel.
"Aye, when the humps are young. If then the miracle of healing takes
place, we hold revel and feasting throughout all the town. And every
pilgrim gives a piece of silver, and oftentimes a gold florin to the
happy one that is cured, becomes a saint thereby and with power to
pray with efficacy for the others."
Ulenspiegel said:
"Why doeth the wealthy Master Saint Remacle, like a rascal apothecary,
make folk pay for his cures?"
"Impious tramp, he punishes blasphemers!" replied the pilgrim,
shaking his hump in fury.
"Alas!" groaned Ulenspiegel.
And he fell doubled up at the foot of a tree.
The pilgrim, looking down on him, said:
"Master Saint Remacle smites hard when he smites."
Ulenspiegel bent up his back, and scratching at it, whined:
"Glorious saint, take pity. It is chastisement. I feel between my
shoulder bones a bitter agony. Alas! O! O! Pardon, Master Saint
Remacle. Go, pilgrim, go, leave me here alone, like a parricide,
to weep and to repent."
But the pilgrim had fled away as far as the Great Square of Bouillon,
where all the hunchbacks were gathered.
There, shivering with fear, he told them, speaking brokenly:
"Met a pilgrim as straight as a poplar... a blaspheming pilgrim
... hump on his back... a burning hump!"
The pilgrims, hearing this, they gave vent to a thousand joyful
outcries, saying:
"Master Saint Remacle, if you give humps, you can take them away. Take
away our humps, Master Saint Remacle!"
Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel left his tree. Passing through the empty suburb,
he saw, at the low door of a tavern, two bladders swinging from a
stick, pigs' bladders, hung up in this fashion as a sign of a fair
of black puddings, panch kermis as they say in the country of Brabant.
Ulenspiegel took one of the two bladders, picked up from the ground
the backbone of a schol, which the French call dried plaice, drew
blood from himself, made some blood run into the bladder, blew it
up, sealed it, put it on his back, and on it placed the backbone of
the schol. Thus equipped, with his back arched, his head wagging,
and his legs tottering like an old humpback, he came out on the square.
The pilgrim that had witnessed his fall saw him and cried out:
"Here is the blasphemer!"
And pointed to him with his finger. And all ran to see the afflicted
one.
Ulenspiegel nodded his head piteously.
"Ah!" said he, "I deserve neither grace nor pity; slay me like a
mad dog."
And the humpbacks, rubbing their hands, said:
"One more in our fraternity."
Ulenspiegel, muttering between his teeth: "I will make you pay for
that, evil ones," appeared to endure all patiently, and said:
"I will neither eat nor drink, even to fortify my hump, until Master
Saint Remacle has deigned to heal me even as he has smitten me."
At the rumour of the miracle the dean came out of the church. He was
a tall man, portly and majestic. Nose in wind, he clove the sea of
the hunchbacks like a ship.
They pointed out Ulenspiegel; he said to him:
"Is it thou, good fellow, that the scourge of Saint Remacle has
smitten?"
"Yea, Messire Dean," replied Ulenspiegel, "it is indeed I his humble
worshipper who would fain be cured of his new hump, if it please him."
The dean, smelling some trick under this speech:
"Let me," said he, "feel this hump."
"Feel it, Messire," answered Ulenspiegel.
And having done so, the dean:
"It is," said he, "of recent date and wet. I hope, however, that
Master Saint Remacle will be pleased to act pitifully. Follow me."
Ulenspiegel followed the dean and went into the church. The humpbacks,
walking behind him, cried out: "Behold the accursed! Behold the
blasphemer! What doth it weigh, thy fresh hump? Wilt thou make a bag
of it to put thy patacoons in? Thou didst mock at us all thy life
because thou wast straight: now it is our turn. Glory be to Master
Saint Remacle!"
Ulenspiegel, without uttering a word, bending his head, still
following the dean, went into a little chapel where there was a tomb
all marble covered with a great flat slab also of marble. Between
the tomb and the chapel wall there was not the space of the span of
a large hand. A crowd of humpbacked pilgrims, following one another
in single file, passed between the wall and the slab of the tomb,
on which they rubbed their humps in silence. And thus they hoped to
be delivered. And those that were rubbing their humps were loath to
give place to those that had not yet rubbed theirs, and they fought
together, but without any noise, only daring to strike sly blows,
humpbacks' blows, because of the holiness of the place.
The dean bade Ulenspiegel get up on the flat top of the tomb,
that all the pilgrims might see him plainly. Ulenspiegel replied:
"I cannot get up by myself."
The dean helped him up and stationed himself beside him, bidding
him kneel down. Ulenspiegel did so and remained in this posture,
with head hanging.
The dean then, having meditated, preached and said in a sonorous voice:
"Sons and brothers of Jesus Christ, ye see at my feet the greatest
child of impiety, vagabond, and blasphemer that Saint Remacle hath
ever smitten with his anger."
And Ulenspiegel, beating upon his breast, said: "Confiteor."
"Once," went on the dean, "he was straight as a halberd shaft, and
gloried in it. See him now, humpbacked and bowed under the stroke of
the celestial curse."
"Confiteor, take away my hump," said Ulenspiegel.
"Yea," went on the dean, "yea, mighty saint, Master Saint Remacle,
who since thy glorious death hast performed nine and thirty miracles,
take away from his shoulders the weight that loads them down. And may
we, for this boon, sing thy praises from everlasting to everlasting,
in saecula saeculorum. And peace on earth to humpbacks of good will."
And the humpbacks said in chorus:
"Yea, yea, peace on earth to humpbacks of good will: humpbacks' peace,
truce to the deformed, amnesty of humiliation. Take away our humps,
Master Saint Remacle!"
The dean bade Ulenspiegel descend from the tomb, and rub his hump
against the edge of the slab. Ulenspiegel did so, ever repeating:
"Mea culpa, confiteor, take away my hump." And he rubbed it thoroughly
in sight and knowledge of those that stood by.
And these cried aloud:
"Do ye see the hump? it bends! see you, it gives way! it will melt away
on the right"--"No, it will go back into the breast; humps do not melt,
they go down again into the intestines from which they come"--"No,
they return into the stomach where they serve as nourishment for
eighty days"--"It is the saint's gift to humpbacks that are rid of
them"--"Where do the old humps go?"
Suddenly all the humpbacks gave a loud cry, for Ulenspiegel had just
burst his hump leaning hard against the edge of the flat tomb top. All
the blood that was in it fell, dripping from his doublet in big drops
upon the stone flags. And he cried out, straightening himself up and
stretching out his arms:
"I am rid of it!"
And all the humpbacks began to call out together:
"Master Saint Remacle the blessed, it is kind to him, but hard to
us"--"Master, take away our humps, ours too!"--"I, I will give
thee a calf."--"I, seven sheep."--"I, the year's hunting."--"I,
six hams."--"I, I will give my cottage to the Church"--"Take away
our humps, Master Saint Remacle!"
And they looked on Ulenspiegel with envy and with respect. One would
have felt under his doublet, but the dean said to him:
"There is a wound that may not see the light."
"I will pray for you," said Ulenspiegel.
"Aye, Pilgrim," said the humpbacks, speaking all together, "aye,
master, thou that hast been made straight again, we made a mock of
thee; forgive it us, we knew not what we did. Monseigneur Christ
forgave when on the cross; give us all forgiveness."
"I will forgive," said Ulenspiegel benevolently.
"Then," said they, "take this patard, accept this florin, permit us
to give this real to Your Straightness, to offer him this cruzado,
put these carolus in his hands...."
"Hide up your carolus," said Ulenspiegel, whispering, "let not your
left hand know what your right hand is giving."
And this he said because of the dean who was devouring with his eyes
the humpbacks' money, without seeing whether it was gold or silver.
"Thanks be unto thee, sanctified sir," said the humpbacks to
Ulenspiegel.
And he accepted their gifts proudly as a man of a miracle.
But greedy ones were rubbing away with their humps on the tomb without
saying a word.
Ulenspiegel went at night to a tavern where he held revel and feast.
Before going to bed, thinking that the dean would want to have his
share of the booty, if not all, he counted up his gain, and found more
gold than silver, for he had in it fully three hundred carolus. He
noted a withered bay tree in a pot, took it by the hair of its head,
plucked up the plant and the earth, and put the gold underneath. All
the demi-florins, patards, and patacoons were spread out upon the
table.
The dean came to the tavern and went up to Ulenspiegel.
The latter, seeing him:
"Messire Dean," said he, "what would you of my poor self?"
"Nothing but thy good, my son," replied he.
"Alas!" groaned Ulenspiegel, "is it that which you see on the table?"
"The same," replied the dean.
Then putting out his hand, he swept the table clean of all the money
that was upon it and dropped it into a bag destined for it.
And he gave a florin to Ulenspiegel, who pretended to groan and whine.
And he asked for the implements of the miracle.
Ulenspiegel showed him the schol bone and the bladder.
The dean took them while Ulenspiegel bemoaned himself, imploring him
to be good enough to give him more, saying that the way was long from
Bouillon to Damme, for him a poor footpassenger, and that beyond a
doubt he would die of hunger.
The dean went away without uttering a word.
Being left alone, Ulenspiegel went to sleep with his eye on the bay
tree. Next day at dawn, having picked up his booty, he went away
from Bouillon and went to the camp of the Silent One, handed over the
money to him and recounted the story, saying it was the true method
of levying contributions of war from the enemy.
And the Prince gave him ten florins.
As for the schol bone, it was enshrined in a crystal casket and placed
between the arms of the cross on the principal altar at Bouillon.
And everyone in the town knows that what the cross encloses is the
hump of the blasphemer who was made straight.
XI
The Silent One, being in the neighbourhood of Liége, made marches
and countermarches before crossing the Meuse, thus misleading the
duke's vigilance.
Ulenspiegel, schooling himself to his duties as a soldier, became
very dexterous in handling the wheel-locked arquebus and kept his
eyes and ears well open.
At this time there came to the camp Flemish and Brabant nobles,
who lived on good terms with the lords, colonels, and captains in
the following of the Silent One.
Soon two parties formed in the camp, eternally quarrelling and
disputing, the one side saying: "the Prince is a traitor," the other
answering that the accusers lied in their throat and that they would
make them swallow their lie. Distrust spread and grew like a spot of
oil. They came to blows in groups of six, of eight, or a dozen men;
fighting with every weapon of single combat, even with arquebuses.
One day the prince came up at the noise, marching between two
parties. A bullet carried away his sword from his side. He put an end
to the combat and visited the whole camp to show himself, that it might
not be said: "The Silent One is dead, and the war is dead with him."
The next day, towards midnight, in misty weather, Ulenspiegel being
on the point of coming out from a house where he had been to sing a
Flemish love song to a Walloon girl, heard at the door of the cottage
beside the house a raven's croak thrice repeated. Other croakings
answered from a distance, thrice by thrice. A country churl came to
the door of the cottage. Ulenspiegel heard footsteps on the highway.
Two men, speaking Spanish, came to the rustic, who said to them in
the same tongue:
"What have you done?"
"A good piece of work," said they, "lying for the king. Thanks to us,
captains and soldiermen say to one another in distrust:
"'It is through vile ambition that the prince is resisting the king; he
is but waiting to be feared by him and to receive cities and lordships
as a pledge of peace; for five hundred thousand florins he will abandon
the valiant lords that are fighting for the countries. The duke has
offered him a full amnesty with a promise and an oath to restore
to their estates himself and all the highest leaders of the army,
if they would re-enter into obedience to the king. Orange means to
treat with him alone by himself.'
"The partisans of the Silent One answered us:
"'The duke's offer is a treacherous trap. He will pay them no heed,
recalling the fate of Messieurs d'Egmont and de Hoorn. Well they know
it, Cardinal de Granvelle, being at Rome, said at the time of the
capture of the Counts: "They take the two gudgeons, but they leave
the pike; they have taken nothing since the Silent remains still
to take."'"
"Is the variance great in the camp?" said the rustic.
"Great is the variance," said they: "greater every day. Where are
the letters?"
They went into the cottage, where a lantern was lighted. There, peeping
through a little skylight, Ulenspiegel saw them open two missives,
read them with much satisfaction and pleasure, drink hydromel, and
at last depart, saying to the rustic in Spanish:
"Camp divided, Orange taken. That will be a good lemonade."
"Those fellows," said Ulenspiegel, "cannot be allowed to live."
They went out into the thick mist. Ulenspiegel saw the rustic bring
them a lantern, which they took with them.
The light of the lantern being often intercepted by a black shape,
he took it that they were walking one behind the other.
He primed his arquebus and fired at the black shape. He then saw
the lantern lowered and raised several times, and judged that, one
of the two being down, the other was endeavouring to see the nature
of his wound. He primed his arquebus again. Then the lantern going
forward alone, swiftly and swinging and in the direction of the camp,
he fired once more. The lantern staggered about, then fell, and there
was darkness.
Running towards the camp, he saw the provost coming out with a crowd
of soldiers awakened by the noise of the shots. Ulenspiegel, accosting
them, said:
"I am the hunter, go and pick up the game."
"Jolly Fleming," said the provost, "you speak otherwise than with
your tongue."
"Tongue talk, 'tis wind," replied Ulenspiegel. "Lead talk remains in
the bodies of the traitors. But follow me."
He brought them, furnished with their lanterns, to the place where
the two were fallen. And they beheld them indeed, stretched out on
the earth, one dead, the other in the death rattle and holding his
hand on his breast, where there was a letter crushed and crumpled in
the last effort of his life.
They carried away the bodies, which they recognized by their garments
as bodies of nobles, and thus came with their lanterns to the prince,
interrupted at council with Frederic of Hollenhausen, the Markgrave
of Hesse, and other lords.
Followed by landsknechts, reiters, green jackets and yellow jackets,
they came before the tent of the Silent, shouting requests that he
would receive them.
He came from the tent. Then, taking the word from the provost who
was coughing and preparing to accuse him, Ulenspiegel said:
"Monseigneur, I have killed two traitor nobles of your train, instead
of ravens."
Then he recounted what he had seen, heard, and done.
The Silent said not a word. The two bodies were searched, there
being present himself, William of Orange, the Silent, Frederic de
Hollenhausen, the Markgrave of Hesse, Dieterich de Schooenbergh,
Count Albert of Nassau, the Count de Hoogstraeten, Antoine de Lalaing,
the Governor of Malines; the troopers, and Lamme Goedzak trembling
in his great paunch. Sealed letters from Granvelle and Noircarmes
were found upon the gentlemen, enjoining upon them to sow dissension
in the prince's train, in order to diminish his strength by so much,
to force him to yield, and to deliver him to the duke to be beheaded
in accordance with his deserts. "It was essential," said the letters,
"to proceed subtly and by veiled speech, so that the people in the army
might believe that the Silent had already, for his own personal profit,
come to a private agreement with the duke. His captains and soldiers,
being angry, would make him a prisoner. For reward a draft on the
Függers of
|
posterity feels at ev'ry weather.
MIDDLETON.
* * * * *
PARENTS.
From damned deeds abstain,
From lawless riots and from pleasure's vain;
If not regarding of thy own degree,
Yet in behalf of thy posterity.
For we are docible to imitate.
Depraved pleasures though degenerate.
Be careful therefore least thy son admit
By ear or eye things filthy or unfit.
LODGE.
* * * * *
SIN.
Shame follows sin, disgrace is daily given,
Impiety will out, never so closely done,
No walls can hide us from the eye of heaven,
For shame must end what wickedness begun,
Forth breaks reproach when we least think thereon.
DANIELL.
* * * * *
WISDOM.
A wise man poor
Is like a sacred book that's never read,
T' himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.
This age thinks better of a gilded fool,
Than of thread-bare saint in Wisdom's school
DEKKAR.
* * * * *
CHARITY.
She was a woman in the freshest age,
Of wondrous beauty, and of bounty rare,
With goodly grace, and comely personage.
That was on earth not easy to compare,
Full of great love; but Cupid's wanton snare
As hell she hated, chaste in work and will,
Her neck and breast were ever open bare,
That aye thereof her babes might suck their fill,
The rest was all in yellow robes arrayed still,
A multitude of babes about her hung,
Playing their sports that joyed her to behold,
Whom still she fed, while they were weak and young,
But thrust them forth still as they waxed old,
And on her head she wore a tire of gold;
Adorn'd with gems and ouches fair,
Whose passing price unneath was to be told,
And by her side there sat a gentle pair
Of turtle-doves, she sitting in an ivory chair.
SPENSER.
* * * * *
It is a work of Charity God knows,
The reconcilement of two mortal foes.
MIDDLETON.
* * * * *
COURAGE.
When the air is calm and still, as dead and deaf
And under heaven quakes not an aspen leaf:
When seas are calm and thousand vessels fleet
Upon the sleeping seas with passage sweet;
And when the variant wind is still and lone
The cunning pilot never can be known:
But when the cruel storm doth threat the bark
To drown in deeps of pits infernal dark,
While tossing tears both rudder, mast, and sail,
While mounting, seems the azure skies to scale,
While drives perforce upon some deadly shore,
There is the pilot known, and not before.
T. HUDSON.
* * * * *
ENVY.
The knotty oak and wainscot old,
Within doth eat the silly worm:
Even so a mind in envy cold,
Always within itself doth burn.
FITZ JEFFRY.
* * * * *
OPINION.
Opinion is as various as light change,
Now speaking courtlike, friendly, straight as strange,
She's any humour's perfect parasite,
Displeas'd with her, and pleas'd with her delight.
She is the echo of inconstancy,
Soothing her no with nay, her ay with yea.
GUILPIN.
* * * * *
SLANDER.
Happy is he that lives in such a sort
That need not fear the tongues of false report.
EARL OF SURREY.
* * * * *
SLEEP.
By care lay heavy Sleep the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone;
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath,
Small keep took he whom Fortune frown'd on,
Or whom she lifted up into a throne
Of high renown; but as a living death
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.
SACKVILLE.
* * * * *
WAR.
War the mistress of enormity,
Mother of mischief, monster of deformity,
Laws, manners, arts, she breaks, she mars, she chases,
Blood, tears, bowers, towers, she spills, smites, burns, and rases,
Her brazen teeth shake all the earth asunder;
Her mouth a fire brand, her voice is thunder;
Her looks are lightning, every glance a flash,
Her fingers guns, that all to powder plash,
Fear and despair, flight and disorder, coast
With hasty march before her murderous host,
As burning, rape, waste, wrong, impiety,
Rage, ruin, discord, horror, cruelty,
Sack, sacrilege, impunity, pride.
Are still stern consorts by her barbarous side;
And poverty, sorrow, and desolation,
Follow her army's bloody transmigration.
SYLVESTER.
* * * * *
EXCELLENCE.
Of all chaste birds the phoenix doth excel,
Of all strong beasts the lion bears the bell,
Of all sweet flowers the rose doth sweetest smell.
Of all pure metals gold is only purest,
Of all the trees the pine hath highest crest.
Of all proud birds the eagle pleaseth Jove,
Of pretty fowls kind Venus likes the dove,
Of trees Minerva doth the olive move.
LODGE.
* * * * *
THE NATURALIST.
COCHINEAL INSECT AND PLANT.
[Illustration: COCHINEAL INSECT AND PLANT.]
The frequent mention of the Cochineal Insect and Plant in our pages
will, probably, render the annexed cut of more than ordinary interest
to our readers.[3]
[3] See the Propagation of the Insect in Spain, MIRROR, vol. xii.
and an attempt to naturalize the same at the Cambridge Botanical
Garden, page 217, of the present volume.
The plant on which the Cochineal Insect is found, is called the _Nopal_,
a species of Opuntia, or Prickly Pear, which abounds on all the coasts
of the Mediterranean; and is thus described by Mr. Thompson, in his work
entitled, _Official Visit to Guatemala;_ "The nopal is a plant
consisting of little stems, but expanding itself into wide, thick
leaves, more or less prickly according to its different kind: one or two
of these leaves being set as one plant, at the distance of two or three
feet square from each other, are inoculated with the cochineal, which, I
scarcely need say, is an insect; it is the same as if you would take the
blight off an apple or other common tree, and rub a small portion of it
on another tree free from the contagion, when the consequence would be,
that the tree so inoculated would become covered with the blight; a
small quantity of the insects in question is sufficient for each plant,
which in proportion as it increases its leaves, is sure to be covered
with this costly parasite. When the plant is perfectly saturated, the
cochineal is scraped off with great care. The plants are not very
valuable for the first year, but they may be estimated as yielding after
the second year, from a dollar and a half profit on each plant."
The insect is famous for the fine scarlet dye which it communicates to
wool and silk. The females yield the best colour, and are in number to
the males as three hundred to one. Cochineal was at first supposed to
be a grain, which name it retains by way of eminence among dyers, but
naturalists soon discovered it to be an insect. Its present importance
in dyeing is an excellent illustration of chemistry applied to the arts;
for long after its introduction, it gave but a dull kind of _crimson_,
till a chemist named Kuster, who settled at Bow, near London, about the
middle of the sixteenth century, discovered the use of the solution of
tin, and the means of preparing with it and cochineal, a durable and
beautiful scarlet.
Fine cochineal, which has been well dried and properly kept, ought to
be of a grey colour inclining to purple. The grey is owing to a powder
which covers it naturally, a part of which it still retains; the purple
tinge proceeds from the colour extracted by the water in which it has
been killed. Cochineal will keep a long time in a dry place. Hellot
says, that he tried some one hundred and thirty years old, and found it
produce the same effect as new.
* * * * *
LARGE CHESTNUT-TREE.
There is now in the neigbourhood of Dovercourt, in Essex, upon the
estate of Sir T. Gaisford, a chestnut-tree fifty-six feet in
circumference, which flourishes well, and has had a very good crop of
chestnuts for many years.
J.T.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
* * * * *
I'D BE AN ALDERMAN
I'd be an Alderman, born in the City,
Where haunches of venison and green turtles meet
Seeking in Leadenliall, reckless of pity,
Birds, beast, and fish, that the knowing ones eat
I'd never languish for want of a luncheon.
I'd never grieve for the want of a treat;
I'd be an Alderman, constantly munching,
Where haunches of venison and green turtles meet.
Oh! could I wheedle the votes at the vestry,
I'd have a share of those good sav'ry things;
Enchained by turkey, in love with the pastry.
And floating in Champagne, while Bow bells ring.
Those who are cautious are skinny and fretful,
Hunger, alas! naught but ill-humour brings;
I'd be an Alderman, rich with a net full,
Rolling in Guildhall, whilst old Bow bells ring.
What though you tell me that prompt apoplexy
Grins o'er the glories of Lord Mayor's Day,
'Tis better, my boy, than blue devils to vex ye,
Or ling'ring consumption to gnaw you away.
Some in their folly take black-draught and blue-pill,
And ask ABERNETHY their fate to delay;
I'd he an Alderman, WAITHMAN'S apt pupil,
Failing when dinner things are clearing away.
_Monthly Magazine._
* * * * *
A PROVINCIAL REPUTATION.
I once resided in a country town; I will not specify whether that town
was Devizes or Doncaster, Beverley or Brighton: I think it highly
reprehensible in a writer to be _personal_, and scarcely more venial do
I consider the fault of him who presumes to be _local_. I will, however,
state, that my residence lay among the manufacturing districts; but lest
any of my readers should be misled by that avowal, I must inform them,
that in my estimation _all_ country towns, from the elegant Bath, down
to the laborious Bristol, are (whatever their respective polite or
mercantile inhabitants may say to the contrary), positively,
comparatively, and superlatively, manufacturing towns!
Club-rooms, ball-rooms, card-tables, and confectioners' shops, are the
_factories;_ and gossips, both male and female, are the _labouring
classes_. Norwich boasts of the durability of her stuffs; the
manufacturers I allude to weave a web more flimsy. The stuff of tomorrow
will seldom be the same that is publicly worn to-day; and were it not
for the zeal and assiduity of the labourers, we should want novelties to
replace the stuff that is worn out hour by hour.
No man or woman who ever ventures to deviate from the beaten track
should ever live in a country town. The gossips all turn from the task
of nibbling one another, and the character of the _lusus naturae_ becomes
public property. I am the mother of a family, and I am known to have
written romances. My husband, in an evil hour, took a fancy to a house
at a watering-place, which, by way of distinction, I shall designate by
the appellation of _Pumpington Wells_: there we established ourselves in
the year 1800.
The _manufacturers_ received us with a great show of civility,
exhibiting to us the most recent stuff, and discussing the merits of the
newest fabrications. We, however, were not used to trouble ourselves
about matters that did not concern us, and we soon offended them.
We turned a deaf ear to all evil communications. If we were told that
Mr. A., "though fond of show, starved his servants," we replied, we did
not wish to listen to the tale. If we heard that Mr. B. though uxorious
in public, was known to beat his wife in private, we cared not for the
matrimonial anecdote. When maiden ladies assured us that Mrs. C. cheated
at cards, we smiled, for we had no _dealings_ with her; and when we were
told that Mrs. D. never paid her bills, we repeated not the account to
the next person we met; for as we were not her creditors, her accounts
concerned us not.
We settled ourselves, much to our satisfaction, in our provincial abode:
it was a watering-place, which my husband, as a bachelor, had frequented
during its annual season.
As a watering-place he knew it well. Such places are vastly entertaining
to visiters, having no "local habitation," and no "name"--caring not for
the politics of the place, and where, if any thing displeases them, they
may pay for their lodgings, order post-horses, and never suffer their
names to appear in the arrival book again.
But with those who _live_ at watering-places, it is quite another
affair. For the first six months we were deemed a great acquisition.
There were two or three _sets_ in Pumpington Wells--the good, the bad,
and the indifferent. The bad left their cards, and asked us to dances,
the week we arrived; the indifferent knocked at our door in the first
month; and even before the end of the second, we were on the visiting
lists of the good. We knew enough of society to be aware that it is
impolitic to rush into the embraces of _all_ the arms that are extended
to receive strangers; but feeling no wish to affront any one in return
for an intended civility, we gave card for card; and the doors of good,
bad, and indifferent, received our names.
All seemed to infer, that the amicable gauntlet, which had been thrown
down, having been courteously taken up, the ungloved hands were
forthwith to be grasped in token of good fellowship; we had left our
_names_ for them, and by the invitations that poured in upon us, they
seemed to say with Juliet--
"And _for_ thy _name_, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself."
No man, not even a provincial, can visit every body; and it seems but
fair, that if a selection is to be made, all should interchange the
hospitalities of life with those persons in whose society they feel the
greatest enjoyment.
Many a dinner, therefore, did we decline--many a route did we reject; my
husband's popularity tottered, and the inviters, though they no longer
dinned their dinners in our ears, and teazed us with their "teas," vowed
secret vengeance, and muttered "curses, not loud, but deep."
I have hinted that we had no scandalous capabilities; and though slander
flashed around us, we seldom admitted morning visiters, and our
street-door was a non-conductor.
But our next door neighbours were maiden ladies, who _had been_ younger,
and, to use a common term of commiseration, had seen better days--by
which, I mean the days of bloom, natural hair, partners, and the
probability of husbands.
Their vicinity to us was an infinite comfort to the town, for those who
were unable to gain admittance at our door to disturb our business and
desires,
"For every man has business and desire,
Such as they are,"
were certain of better success at our neighbours', where they at least
could gain some information about us "from eye-witnesses who resided on
the spot."
_My_ sins were numbered, so were my new bonnets; and for a time my
husband was pitied, because "he had an extravagant wife;" but when it
was ascertained that his plate was handsome, his dinner satisfactory in
its removes, and _comme il faut_ in its courses, those whose feet had
never been within our door, saw clearly "how it must all end, and really
felt for our trades-people."
I have acknowledged that I had written romances; the occupation was to
me a source of amusement; and as I had been successful, my husband saw
no reason why he should discourage me. A scribbling fool, _in_ or _out_
of petticoats, should be forbidden the use of pen, ink, and paper; but
my husband had too much sense to heed the vulgar cry of "blue stocking."
After a busy month passed in London, we saw my new novel sent forth to
the public, and then returned to our mansion at Pumpington Wells.
As we drove up to our door, our virgin neighbours gazed on us, if
possible, with more than their former interest. They wiped their
spectacles; with glances of commiseration they saw us alight, and with
unwearied scrutiny they witnessed the removal of our luggage from the
carriage. We went out--every body stared at us--the people we _did_
know touched the hands we extended, and hastened on as if fearful of
infection; the people we _did not_ know whispered as they passed us,
and looked back afterwards; the men servants seemed full of mysterious
flurry when we left our cards at the doors of acquaintances, and the
maid-servants peeped at us up the areas; the shopkeepers came from their
counters to watch us down the streets--and all was whispering and
wonder.
I could not make it out; was it to see the authoress? No; I had been an
authoress when they last saw me. Was it the brilliant success of my new
work? It _could_ be nothing else.
My husband met a maiden lady, and bowed to her; she passed on without
deigning to notice him. I spoke to an insipid man who had always bored
me with his unprofitable intimacy, and he looked another way! The next
lady we noticed tossed her head, as if she longed to toss it _at_ us;
and the next man we met opened his eyes astonishingly wide, and said--
"Are _you_ here! Dear me! I was told you could not show your--I mean,
did not mean to return!"
There was evidently some mystery, and we determined to wait patiently
for its developement. "If," said I, "it bodes us _good_, time will
unravel it." "And if," said my husband, "it bodes us evil, some d--d
good-natured friend will tell us all about it."
We had friends at Pumpington Wells, and good ones too, but no friend
enlightened us; that task devolved upon an acquaintance, a little slim
elderly man, so frivolous and so garrulous, that he only wanted a
turban, some rouge, and a red satin gown, to become the most perfect of
old women.
He shook his head simultaneously as he shook our hands, and his little
grey eyes twinkled with delight, while he professed to feel for us both
the deepest commiseration.
"You are cut," said he; "its all up with you in Pumpington Wells."
"Pray be explicit," said I faintly, and dreading some cruel calumny, or
plot against my peace.
"You've done the most impolitic thing! the most hazardous"--
"Sir!" said my husband, grasping his cane.
"I lament it," said the little man, turning to me; "your book has done
it for you."
I thought of the reviews, and trembled.
"How _could_ you," continued our tormentor, "how could you put the
Pumpington Wells people in your novel?"
"The Pumpington Wells people!--Nonsense; there are good and bad people
in my novel, and there are good and bad people in Pumpington Wells; but
you flatter the good, if you think that when I dipped my pen in praise,
I limited my sketches to the virtuous of this place; and what is worse,
_you_ libel the bad if you assert that my sketches of vice were meant
personally to apply to the vicious who reside here."
"_I_ libel--_I_ assert!" said the old lady-like little man; "not
_I_!--every body says so!"
"You may laugh," replied my mentor and tormentor combined, "but
personality can be proved against you; and all the friends and relations
of Mr. Flaw declare you meant the bad man of your book for him."
"His friends and relations are too kind to him."
"Then you have an irregular character in your book, and Mrs. Blemish's
extensive circle of intimates assert that nothing can be more pointed
than your allusion to _her_ conduct and _her_ character."
"And pray what do these persons say about it themselves?"
"They are outrageous, and go about the town absolutely wild."
"Fitting the caps on themselves?"
The little scarecrow shook his head once more; and declaring that we
should see he had spoken too true, departed, and then lamented so
fluently to every body the certainty of our being _cut_, that every body
began to believe him.
I have hinted that _my_ bonnets and my husband's plate occasioned
heartburnings: no--that is not a correct term, the _heart_ has nothing
to do with such exhalations--bile collects elsewhere.
Those who had conspired to pull my husband from the throne of his
popularity, because their parties excited in us no _party spirit_, and
we abstained from hopping at their hops, found, to their consternation,
that when the novelty of my _novel_ misdemeanour was at an end, we went
on as if nothing had occurred. However, they still possessed heaven's
best gift, the use of their tongues, they said of us everything bad
which they knew to be false, and which they wished to see realized.
Their forlorn hope was our "extravagance." "Never mind," said one,
"Christmas must come round, and _then_ we shall see."
When once the match of insinuation is applied to the train of rumoured
difficulties, the suspicion that has been smouldering for awhile bounces
at once into a _report_, and very shortly its echo is bounced in every
parlour in a provincial town.
Long bills, that had been accustomed to wait for payment until
Christmas, now lay on my table at midsummer; and tradesmen, who drove
dennetts to cottages once every evening, sent short civil notes,
regretting their utter inability to make up a sum of money by Saturday
night, unless _I_ favoured them, by the bearer, with the sum of ten
pounds, "the amount of my little account."
Dennett-driving drapers actually threatened to fail for the want of ten
pounds!--pastry-cooks, who took their families regularly "to summer at
the sea," assisted the _counter_-plot, and prematurely dunned my
husband!
It is not always convenient to pay sums at midsummer, which we had been
in the habit of paying at Christmas; if, however, a single applicant was
refused, a new rumour of inability was started and hunted through the
town before night. People walked by our house, looking up wistfully at
the windows; others peeped down the area, to see what we had for dinner.
One _gentleman_ went to our butcher, to inquire how much we owed him;
and one _lady_ narrowly escaped a legal action, because when she saw a
few pipkins lying on the counter of a crockery-ware man, directed to me,
she incautiously said, in the hearing of one of my servants, "Are you
paid for your pipkins?--ah, it's well if you ever get your money!"
Christmas came at last; bills were paid, and my husband did not owe a
shilling in Pumpington Wells. Like the old ladies in the besieged city,
the gossips looked at us, wondering when the havoc would begin.
Ho who mounts the ladder of life, treading step by step upon the
identical footings marked out, _may_ live in a provincial town.
When we want to drink spa waters, or vary the scene, we now visit
watering-places; but rather than force me to live at one again, "stick
me up," as _Andrew Fairservice_ says, in _Rob Roy_, "as a regimental
target for ball-practice." We have long ceased to live in Pumpington.
Fleeting are the tints of the rainbow--perishable the leaf of the
rose--variable the love of woman--uncertain the sunbeam of April; but
naught on earth can be fleeting; so perishable, so variable, or so
uncertain, as the popularity of a provincial reputation.
_Monthly Magazine._
* * * * *
LONDON LYRICS.
* * * * *
JACK JONES, THE RECRUIT.--A HINT FROM OVID.
Jack Jones was a toper: they say that some how
He'd a foot always ready to kick up a row;
And, when half-seas over, a quarrel he pick'd,
To keep up the row he had previously kick'd.
He spent all, then borrow'd at twenty per cent.
His mistress fought shy when his money was spent,
So he went for a soldier; he could not do less,
And scorn'd his fair Fanny for hugging brown Bess.
"Halt--Wheel into line!" and "Attention--Eyes right!"
Put Bacchus, and Venus, and Momus to flight
But who can depict half the sorrows he felt
When he dyed his mustachios and pipe-clay'd his belt?
When Sergeant Rattan, at Aurora's red peep,
Awaken'd his tyros by bawling--"Two deep!"
Jack Jones would retort, with a half-suppress'd sigh,
"Ay! too deep by half for such ninnies as I."
Quoth Jones--"'Twas delightful the bushes to beat
With a gun in my hand and a dog at my feet,
But the game at the Horse-Guards is different, good lack!
Tis a gun in my hand and a cat at my back."
To Bacchus, his saint, our dejected recruit.
One morn, about drill time, thus proffer'd his suit--
"Oh make me a sparrow, a wasp, or an ape--
All's one, so I get at the juice of the grape."
The God was propitious--he instantly found
His ten toes distend and take root in the ground;
His back was a stem, and his belly was bark,
And his hair in green leaves overshadow'd the Park.
Grapes clustering hung o'er his grenadier cap,
His blood became juice, and his marrow was sap:
Till nothing was left of the muscles and bones
That form'd the identical toper, Jack Jones.
Transform'd to a vine, he is still seen on guard,
At his former emporium in Great Scotland-yard;
And still, though a vine, like his fellow-recruits,
He is train'd, after listing, his ten-drills, and shoots.
_New Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *
THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_.
* * * * *
THE JUVENILE KEEPSAKE,
Edited by Mr. Thomas Roscoe, and dedicated to Professor Wilson, is no
less attractive than its "Juvenile" rivals. Indeed, a few of the tales
take a higher range than either of theirs,--as the Children's Island, an
interesting Story, from the French of Madame Genlis; the Ball Dress; the
Snow Storm; and the Deserted Village. The Heir of Newton Buzzard, a Tale
in four cantos, by the late Mrs. John Hunter, is perhaps one of the
prettiest juvenile novelties of the season. It is divided into
Infancy--Childhood--Boyhood--and Youth--all which contain much amusement
and moral point without dulness. We have not room for an entire story,
but select one of Miss Mitford's village portraits:
"Dash was as beautiful a dog as eyes could be set on; one of the large
old English Spaniels which are now so rare, with a superb head, like
those which you see in Spanish pictures, and such ears! they more than
met over his pretty spotted nose; and when he lapped his milk, dipped
into the pan at least two inches. His hair was long and shiny and wavy,
not curly, partly of a rich dark liver colour, partly of a silvery
white, and beautifully feathered about the thighs and legs. He was
extremely lively and intelligent, and had a sort of circular motion, a
way of flinging himself quite round on his hind feet, something after
the fashion in which the French dancers twist themselves round on one
leg, which not only showed unusual agility in a dog of his size, but
gave token of the same spirit and animation which sparkled in his bright
hazel eye. Anything of eagerness or impatience was sure to excite this
motion, and George Dinely gravely assured his sisters, when they at
length joined him in the hall, that Dash had flung himself round six and
twenty times whilst waiting the conclusion of their quarrel.
"Getting into the lawn and the open air did not tend to diminish Dash's
glee or his capers, and the young party walked merrily on; George
telling of school pranks and school misfortunes--the having lost or
spoilt four hats since Easter, seemed rather to belong to the first
class of adventures than the second--his sisters listening dutifully
and wonderingly; and Dash, following his own devices, now turning up a
mouse's nest from a water furrow in the park--now springing a covey of
young partridges in a corn field--now plunging his whole hairy person
in the brook; and now splashing Miss Helen from head to foot? by
ungallantly jumping over her whilst crossing a stile, being thereunto
prompted by a whistle from his young master, who had, with equal want of
gallantry, leapt the stile first himself, and left his sisters to get
over as they could; until at last the whole party, having passed the
stile, and crossed the bridge, and turned the churchyard corner, found
themselves in the shady recesses of the vicarage-lane, and in full view
of the vine-covered cottage of Nurse Simmons."
Our closing extract is from "Anecdotes of South African Baboons," by
Thomas Pringle, Esq.:
"It is the practice of these animals to descend from their rocky
fastnesses in order to enjoy themselves on the banks of the mountain
rivulets, and to feed on the nutritious bulbs which grow in the fertile
valley ground. While thus occupied, they generally take care to be
within reach of a steep crag, or precipice, to which they may fly for
refuge on the appearance of an enemy; and one of their number is always
placed as a sentinel on some large stone, or other prominent position,
in order to give timely warning to the rest, of the approach of danger.
It has frequently been my lot, when riding through the secluded valleys
of that country, to come suddenly, on turning a corner of a wild glen,
upon a troop of forty or fifty baboons thus quietly congregated.
Instantly on my appearance, a loud cry of alarm being raised by the
sentinel, the whole tribe would scamper off with precipitation;
splashing through the stream, and then scrambling with most marvellous
agility up the opposite cliffs, often several hundred feet in height,
and where no other creature without wings, certainly, could attempt to
follow them; the large males bringing up the rear-guard, ready to turn
with fury upon the dogs, if any attempted to molest them; the females,
with their young ones in their arms, or on their shoulders, clinging
with arms clasped closely round the mothers' necks. And thus climbing,
and chattering, and squalling, they would ascend the almost
perpendicular crags, while I looked on and watched them--interested by
the almost human affection which they evinced for their mates and their
offspring; and sometimes not a little amused, also, by the angry
vociferation with which the old ones would scold me when they had got
fairly upon the rocks, and felt themselves secure from pursuit."
There are Seven Plates and a Vignette, and a glazed, ornamented cover
which will withstand the wear and tear of the little play or book-room.
* * * * *
PICTURE OF SHEFFIELD.
(_Concluded from page 396_.)
In the manufacture of a razor, it proceeds through a dozen hands; but it
is afterwards submitted to a process of grinding, by which the concavity
is perfected, and the fine edge produced. They are made from 1 s. per
dozen, to 20 s. per razor, in which last the handle is valued at 16s.6d.
"Scissors, in like manner, are made by hand, and every pair passes
through sixteen or seventeen hands, including fifty or sixty operations,
before they are ready for sale. Common scissors are cast, and when
riveted, are sold as low as 4s. 6d. per gross! Small pocket knives, too,
are cast, both in blades and handles, and sold at 6 s. per gross, or a
halfpenny each! These low articles are exported in vast quantities in
casks to all parts of the world.
"Snuffers and trays are also articles of extensive production, and the
latter are ornamented with landscapes, etched by a Sheffield artist, on
a resinous varnish, and finished by being dipped in diluted nitric acid
for a few seconds or minutes.
"Messrs. Rodgers also introduced me to an extensive range of workshops
for the manufacture of plated and silver ware, in which are produced the
most superb breakfast and dinner services. The method of making the
silver plate here and at Birmingham merits special notice, because the
ancient method was by dissolving mercury in nitrous acid, dipping the
copper, and depending on the affinity of the metals, by which a very
slight article was produced. But at Sheffield and Birmingham, all plate
is now produced by rolling ingots of copper and silver together. About
the eighth of an inch in thickness of silver is united by heat to an
inch of copper in ingots about the size of a brick. It is then flattened
by steel rollers worked by an eighty horse power. The greater
malleability of the silver occasions it to spread equally with the
copper into a sheet of any required thickness, according to the nature
of the article for which it is wanted. I saw some pieces of plated
metal, the eighth of an inch thick, rolled by hand into ten times their
surface, the silver spreading equally; and I was told that the plating
would be perfect if the rolling had reduced it to the thinness of silver
paper! This mode of plating secures to modern plate a durability not
possessed by any plate silvered by immersion. Hence plated goods are now
sought all over the world, and, if fairly used, are nearly as durable as
silver itself. Of this material, dinner and dessert services have been
manufactured from 50 to 300 guineas, and breakfast sets from 10 to 200
guineas, as sold on the spot.
"At Sheffield are actually cast and finished, most, if not all
|
when his
daughter was married to Esau, who was so much more like a son of Ishmael
himself than of the amiable husband of Rebekah. She, by the way, had
herself been fetched in an equally unlettered transaction. It would of
course be impossible, and might be regarded as improper, to devote much
space here to the sacred epistolographers. But one may wonder whether
many people have appreciated the humour of the two epistles of the great
King Ahasuerus-Artaxerxes, the first commanding and the second
countermanding the massacre of the Jews--epistles contained in the
Septuagint "Rest of the Book of Esther" (see our Apocrypha), instead of
the mere dry summaries which had sufficed for "the Hebrew and the
Chaldee." The exact authenticity of these fuller texts is a matter of no
importance, but their substance, whether it was the work of a Persian
civil servant or of a Greek-Jew rhetorician, is most curious. Whosoever
it was, he knew King's Speeches and communications from "My lords" and
such like things, very well indeed; and the contrast of the mention in
the first letter of "Aman who excelled in wisdom among us and was
approved for his constant good will and steadfast fidelity" with "the
wicked wretch Aman--a stranger received of us... his falsehood and
cunning"--the whole of both letters being carefully attuned to the
respective key-notes--is worthy of any one of the best ironists from
Aristophanes to the late Mr. Traill.
Between these two extremes of the Pentateuch and the Apocrypha there is,
as has been remarked by divers commentators, not much about letters in
the Bible. It is not auspicious that among the exceptions come David's
letter commanding the betrayal of Uriah, and a little later Jezebel's
similar prescription for the judicial murder of Naboth. There is,
however, some hint of that curious attractiveness which some have seen
in "the King's daughter all glorious within--" and without (as the
Higher Criticism interprets the Forty-Fifth Psalm) in the bland way with
which she herself stipulates that the false witnesses shall be "sons of
Belial."
There is a book (once much utilised as a school prize) entitled _The
History of Inventions_. I do not know whether there is a "Dictionary of
Attributed Inventors." If there were it would contain some queer
examples. One of the queerest is fathered (for we only have it at second
hand) on Hellanicus, a Greek writer of respectable antiquity--the
Peloponnesian war-time--and respectable repute for book-making in
history, chronology, etc. It attributes the invention of letters--_i.e._
"epistolary correspondence"--to Atossa--not Mr. Matthew Arnold's Persian
cat but--the Persian Queen, daughter of Cyrus, wife of Cambyses and
Darius, mother of Xerxes, and in more than her queenly status a sister
to Jezebel. Atossa had not a wholly amiable reputation, but she was
assuredly no fool: and if, to borrow a famous phrase, it had been
necessary to invent letters, there is no known reason why she might not
have done it. But it is perfectly certain that she did not, and no one
who combines, as all true scholars should endeavour to combine, an
unquenchable curiosity to know what can be known and is worth knowing
with a placid resignation to ignorance of what cannot be known and would
not be worth knowing--need in the least regret the fact that we do not
know who did.
There are said to be Egyptian letters of immense antiquity and high
development; but once more, I do not profess direct knowledge of them,
and once more I hold that of what a man does not possess direct
knowledge, of that he should not write. Besides, for practical purposes,
all our literature begins with Greek: so to Greek let us turn. We have a
fair bulk of letters in that language. Hercher's _Epistolographi Graeci_
is a big volume, and would not be a small one, if you cut out the Latin
translations. But it is unfortunate that nearly the whole, like the
majority of later Greek literature, is the work of that special class
called rhetoricians--a class for which, though our term "book-makers"
may be a little too derogatory, "men of letters" is rarely (it is
sometimes) applicable, as we use it when we mean to be complimentary.
These letters are still close to "speech," thus meeting in a fashion our
initial requirement, but they are close to the speech of the
"orator"--of the sophisticated speaker to the public--not to that of
genuine conversation. In fact in some cases it would require only the
very slightest change to make those exercitations of the rhetors which
are not called "epistles" definite letters in form, while some of the
best known and characteristic of their works are so entitled.
[Sidenote: THE RHETORICIANS]
It was unfortunate for the Greeks, as it would seem, and for us more
certainly, that letter-writing was so much affected by these
"rhetoricians." This curious class of persons has perhaps been too much
abused: and there is no doubt that very great writers came out of
them--to mention one only in each division--Lucian among the extremely
profane, and St. Augustine among the greatest and most intellectual of
divines. But though their habitual defects are to be found abundantly
enough in modern society, these defects are, with us, as a rule
distributed among different classes; while anciently they were united in
this one. We have our journalists, our book-makers (literary, not
sporting), our platform and parliamentary palaverers, our popular
entertainers; and we also have our pedagogues, scholastic and
collegiate, our scientific and other lecturers, etc. But the Rhetorician
of old was a Jack of all these trades; and he too frequently combined
the triviality, unreality, sophistry and catch-pennyism of the one
division with the priggishness, the lack of tact and humour, and above
all the pseudo-scientific tendency to generalisation, classification
and, to use a familiar word, "pottering" of the other. In particular he
had a mania in his more serious moods for defining and sub-defining
things and putting them into pigeon-holes under the sub-definitions.
Thus the so-called Demetrius Phalereus, who (or a false namesake of his)
has left us a capital _general_ remark (to be given presently) on
letter-writing, elaborately divides its kinds, with prescriptions for
writing each, into "friendly," "commendatory," "reproving,"
"objurgatory," "consolatory," "castigatory," "admonishing,"
"threatening," "vituperatory," "laudatory," "persuasive," "begging,"
"questioning," "answering," "allegorical," "explanatory," "accusing,"
"defending," "congratulatory," "ironic" and "thankful," while the
neo-Platonist, Proclus, is responsible for, or at least has attributed
to him, a list of nearly double the length, including most of those
given above and adding many. Of these last, "love-letters" is the most
important, and "mixed" the _canniest_, for it practically lets in
everything.
This way, of course, except for purely business purposes--where
established forms save time, trouble and possible litigation--no
possible good lies; and indeed the impossibility thereof is clearly
enough indicated in the above-glanced-at general remark of Demetrius (or
whoever it was) himself. In fact the principle of this remark and its
context in the work called "Of Interpretation," which it is more usual
now to call, perhaps a little rashly, "Of Style," is so different from
the catalogue of types that they can hardly come from the same author.
"You _can_ from this, as well as from all other kinds of writing,
discern the character of the writer; indeed from none other can you
discern it so well." Those who know a little of the history of Criticism
will see how this anticipates the most famous and best definitions of
Style itself, as being "the very man," and they may perhaps also think
worthy of notice another passage in the same context where the author
finds fault with a rather "fine" piece of an epistle as "not the way a
man would talk to his friend," and even goes on to use the most familiar
Greek word for talking--[Greek: lalein]--in the same connection.
[Sidenote: ALCIPHRON. JULIAN]
Of such "talking with a friend" we have unfortunately very few
examples--hardly any at all--from older Greek. The greater
collections--not much used in schools or colleges now but well enough
known to those who really know Greek Literature--of Alciphron,
Aristaenetus, Philostratus and (once most famous of all) Phalaris
are--one must not perhaps say obvious, since men of no little worth were
once taken in by them but--pretty easily discoverable counterfeits. They
are sometimes, more particularly those of Philostratus, interesting and
even beautiful;[2] they have been again sometimes at least supposed,
particularly those of Alciphron, to give us, from the fact that they
were largely based upon lost comedies, etc., information which we should
otherwise lack; and in many instances (Aristaenetus is perhaps here the
chief) they must have helped towards that late Greek creation of the
Romance to which we owe so much. Nor have we here much if anything to do
with such questions as the morality of personating dead authors, or that
of laying traps for historians. It is enough that they do not give us,
except very rarely, good letters: and that even these exceptions are not
in any probability _real_ letters, real written "confabulations of
friends" at all. Almost the first we have deserving such a description
are those of the Emperor Julian in the fourth century of that Christ for
whom he had such an unfortunate hatred; the most copious and thoroughly
genuine perhaps those of Bishop Synesius a little later. Of these
Julian's are a good deal affected by the influence of Rhetoric, of which
he was a great cultivator: and the peculiar later Platonism of Synesius
fills a larger proportion of his than some frivolous persons might
wish. Julian is even thought to have "written for publication," as Latin
epistolers of distinction had undoubtedly done before him. Nevertheless
it is pleasant to read the Apostate when he is not talking Imperial or
anti-Christian "shop," but writing to his tutor, the famous sophist and
rhetorician Libanius, about his travels and his books and what not, in a
fashion by no means very unlike that in which a young Oxford graduate
might write to an undonnish don. It is still pleasanter to find Synesius
telling his friends about the very thin wine and very thick honey of
Cyrenaica; making love ("camouflaged," as they say to-day, under
philosophy) to Hypatia, and condescending to mention dogs, horses and
hunting now and then. But it is unfortunately undeniable that the bulk
of this department of Greek literature is spurious to begin with, and
uninteresting, even if spuriousness be permitted to pass. The Letters of
Phalaris--once famous in themselves, again so as furnishing one of the
chief battle-grounds in the "Ancient and Modern" quarrel, and never to
be forgotten because of their connection with Swift's _Battle of the
Books_--are as dull as ditchwater in matter, and utterly destitute of
literary distinction in style.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ROMAN LETTER-WRITING]
It is a rule, general and almost universal, that every branch of Latin
literature is founded on, and more or less directly imitative of Greek.
Even the Satire, which the Romans relied upon to prove that they could
originate, is more apparently than really an invention. Also, though
this may be more disputable, because much more a matter of personal
taste, there were very few such branches in which the pupils equalled,
much fewer in which they surpassed, their masters. But in both respects
letter-writing may be said to be an exception. Unless we have been
singularly unlucky in losing better Greek letters than we have, and
extraordinarily fortunate in Fate's selection of the Latin letters that
have come down to us, the Romans, though they were eager students of
Rhetoric, and almost outwent their teachers in composing the empty
things called Declamations, seem to have allowed this very practice to
drain off mere verbosity, and to have written letters about matters
which were worth pen, ink, paper and (as we should say) postage. We have
in Greek absolutely no such letters from the flourishing time of the
literature as those of Cicero, of Pliny[3] and even of Seneca--while as
we approach the "Dark" Ages Julian and Synesius in the older language
cannot touch Sidonius Apollinaris or perhaps Cassiodorus[4] in the
younger. Of course all these are beyond reasonable doubt genuine, while
the Greek letters attributed to Plato, Socrates and other great men are
almost without doubt and without exception spurious. But there is very
little likelihood that the Greeks of the great times wrote many
"matter-ful" letters at all. They lived in small communities, where they
saw each other daily and almost hourly; they took little interest in the
affairs of other communities unless they were at war with them, and
when they did travel there were very few means of international
communication.
Women write the best letters, and get the best letters written to them:
but it is doubtful whether Greek women, save persons of a certain class
and other exceptions in different ways like Sappho and Diotima,[5] ever
wrote at all. The Romans, after their early period, were not merely a
larger and ever larger community full of the most various business, and
constantly extending their presence and their sway; but, by their unique
faculty of organisation, they put every part of their huge world in
communication with every other part. Here also we lack women's letters;
but we are, as above remarked, by no means badly off for those of men.
There have even been some audacious heretics who have preferred Cicero's
letters to his speeches and treatises; Seneca, the least attractive of
those before mentioned, put well what the poet Wordsworth called in his
own poems "extremely va_loo_able thoughts"; one of the keenest of
mathematicians and best of academic and general business men known to
the present writer, the late Professor Chrystal of Edinburgh, made a
special favourite of Pliny; and if people can find nothing worse to say
against Sidonius than that he wrote in contemporary, and not in what was
for his time archaic, Latin, his case will not look bad in the eyes of
sensible men.
[Sidenote: SIDONIUS]
Sidonius, like Synesius, was a Christian, and, though the observation
may seem no more logical than Fluellen's about Macedon and Monmouth,
besides being in more doubtful taste, there would seem to be some
connection between the spread of Christianity and that of
letter-writing. At any rate they synchronise, despite or perhaps because
of the deficiency of formal literature during the "Dark" Ages. It is not
really futile to point out that a very large part of the New Testament
consists of "Epistles," and that by no means the whole of these epistles
is occupied by doctrinal or hortatory matter. Even that which is so,
often if not always, partakes of the character of a "live" letter to an
extent which makes the so-called letters of the Greek Rhetoricians mere
school exercises. And St. Paul's allusions to his journeys, his
salutations, his acknowledgment of presents, his reference to the cloak
and the books with its anxious "but especially the parchments," and his
excellent advice to Timothy about beverages, are all the purest and most
genuine matter for mail-bags. So is St. Peter's very gentleman-like (as
it has been termed) retort to his brother Apostle; and so are both the
Second and the Third of St. John. Indeed it is not fanciful to suggest
that the account of the voyage which finishes the "Acts," and other
parts of that very delightful book, are narratives much more of the kind
one finds in letters than of the formally historical sort.
However this may be, it is worth pointing out that the distrust of other
pagan kinds of literature which the Fathers manifested so strongly, and
which was inherited from them by the clergy of the "Dark," and to some
extent the Middle Ages, clearly could not extend to the practice of the
Apostles. If from the Dark Ages themselves we have not very many, it
must be remembered that from them we have little literature at all:
while from the close of that period and the beginning of the next we
have one of the most famous of all correspondences, the Letters of
Abelard and Heloise. Of the intrinsic merit of these long-and far-famed
compositions, as displaying character, there have been different
opinions--one of the most damaging attacks on them may be found in
Barbey d'Aurevilly's already mentioned book. But their influence has
been lasting and enormous: and even if it were to turn out that they are
forgeries, they are certainly early forgeries, and the person who forged
them knew extremely well what he was about. There is no room here to
survey, even in selection, the letter-crop of the Middle Ages; and from
henceforward we must speak mainly, if not wholly (for some glances
abroad may be permitted), of _English_ letters.[6] But the
ever-increasing bonds of union--even of such union in disunion as
war--between different European nations, and the developments of more
complex civilisation, of more general education and the like--all tended
and wrought in the same direction.
II
LETTERS IN ENGLISH--BEFORE 1700
Exceptions have sometimes been taken to the earliest collection of
genuine private letters, not official communications written in or
inspired by Latin--which we possess in English. "The Paston Letters"
have been, from opposite sides, accused of want of literary form and of
not giving us interesting enough details in substance. The objections in
either case[7] are untenable, and in both rather silly. In the first
place "literary form" in the fifteenth century was exceedingly likely to
be bad literary form, and we are much better off without it. Unless Sir
Thomas Malory had happened to be chaplain at Oxnead, or Sir John
Fortescue had occupied there something like the position of Mr.
Tulkinghorn in _Bleak House_, we should not have got much "literature"
from any known prose-writer of the period. Nor was it wanted. As for
interestingness of matter, the people who expect newspaper-correspondent
fine writing about the Wars of the Roses may be disappointed; but some
of us who have had experience of that dialect from the Russells of the
Crimea through the Forbeses of 1870 to the chroniclers of Armageddon the
other day will probably not be very unhappy. The Paston Letters are
simply genuine family correspondence--of a genuineness all the more
certain because of their commonplaceness. It is impossible to conceive
anything further from the initial type of the Greek rhetorical "letter"
of which we have just been saying something. They are not, to any but an
excessively "high-browed" and high-flying person, uninteresting: but the
chief point about them is their solidity and their satisfaction, in
their own straightforward unvarnished way, of the test we started with.
When Margaret Paston and the rest write, it is because they have
something to say to somebody who cannot be actually spoken to. And that
something is said.
[Sidenote: ASCHAM]
The next body of letters--Ascham's--which seems to call for notice here
is of the next century. It has not a few points of appeal, more than one
of which concern us very nearly. Most of the writers of the Paston
Letters were, though in some cases of good rank and fairly educated,
persons entirely unacademic in character, and their society was that of
the last trouble and convulsion through which the Early Middle Ages
struggled into the Renaissance, so long delayed with us. Ascham was one
of our chief representatives of the Renaissance itself--that is to say,
of a type at once scholarly and man-of-the-worldly, a courtier and a
diplomatist as well as a "don" and a man of letters; a sportsman as well
as a schoolmaster. And while from all these points of view his letters
have interest, there is one thing about them which is perhaps more
interesting to us than any other: and that is the fact that while he
begins to write in Latin--the all but mother-tongue of all scholars of
the time, and the universal language of the educated, even when not
definitely scholarly, throughout Europe--he exchanges this for English
latterly, in the same spirit which prompted his famous expression of
reasons for writing the _Toxophilus_ in our own and his own tongue.
There is indeed a double attraction, which has not been always or often
noticed, in this change of practice. Everybody has seen how important it
is, not merely as resisting the general delusion of contemporary
scholars that the vernaculars were things unsafe, "like to play the
bankrupt with books," but as protesting by anticipation against the
continuance of this error which affected Bacon and Hobbes, and was not
entirely without hold even on such a magician in English as Browne. But
perhaps everybody has not seen how by implication it acknowledges the
peculiar character of the genuine letter--that, though it may be a work
of art, it should not be one of artifice--that it is a matter of
"business _or_ bosoms," not of study or display.
Contemporary with these letters of Ascham, and going on to the end of
the century and the closely coincident end of the reign of Elizabeth, we
have a considerable bulk of letter-writing of more or less varied kinds.
The greatest men of letters of the time--to the disgust of one, but not
wholly so to that of another, class of "scholar"--give us little.
Spenser is the most considerable exception: and his correspondence with
Gabriel Harvey, though it is personal to a certain extent and on
Gabriel's side sufficiently character-revealing, is really of the hybrid
kind, partaking rather more of pamphlet or essay than of letter proper.
Indeed a good part of that very remarkable pamphlet-literature of this
time, which has perhaps scarcely yet received its due share of
attention, takes the letter-form: but is mostly even farther from
genuine letter-writing than the correspondence of "Immerito" and
"Master G. H." We have of course more of Harvey's; we have laments from
others, such as Lyly and Googe, about their disappointments as
courtiers; we have a good deal of State correspondence. There are some,
not very many, agreeable letters of strictly private character in whole
or part, the pleasantest of all perhaps being some of Sir Philip
Sydney's mother, Lady Mary Dudley. Others are from time to time being
made public, such as those in Dr. Williamson's recent book on the
Admiral-Earl of Cumberland. As far as mere bulk goes, Elizabethan
epistolography would take no small place, just as it would claim no mean
one in point of interest. But in an even greater degree than its
successor (_v. inf._) this _corpus_ would expose itself to the criticism
that the time for perfect letter-writing was not quite yet, in this day
of so much that was perfect, that the style was not quite the right
style, the knack not yet quite achieved. And if the present writer--who
swore fealty to Elizabethan literature a full third of a century ago
after informal allegiance for nearly as long a time earlier--admits some
truth in this, there probably is some. The letters included in it
attract us more for the matter they contain than for the manner in which
they contain it: and when this is the case no branch of literature has
perfected itself in art.
[Sidenote: THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]
The position of the seventeenth century in England with regard to
letter-writing has been the subject of rather different opinions. The
bulk of its contributions is of course very considerable: and some of
the groups are of prominent importance, the most singular, if not the
most excellent, being Cromwell's, again to be mentioned. As in other
cases and departments this century offers a curious "split" between its
earlier part which declines--not in goodness but like human life in
vitality--from, but still preserves the character of, the pure
Elizabethan, and its later, which grows up again--not in goodness but
simply in the same vitality--towards the Augustan. This relationship is
sufficiently illustrated in the actual letters. The great political
importance of the Civil War of course reflects itself in them. Indeed it
may almost be said that for some time letters are wholly concerned with
such things, though of course there are partial exceptions, such as
those of Dorothy Osborne--"mild Dorothea" as she afterwards became,
though there is no mere mildness of the contemptuous meaning in her
correspondence. In most remarkable contrast to these stand the somewhat
earlier letters of James Howell--our first examples perhaps of letters
"written for publication" in the fullest sense, very agreeably varied in
subject and great favourites with a good many people, notably
Thackeray--but only in part (if at all) genuine private correspondence.
Not a few men otherwise distinguished in literature wrote
letters--sometimes in curious contrast with other productions of theirs.
The most remarkable instance of this, but an instance easily
comprehensible, is that of Samuel Pepys. Only a part of Pepys' immense
correspondence has ever been printed, but there is no reason to expect
from the remainder--whether actually extant, mislaid or lost--anything
better than the examples which are now accessible, and which are for the
most part the very opposite in every respect of the famous and
delectable Diary. They are perfectly "proper," and for the most part
extremely dull; while propriety is certainly not the most salient
characteristic of the Diary; and the diarist manages, in the most
eccentric manner, to communicate interest not merely to things more
specially regarded as "interesting," but to his accounts and his
ailments, his business and his political history. His contemporary and
rather patronising friend Evelyn keeps his performances less far apart
from each other: but is certainly, though a representative, not a great
letter-writer, and the few that we have of Pepys' patronised
fellow-Cantabrigian Dryden are of no great mark, though not superfluous.
In the earlier part of the century Latin had not wholly shaken off its
control as the epistolary language; and it was not till quite the other
end that English itself became supple and docile enough for the purposes
of the letter-writer proper. It was excellent for such things as formal
Dedications, semi-historical narratives, and the like. And it could, as
in Sir Thomas Browne's, supply another contrast, much more pleasing than
that referred to above, of domestic familiarity with a most poetical
transcendence of style in published work. Yet, as was the case with the
novel, the letter, to gain perfection, still wanted something easier
than the grand style of the seventeenth century and more polished than
its familiar style.
III
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]
But whatever may be the position of the seventeenth in respect of
letter-writing it is impossible for anything but sheer ignorance,
hopeless want of critical discernment, or idle paradox to mistake, in
the direction of belittlement, that of the eighteenth. By common consent
of all opinion worth attention that century was, in the two European
literatures which were equally free from crudity and decadence--French
and English--the very palmiest day of the art. Everybody wrote letters:
and a surprising number of people wrote letters well. Our own three most
famous epistolers of the male sex, Horace Walpole, Gray and
Cowper--belong wholly to it; and "Lady Mary"--our most famous
she-ditto--belongs to it by all but her childhood; as does Chesterfield,
whom some not bad judges would put not far if at all below the three men
just mentioned. The rise of the novel in this century is hardly more
remarkable than the way in which that novel almost wedded
itself--certainly joined itself in the most frequent friendship--to the
letter-form. But perhaps the excellence of the choicer examples in this
time is not really more important than the abundance, variety and
popularity of its letters, whether good, indifferent, or bad. To use one
of the informal superlatives sanctioned by familiar custom it was the
"letterwritingest" of ages from almost every point of view. In its least
as in its most dignified moods it even overflowed into verse if not into
poetry as a medium. Serious epistles had--of course on classical
models--been written in verse for a long time. But now in England more
modern patterns, and especially Anstey's _New Bath Guide_, started the
fashion of actual correspondence in doggerel verse with no thought of
print--a practice in which persons as different as Madame d'Arblay's
good-natured but rather foolish father, and a poet and historian like
Southey indulged; and which did not become obsolete till Victorian
times, if then. At the present moment one does not remember an exact
equivalent in England to the story of two good writers in French if not
French writers[8] living in the same house, meeting constantly during
the day, yet exchanging letters, and not short ones, before breakfast.
But very likely there is or was one, and more than one.
For those no doubt estimable persons who are not content with facts but
must have some explanations of them, it is less difficult to supply such
things than is sometimes the case. One--the attainment at last of a
"middle" style neither grand nor vulgar--has already been glanced at. It
has been often and quite truly observed that there are sentences,
passages, paragraphs, almost whole letters in Horace Walpole and Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu, in Fanny Burney and in Cowper, which no one would
think old-fashioned at the present day in any context where modern slang
did not suggest itself as natural. But this was by no means the only
predisposing cause, though perhaps most of the others were, in this way
or that, connected with it. Both in France and in England literature
and social matters generally were in something like what political
economists call "the stationary state" till (as rather frequently
happens with such apparently stationary states) the smoothness changed
to the Niagara of the French Revolution, and the rapids of the
quarter-century War. There were no great poets:[9] and even
verse-writers were rarely grand: but there was a greater diffusion of
competent writing faculty than had been seen before or perhaps--for all
the time, talk, trouble, and money spent on "education,"--has been
since. New divisions and departments of interest were accumulating--not
merely in Literature itself[10] (as to which, if people's ideas were
rather limited, they _had_ ideas), but in the arts which were in some
cases practised almost for the first time and in all taken more
seriously, in foreign and home politics, commerce, manufactures, all
manner of things. People were by no means so apt to stay in the same
place as they had been: and when friends were in different places they
had much easier means of communicating with each other. Nor should it be
forgotten that the more elaborate system of ceremonial manners which
then prevailed, but which has been at first gradually, and latterly with
a run, breaking down for the last hundred years, had an important
influence on letter-writing. One does not of course refer merely to
elaborate formulas of beginning and ending--such as make even the
greatest praisers of times past among us smile a little when they find
Dr. Johnson addressing his own step-daughter as "Dear Madam," and being
her "most humble servant" though in the course of the letter he may use
the most affectionate and intimate expressions. But the manners of
yester-year made it obligatory to make your letters--unless they were
merely what were called "cards" of invitation, message, etc.--to some
extent _substantive_. You gave the news of the day, if your
correspondent was not likely to know it; the news of the place,
especially if you were living in a University town or a Cathedral city.
If you had read a book you very often criticised it: if you had been to
any kind of entertainment you reported on it, etc. etc. Of course all
this is still done by people who really do write real letters: but it is
certainly done by a much smaller proportion of letter-writers than was
the case two hundred, one hundred, or even fifty years ago. The
newspaper has probably done more to kill letters than any penny post,
halfpenny postcard or even sixpenny telegram could do. Nor perhaps have
we yet mentioned the most powerful destructive agent of all, and that is
the ever increasing want of leisure. The dulness of modern Jack, in
letters as elsewhere, arises from the fact that when he is not at work
he is too desperately set on playing to have time for anything else. The
Augustans are not usually thought God-like: but they have this of Gods,
that they "lived _easily_."
There is perhaps still something to be said as to the apparently almost
pre-established harmony between the eighteenth century and
letter-writing. It concerns what has been called the "_Peace_ of the
Augustans"; the at least comparative freedom alike from the turmoil of
passion and the most riotous kinds of fun. Tragedy may be very fine in
letters, as it may be anywhere: but it is in them the most
dangerous,[11] most rarely successful and most frequently failed-in of
all motives--again as it is everywhere. Comedy in letters is good: but
it should be fairly "genteel" comedy, such as this age excelled in--not
roaring Farce. An "excruciatingly funny" letter runs the risk of being
excruciating in a sadly literal sense. Now the men of good Queen Anne
and the first three Georges were not given to excess, in these ways at
any rate; and there are few better examples of the happy mean than the
best of their letters. The person who is bored by any one of those sets
which have been mentioned must bring the boredom with him--as, by the
way, complainers of that state of suffering do much oftener than they
wot of. Nor is much less to be said of scores of less famous epistolers
of the time, from the generation of Berkeley and Byrom to that of Scott
and Southey.
[Sidenote: SWIFT]
To begin with Swift, it is a scarcely disputable fact that opinions
about this giant of English literature--not merely as to his personal
character, though perhaps this has had more to do with the matter than
appears on the surface, but as to his exact literary value--have
differed almost incomprehensibly. Johnson thought, or at least
affected to think, that _A Tale of a Tub_ could not be Swift's,
because it was too good for him, and that "Tom Davies might have
written _The Conduct of the Allies_": while on the other hand
Thackeray, indulging in the most extravagant denunciation of Swift as
a man, did the very fullest, though not in the least too full, homage
to his genius. But one does not know many things more surprising in
the long list of contradictory criticisms of man and genius alike,
than Mr. Herbert Paul's disapproval of the _Journal to Stella_ as
letters while admitting its excellence as "narrative."[12]
|
the passageway; but his
man James, who had been formally introduced to their servants,
insisted upon telling him all about them. They were, James said, the
Duchess of Windthorst and her daughter, the Princess Wilhelmina, who
were returning from Canada, where they had been visiting the Duke of
Connaught at Toronto.
But, if Edestone was preoccupied, the Princess, on the contrary,
being a girl of nineteen, with absolutely nothing on her mind, had
not failed to note the handsome young man across the passage.
Unconsciously answering to the irresistible call of youth, which is as
loud to the princess as to the peasant, she had watched him with a
great deal of interest, and had been fascinated by his faultless boots
and the fact that he failed to notice her at all.
Yet Edestone, it may be remarked, was not the only person on board
favoured with the royal regard. The Duchess, with the propensity of
her kind on visiting the States, had selected for her rare promenades
on deck a Broadway sport of the most absurd and exaggerated type,
known as "Diamond King John" Bradley.
This vagary is explained by the fact that the social chasm separating
them from all Americans is, to their limited vision, so infinitely
great that it is impossible for them to see and to understand the
niceties that the Americans draw between the butcher of New York and
the dry-goods merchant of Denver; and since it is impossible to see
nothing from infinity, they content themselves by selecting those who
are, in their opinion, typical, in order that in the short time they
can give to this study they may learn all of the characteristics of
this most extraordinary race, who on account of the similarity of
language have presumed to claim a relationship with them. They will
not accept as true what much of the world believes: that Old England
is in her decadence, and that her only hope is in those sons who have
left her and who, away from the debilitating influence of the
poisonous vapours arising from the ruins of her glory, are developing
the ancient spirit of their ancestors and are returning to her
assistance in her time of need.
As to the Princess, Edestone, although he noted that she was extremely
attractive in face and figure, did not give her a second thought. He
was amused at the attitude of the Duchess and her class, and was
willing to accept it, but it did not arouse any desire on his part to
follow the lead of the gentleman from Broadway and seek their
acquaintance. As a matter of fact, he had always found the young women
of the upper classes of England either extremely stupid or perfectly
willing to appear so to an American of his class.
Still, as it happened, he did meet the Princess. One night after
dinner he found her struggling with the door into the passage which
led to their adjoining apartments. She was, or pretended to be,
helpless in the wind that was blowing her down the deck as she clung
to the rail, and, quietly taking her by the arm, he pulled her back to
the door, where he held her until she was safely inside. This was all
done in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, and she might as well have
been a steamer rug that was in danger of being blown overboard. Then
before she had time to thank him, the door was blown shut, and he had
resumed his solitary walk along the deck.
The next time that the Princess saw him, although she felt sure that
he must have known that she had looked in his direction, there was no
indication of any desire on his part to continue the acquaintance. He
had apparently entirely forgotten the episode or her existence, and
the pride of a beautiful young girl was hurt, and the dignity of
royalty offended--but the first was all that really mattered.
And so the voyage ended. The passengers all seemed perfectly willing
to go ashore, notwithstanding their assumption of indifference to the
German blockade. Edestone, as usual, was met by the fastest form of
locomotion, and before the trunks and bags had begun to toboggan down
to the dock, he was whirling up to London in the powerful motor car
belonging to his friend, the Marquis of Lindenberry. Edestone had
notified him by wireless to meet the steamer, and they were now being
driven directly to the Marquis's house in Grosvenor Square. Stanton
and Black were left behind with James, who condescended with his
superior knowledge to assist them in getting the luggage through the
custom-house.
"Well what in the name of common sense has brought you over to England
at such a time as this?" demanded Lindenberry, after the automobile
had swept clear of the town and with a gentle purr had settled down to
its work. He leaned over as he spoke, to satisfy himself that the
chauffeur, having finished adjusting his glasses with one hand while
running at top speed, finally had both hands on the wheel, and then
turned expectantly to his companion.
"Oh, I see," Lindenberry nodded when he found that he got no
satisfactory answer to this or the other inquiries he put; "you
evidently do not propose to take me into your confidence. Still, I
would not be so deucedly mysterious, if I were you. I call it beastly
rude, you know. Here I have come all the way from Aldershot, and am
using the greater part of my valuable leave in response to your crazy
wire. Tell me, is it a contract to deliver a dozen dreadnoughts at the
gates of the Tower of London before Easter Sunday?" and his eyes
twinkled, "or have some of your young Americans enlisted and the fond
parents sent you over to rescue them?"
Edestone smiled. "Well, the first thing I want, Lindenberry, is a
little chat with Lord Rockstone."
"Oh, is that all?" with a satiric inflection. "Well, why in the name
of common sense didn't you say so at first? I do not know, however,
that I can positively get you an appointment today. You must not mind
if His Lordship keeps you waiting for a few minutes if he happens to
be talking with the Czar of Russia on the long-distance telephone. You
know, we over here are still great sticklers on form. We are trying
hard to be progressive, but we still consider it quite rude to tell a
King to hold the wire while we talk to someone else who has not taken
the trouble that he has to make an appointment. You must remember that
he has perhaps dropped several shillings into the slot, and would
naturally be annoyed if told by the girl that time was up and to drop
another shilling.
"Or Lord Rockstone may perhaps be just in the midst of one of his
usual twenty-four-hour interviews with an American newspaper
representative," he continued his chaffing. "Now if he does not invite
Graves and Underhill and Apsworth to have tea with you, you might drop
in at Boodles' on your way back from the city, and we will just pop on
to Buckingham Palace and deliver to Queen Mary the ultimatum from the
suffragette ladies of the Sioux Indians."
Edestone laughed so heartily that the footman nearly turned to see if
something had happened. "And they say that you Englishmen have no
sense of humour. The trouble with you though, old top, is that your
joke is so deucedly good that you don't see the point yourself."
They were just passing through one of Rockstone's military camps,
where England's recruited millions were being trained, and cutting
short his badinage Edestone gazed at the scene with interest.
"It does seem a pity that all these fine young fellows should be
sacrificed in order to settle a question which I could settle in a
very short time," he said, becoming more serious.
"Settle it in a very short time?" repeated Lindenberry. "I would like
to know how you propose to do it. I know you are full of splendid
ideas, and invent all kinds of electrical contrivances to do things
that one can do perfectly well with one's own hands. I suppose you
would take a large magnet and with it pull all of the German warships
out of the Kiel Canal, and hold them while you went on board and
explained to Bernhardi and von Bülow the horrors of war, and if they
did not listen to you, you would, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin lead
them off with all the other disagreeable odds and ends, submarines and
Zeppelins, to an island, way, way out in the ocean, where they would
have to stay until they promised to be good little boys?"
"Well, wouldn't that be better than killing a lot of these fine young
fellows you have here?" demanded Edestone, although he smiled at his
friend's fantastic idea.
"You Americans are developing into a nation of foolish old women,"
taunted Lindenberry, "and the sooner that you get into a muss like
this one we're in, the sooner you will get back that fighting spirit
which has made you what you are. You are fast losing the respect of
the other nations by your present methods, always looking after your
own pocket-books while the rest of the world is bleeding to death."
Edestone was thoughtful, and appeared to have no answer for this, and
Lindenberry reverted to his request.
"If you really want to have an interview with Lord Rockstone, Jack, I
think I can possibly arrange it. I will telephone to Colonel Wyatt,
who is on his staff, and find out what he can do for you."
And so they chatted until coming to Grosvenor Square where they got
out of the automobile in front of an unpretentious red brick house
with an English basement entrance, trimmed with white marble and
spotlessly clean.
Lindenberry at once telephoned to Colonel Wyatt, who said that Lord
Rockstone was in and that if Edestone would come around at once he
would see to it that his letters were presented. As to an appointment,
he could promise nothing, but he did say to Lindenberry, not to be
repeated, that the Department was not at that time very favourably
disposed toward Americans.
With his usual promptness, Edestone jumped into his automobile and
started for Downing Street, not stopping even to wash his face and
hands nor to brush the dust from his clothes.
At the door he was met by an officer in khaki, was told that Colonel
Wyatt was expecting him, and was asked if he would be so kind as to
come up to the Colonel's office. There he was told that his
credentials and letters could be presented that afternoon, but there
was practically no chance of an interview, as Lord Rockstone was
leaving the War Offices in a few minutes.
Word was finally brought in that Lord Rockstone would see Mr. Edestone
and receive his letters, but regretted that he would be unable to give
him an appointment, as he was leaving for the Continent in a few days
and affairs of state required his entire time--which translated into
plain English meant: "Come in, but get out as soon as you can."
Shown into a large room, he saw seated at a big desk the man who is
said to have said that he did not know when the war would end, but he
did know when it would begin, and fixed that date at about eight
months after the actual declaration--after millions of pounds had been
expended and hundreds of thousands of English dead.
Cold, powerful, relentless, and determined, Edestone knew that it was
useless to appeal to a sense of humanity in this man who, sitting at
his desk early and late, directed the great machine that slowly but
surely was drawing to itself the youth and vigour of all England,
there to feed and fatten, flatter and amuse these poor boys from the
country, and with music and noise destroy their sensibilities before
sending them across the Channel to live for their few remaining days
in holes in the ground that no self-respecting beast would with his
own consent occupy.
To appeal to a sense of duty so strong in him as applied to England,
was one thing; but to convince him that Edestone as an American had a
sense of duty to the nations of Europe was something quite different.
This man of steel had no imagination, he was convinced, and to ask him
to follow him in his flights would be as useless as to request him to
whistle Yankee Doodle.
He had a chance to decide all this while Rockstone, who had risen and
received him with courtesy, was reading the letters he presented. The
great soldier's face never changed once as he read them all with care.
"Your credentials are satisfactory," he finally said, "but I do not
quite understand what it is you wish. Your letters say that you do not
want to sell anything, which is most extraordinary; I thought you
Americans always wanted to sell something." And his face assumed the
expression of a man who, having no sense of humour, thought that he
had perhaps made a joke.
"If you have drawings and photographs of a new instrument of war," he
caught himself up abruptly, "I should greatly prefer that you submit
these to the Ordnance Department; but since your Secretary of State
has been so insistent, I will look at them tomorrow. I will give you
an appointment from 9 to 9:15."
And he rose and bowed.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST REBUFF
At exactly a quarter past nine the following morning, Lord Rockstone
with military precision rose from his desk.
"I fear that my time is up, Mr. Edestone," he said, glancing at his
watch. "I have enjoyed this opportunity of meeting you and listening
to your presentation of your theory. Your drawings are most
interesting; your photographs convincing, if--" he paused, his lip
curling slightly under his long tawny moustache,--"if one did not know
of the remarkable optical illusions capable of being produced in
photography. Our friends, the Germans, have become particularly expert
in the art of double exposure."
Then, as if he thought he might have said too much, he added less
crisply:
"Please do not understand that I doubt either your sincerity, or that
of the Government at Washington in this matter; you may have both
perhaps been deceived. I hope that your stay in England may be
pleasant, and I regret that this war will prevent you from receiving
the attention to which your letters and your accomplishments would
entitle you."
With an expression on his face that said plainer than words: "This is
the last minute of my most valuable time that I intend to give to this
nonsense," he bowed formally, and reseating himself at his desk, took
up papers.
Then without looking up, "Good morning, Mr. Edestone."
The American did not allow himself to show the slightest trace of
annoyance at the brusque dismissal.
"You will at least permit me to thank you for your kind intentions,
sir," he said; and standing perfectly still until he had forced Lord
Rockstone to look up, he added with a smile, "We may meet again,
perhaps."
There was something about his perfect ease of manner as he stood
waiting which showed that although he would not condescend to notice
it, he was both conscious of the War Minister's unpardonable rudeness
and intended to make him acknowledge it.
Rockstone hesitated a moment; then with a belated show of courtesy
came from behind his desk, and stiffly extended his hand.
"You Americans are the most extraordinary people," he said; "I must
admit, I never quite understand you."
"Then you must grant us a slight advantage," rejoined Edestone evenly;
"because we believe we do understand you Englishmen. If there had been
the same clear understanding on your side in the present instance it
would have been more to your interest, I am satisfied; for then
instead of merely disturbing you I should have aroused you."
"It is not a question of arousing me as you call it. You are dealing
with the Government of the Empire, and, as you know, England moves
slowly. The suggestion that I invite His Majesty to see a lot of
moving pictures of an impossible machine, if you will pardon me, is
preposterous. If you really wish to sell something to the War
Department, although I understand you to state that you do not,
nothing is simpler. Ship one of your machines to England, give a
demonstration, and whereas I cannot speak with authority, I am
confident that England will pay all that any other Government will
pay. As to our friends, the enemy, our ships will attend to it that
nothing goes to them that can be used against us." His jaws snapped,
and his cold greenish-grey eyes flashed, as he gave another curt bow
of dismissal.
Edestone had no alternative but to leave; but as he turned to rejoin
Colonel Wyatt, who had stood stiffly at attention throughout the
entire interview, he could not resist one parting shot.
"Do not forget, Lord Rockstone," he said, "that England six months ago
spoke lightly of submarines."
The War Minister pretended not to hear; but no sooner had the door
closed upon his offensive visitor than he caught up the
telephone. "Get me the Admiralty, and present my compliments to
Mr. Underhill," he directed sharply. "Tell him I would like to speak
to him at once."
He turned back to a tray of letters left upon his desk to sign, but
halted, his pen held arrested in air.
"Suppose," he muttered, "the fellow should actually have--? But,
pshaw! It's simply a mammoth Yankee bluff. That Foreign Department at
Washington is just silly enough to believe that it can frighten us
with its manufactured photographs. They are so anxious over there to
stop the war, that they would resort to any expedient--anything but
fight."
The telephone tinkled.
"Ah! Are you there Underhill? Yes, this is Rockstone. I called you up
to warn you against a madman who is now on his way to see you. You
can't well refuse to give him an audience, for he has such strong
letters from the American Government that one might imagine he was a
special envoy sent to offer armed intervention and to end the war. But
in my opinion he is merely a crank or an impostor, who has succeeded
in obtaining the support and endorsement of their State Department.
"What is that? Oh yes; he's an American. His name? How should I
remember! I wasn't interested either in him, or what he had to say.
He pretends to have discovered some new agency or force, don't you
know, and tries to prove by a lot of double-exposed photographs that
he has broken down the fundamental laws of physics, neutralizing the
force of gravity, or annihilating space by the polarization of light,
or some such rot.
"Do not kick him out. He has letters not only from his Government, but
from some of its most prominent men whom it would be unwise to offend
at this time. Just listen to his twaddle about universal peace and
that sort of thing, and then pass him on to Graves with a quiet
warning such as I have given you."
Meanwhile Edestone, having taken leave of Colonel Wyatt, was making
his way out of the building, when he found himself accosted in the
dimly lighted corridor by a man in civilian clothes whom he recognized
as a New York acquaintance of several years' standing.
"Well, look who's here!" he greeted Edestone lustily as he extended
his hand. "What brings you into the very den of the lion? Is it that,
like myself, you are helping dear old England get arms and ammunition
with which to lick the barbarians on the Rhine?"
Glancing around cautiously he lowered his voice. "Make her pay well
for them, my boy; she would not hesitate to turn them on us, if we got
in her way."
Edestone laughingly disclaimed any interest in army contracts, but at
the same time avoided divulging the actual mission upon which he was
engaged.
There was something in his companion's manner that put him rather on
his guard; he remembered smoking after dinner not more than three or
four months before in the house of one of the most prominent German
bankers in New York, and listening to this man, who had expressed
himself in a way that might have suggested somewhat pro-German
sympathies. Edestone had at the time attributed this to a
consideration for their host and to the fact that the German
Ambassador was present; but he recalled that, although the speaker was
most violent in his protestations of neutrality, someone had suggested
at the time that he was of a German family, his father having been
born in Hesse-Darmstadt. He was a man of wealth, with establishments
in New York and Newport, at both of which places Edestone had been
entertained. His loud and hearty manner stamped him as a typical
American, but his large frame, handsome face, and military bearing
showed his Teutonic origin.
"You surprise me Rebener." Edestone's eyes twinkled slightly at these
recollections. "I should have supposed, if you had anything of the
kind to sell, that it would be to your friend, Count Bernstoff.
However," he laid his hand on the other's arm, "it's an agreeable
surprise to run across a fellow-countryman, no matter what the cause.
Are you going my way?"
"No," Rebener told him, he had an appointment on hand with one of the
bureau chiefs in the Ordnance Department.
"Well then suppose you dine with me tonight," suggested Edestone. "I
am stopping at Claridge's and shall be awfully glad if you can come. I
am entirely alone in London, you see; my cronies, I find, are all dead
or at the front."
"Delighted, my boy. But listen! Don't have any of your English
swells. Let's make this a quiet little American dinner just to
ourselves, and forget for once this ghastly war."
"At eight o'clock, then," Edestone nodded.
"And a strict neutrality dinner, remember. That is the only safe kind
for us Americans to eat in London."
"All right, Rebener, as neutral as you please. _A bientôt_." And
with a wave of the hand he passed on down the corridor and out of the
building. His appointment with Underhill, Chief of the Admiralty, was
not until 11:30, so he put in the time by sauntering rather slowly
along the Thames Embankment.
He regretted now that, in talking with Lord Rockstone, he had not made
a little more show of force, for had he assumed a more dictatorial
manner he would have at least aroused the fighting spirit in his stern
antagonist, who might then have taken some interest in crushing him
under his heel; whereas now he saw plainly that Rockstone considered
him beneath his notice, and thereby much valuable time had been
lost. Yet he did not wish to make any show of force until he knew
positively that his men were all at their stations, and that the
_Little Peace Maker_ was near at hand. He must be in a position
to use force before playing his last card, and he had not as yet heard
from "Specs." Although he knew that their instruments were perfectly
attuned, he had not, up to twelve o'clock of the day before, received
a single vibration.
At this point he was interrupted by encountering another American who
also insisted upon stopping and shaking hands. This was a young
architect from New York, who had from time to time done work for his
father's estate and who had also made some alterations at the Little
Place in the Country for Edestone himself. He was a tall, lank young
man of about twenty-seven, with little rat-like eyes, placed so close
to his hawk-like nose that one felt Nature would have been kinder to
him had she given him only one eye and frankly placed it in the middle
of his receding forehead. His small blonde moustache did not cover his
rabbit mouth, which was so filled with teeth that he could with
difficulty close his lips.
"What has brought you to London, Schmidt? Aren't you afraid that these
Englishmen will capture you and shoot you as a spy?"
"Sh! Not quite so loud please, Mr. Edestone; these English are such
fools. They think that because a man has a German name he must be a
fighting German, when you know that I am a perfectly good naturalized
American citizen. My passport is made out in the name of Schmidt, and
that's my name all right, but I call myself Smith over here to keep
from rubbing these fellows the wrong way."
"Well, Mr. 'Smith,' you have not told me what you are doing in
London."
"I have been sent over by a New York architectural paper to make a
report upon the condition of the cathedral at Rheims. I stopped over
in London to get my papers viséd by the Royal Institute of
Architects." Then, lowering his voice, and keeping his eyes on a
policeman who was apparently watching them with interest: "I am sorry
to see you here, Mr. Edestone. This is no place for us Americans, and
my advice to you is to get out of here as soon as you can, and don't
come back again until the war is over."
Edestone felt that he would have said more but they were interrupted
by the policeman who said: "Excuse me, gentlemen, but these be war
times, and me ordhers are to keep the Imbankment moving."
CHAPTER V
ECHOES FROM THE WILHELMSTRASSE
After leaving the War Offices, Rebener went directly to the nearest
public telephone.
"Hello, Karlbeck," he called, after satisfying himself by mumbling a
jumble of unintelligible words and numbers that he had the man he
wanted on the wire. "Is Smith there? What? Thames Embankment? What did
you say is the number of that officer? Oh, my old butler, Pat! That's
all right. Now listen; if I should miss Smith and he comes in, tell
him to call me at my hotel at once. I have made an engagement for
dinner with our man for eight o'clock tonight, but you and H. R. H.
need not be at my rooms until half-past eight. You understand, eh?
Good-bye."
He strolled out, following Edestone's course with the air of a man
wishing to enjoy this beautiful spring morning, and approaching the
officer who had interrupted the interview between Edestone and Smith,
he said, with a little twinkle in his eye: "Will you tell me which of
these bridges is called the London Bridge?"
The blue-coated Pat, with Hibernian readiness, caught the humour of
the situation. "Shure, I would gladly, but 'tis a strhanger I am here
mesilf," he grinned as he smothered the entire lower part of his face
with his huge paw of a hand, and significantly closed one eye.
"Pat, your fondness for joking will get you into trouble yet. Did
Smith turn Edestone over to you?"
"He did, and I mesilf took him up to the Admiralty where he is
now. 4782, I think they called him, takes him up from there, and will
keep him until he hears from either you or Smith."
"Where has Smith gone?"
"Shure he's up at Claridge's, bein' shaved by Count von Hottenroth."
"Now, now, Pat, if you don't stop that joking of yours I'll certainly
report you to the Wilhelmstrasse."
"And they said I was to be the first King of dear old Ireland!" as
with a broad grin on his face he raised his hand as if drinking. "Der
Tag!" he cried, thereby causing several passers-by to laugh at the
idea of a London bobby giving the sacred German toast.
Rebener, leaving him, went directly to his rooms at The Britz where he
was received with the greatest consideration by everybody about the
place. He was shown to the royal suite by the proprietor himself, who
after he had carefully closed the door upon them stood as if waiting
for orders.
"Call Claridge's on the 'phone, and tell Smith who is being shaved,"
he smiled at the recollection of Pat's jest, "to meet me here at
once. I do not want him seen in the hotel, so tell him to come in by
the servants' entrance, and you bring him up on the service elevator
and in here through my pantry and dining-room."
The proprietor retired to attend to this, but was soon back, and
Rebener continued his instructions.
"Luckily Edestone invited me to dine with him tonight before I had a
chance to invite him," he said, "but I will persuade him to come here
and dine with me."
"So, Mr. Bombiadi," he turned to the proprietor, "I shall want dinner
here for four at 8:30. See to it yourself, will you, that my guests
are brought through my private entrance, and one especially--you know
who--who will be incognito, must not be recognized. Not that there
could be any objection to these men dining with me here--a common rich
American, who loves to spend his money on princes and things--but by
tonight this man Edestone will be watched by at least twenty men from
Scotland Yard, and they suspect anyone of being a German spy, be he
prince or pauper."
Their conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of
Smith, who came in very much excited. Sniffling and rubbing his nose
with the back of his forefinger, like a nervous cocaine fiend, he
broke out agitatedly:
"Mr. Rebener, I'm getting sick of this job. When I undertook to find
out for you what was going on at the Little Place in the Country, I
was working for Germany as against the world, and anything that I can
do for her I am glad and proud to do, but that Hottenroth talks like a
damn fool. Excuse me, Mr. Rebener, but he don't want to stop at
anything. He says that if he pulls off this thing the Emperor, when he
gets to London, will make him Duke of Westminster, or something, and
six months from now he will appoint me Governor-General of North
America. I tell you, Mr. Rebener, that fellow is plumb nutty."
"Pardon me, Mr. Rebener," interposed the proprietor, "it is true that
Hottenroth is excitable, but he is faithful to the Fatherland and an
humble servant to His Imperial Majesty. He has been in charge of a
fixed post in London for fifteen years. He was one of the very first
to be sent here, and he was in Paris before that. He would die
willingly for the Fatherland, as would I, and if this Schmidt, I mean
Smith, thinks there is any sin too great to be committed for the
Fatherland, he is not worthy of a place among us, and the sooner we
get rid of him the better." And he looked at the unfortunate Smith in
a way that showed he was willing to do this at any moment.
But Rebener, who had lived all his life in America, and like Smith did
not thoroughly agree with the philosophy of German militarism--before
which everything must bow--hurriedly raised his hand.
"Come, come, you are both getting unnecessarily excited. Don't let us
try to cross our bridges until we get to them. What did von Hottenroth
have to report?"
"It was not very satisfactory, to tell you the truth, Mr. Rebener,"
said Smith; "they searched through all of his things and they found
nothing but a drawing of a Zeppelin of our 29-M type, with some slight
changes, which Hottenroth said don't amount to anything, and some
photographs of Mr. Edestone himself, doing some juggling tricks with
heavy dumb-bells and weights, but we learned afterwards from the
porter that an expressman had left two large and heavy trunks marked,
'A. M. Black and P. S. Stanton,' at No. 4141 Grosvenor Square East."
"Well what is the report," demanded Bombiadi, "on No. 4141 Grosvenor
Square?"
Smith read from a memorandum book: "Lord Lindenberry, who is a
widower, lives there with his mother, the Dowager. The old lady is now
up at their country place, in Yorkshire, and the Marquis went on to
Aldershot last night after having dined with Edestone at Brooks's and
dropping him at Claridge's at 12:15 A.M. The house is only partially
opened; there are only a few of the old servants there."
"And do you think these trunks contain the instrument which you
reported to us from America was always kept in the safe at the Little
Place in the Country?" snapped the hotel proprietor.
"I don't know," whined Smith. "Mr. Edestone probably has it with him."
"Well, we must get hold of it before he shows it to Underhill,"
frowned the proprietor, "that is, if it has not been shown already,
and in that case we must get hold of Edestone himself."
"Now that is exactly what is troubling me," Smith's voice rose
hysterically. "I'm not going to stand for any of that rough stuff,
Mr. Rebener. Mr. Edestone and his father have both been mighty good to
me, and if anything happens to him I'll blow on the whole lot of you."
"So?" The proprietor's pale fat face was convulsed with a look of
hatred and contempt. "Then we are to understand, Smith, that if we
find it necessary to do away with Edestone you wish to go first? You
dirty little half-breed," he growled in an undertone. "Your mother
must have been an English woman."
"Here, here, you two fools!" Rebener broke in with sharp authority,
"there is no question of 'doing away' with Edestone, as you call
it. What we're after is the invention and not the man himself, and
we'll not get it by 'doing away' with him. I am, like Smith here,
opposed to murder, even for the Fatherland."
"But it is not murder, Mr. Rebener," interrupted the proprietor, "if
thereby we are instrumental in saving thousands of the sons of the
Fatherland."
"That would not only not save the sons of the Fatherland, but would
put an end to our usefulness, both here in London and in America,
especially if Edestone has already turned the whole thing over to
England. The very first thing for us to do is to find out how the
matter stands. If the Ministry knows nothing, we must work to get him
to Berlin, and then even you fire-eaters may safely trust it to the
Wilhelmstrasse. If it should happen, however, that the British
Government has the invention, His Royal Highness tonight will try to
get enough out of Edestone to enlighten Berlin, and in that way we
shall at least get an even break. That is, always provided that
Edestone has not a lot of the completed articles, whatever they may
be, at the Little Place in the Country. That would put us in bad
again, and it will be up to Count Bernstoff to attend to it from the
New York end."
"Of course, Mr. Rebener," said the proprietor, "we can do nothing
until we hear from His Royal Highness, but I am satisfied that he will
say Edestone must not be allowed to go to Downing Street tomorrow to
continue his negotiations, unless in some way we can get hold of this
secret tonight."
"Well, I'll be damned if I'll--!" started Rebener angrily, when he was
interrupted by the proprietor, who holding his finger to his lip,
said:
"Please, Mr. Rebener, please! Always remember that the service on
which we are engaged has no soul and a very long arm." Then dropping
into the persuasive and servile tone of the _maître d'hôtel_: "I
propose, Mr. Rebener, that you allow me to send you up a nice little
lunch, some melon, say, a _salmon mayonnaise_ or a _filet du
sole au vin blanc_ and a _noisette d'agneau_ and a nice little
sweet, and you must try a bottle of our Steinberger Auslese '84.
"And Smith," he turned to the humbler agent, "you had better get in
touch with 4782, who is reporting to His Royal Highness every hour.
His last message was that Edestone is still with Underhill, so you get
down to the Admiralty and report to me here as often as you can.
Edestone will probably lunch quietly alone somewhere, as I know that
all of his friends are at the front, but don't lose him until you turn
|
you are an artist, are you not, Mr. Hartington," Miss Treadwyn
said, looking at the sketch which had already made considerable
progress.
"Unfortunately, no; I have a taste for art, but that is all. I should be
better off if I had not, for then I should be contented with doing
things like this; as it is I am in a perpetual state of grumble because
I can do no better."
"You know the Latin proverb _meliora video_, and so on, Mr. Hartington,
does it apply?"
"That is the first time I have had Latin quoted against me by a young
lady," Cuthbert said, smilingly, but with a slight flush that showed the
shaft had gone home. "I will not deny that the quotation exactly hits my
case. I can only plead that nature, which gave me the love for art, did
not give me the amount of energy and the capacity for hard work that are
requisite to its successful cultivation, and has not even given me the
stimulus of necessity, which is, I fancy, the greatest human motor."
"I should be quite content to paint as well as you do, Mr. Hartington,"
Anna Treadwyn said. "It must add immensely to the pleasure of travelling
to be able to carry home such remembrances of places one has seen."
"Yes, it does so, Miss Treadwyn. I have done a good deal of wandering
about in a small way, and have quite a pile of portfolios by whose aid I
can travel over the ground again and recall not only the scenery but
almost every incident, however slight, that occurred in connection
therewith."
"Well, Anna, I think we had better be continuing our walk."
"I suppose we had. May I ask, Mr. Hartington, where you are staying? I
am sure my mother will be very pleased if you will call upon us at
Porthalloc. There is a glorious view from the garden. I suppose you will
be at work all day, but you are sure to find us in of an evening."
"Yes, I fancy I shall live in the open air as long as there is light
enough to sketch by, Miss Treadwyn, but if your mother will be good
enough to allow me to waive ceremony, I will come up some evening after
dinner; in the meantime may I say that I shall always be found somewhere
along the shore, and will be glad to receive with due humility any
chidings that my old playmate, if she will allow me to call her so, may
choose to bestow upon me."
Anna Treadwyn nodded. "I expect we shall be here every day; the sea is
new to Mary, and at present she is wild about it."
"How could you go on so, Mary," she went on, as they continued their
walk.
"How could I?" the girl replied. "Have we not agreed that one of the
chief objects of women's lives should not only be to raise their own sex
to the level of man, but generally to urge men to higher aims, and yet
because I have very mildly shown my disapproval of Cuthbert Hartington's
laziness and waste of his talents, you ask me how I can do it!"
"Well, you see, Mary, it is one thing for us to form all sorts of
resolutions when we were sitting eight or ten of us together in your
rooms at Girton; but when it comes to putting them into execution one
sees things in rather a different light. I quite agree with our theories
and I hope to live up to them, as far as I can, but it seems to me much
easier to put the theories into practice in a general way than in
individual cases. A clergyman can denounce faults from the pulpit
without giving offence to anyone, but if he were to take one of his
congregation aside and rebuke him, I don't think the experiment would be
successful."
"Nathan said unto David, thou art the man."
"Yes, my dear, but you will excuse my saying that at present you have
scarcely attained the position of Nathan."
Mary Brander laughed.
"Well, no, but you see Cuthbert Hartington is not a stranger. I have
known him ever since I can remember, and used to like him very much,
though he did delight in teasing me; but I have been angry with him for
a long time, and though I had forgotten it, I remember I did tell him my
mind last time I saw him. You see his father is a dear old man, quite
the beau-ideal of a country squire, and there he is all alone in his big
house while his son chooses to live up in London. I have heard my father
and mother say over and over again that he ought to be at home taking
his place in the county instead of going on his own way, and I have
heard other ladies say the same."
"Perhaps mothers with marriageable daughters, Mary," Anna Treadwyn said
with a smile, "but I don't really see why you should be so severe on him
for going his own way. You are yourself doing so without, I fancy, much
deference to your parents' opinions, and besides I have heard you many a
time rail against the soullessness of the conversation and the gossip
and tittle-tattle of society in country towns, meaning in your case in
Abchester, and should, therefore, be the last to blame him for revolting
against it."
"You forget, Anna," Mary said, calmly, "that the cases are altogether
different. He goes his way with the mere selfish desire to amuse
himself. I have set, what I believe to be a great and necessary aim
before me. I don't pretend that there is any sacrifice in it, on the
contrary it is a source of pleasure and satisfaction to devote myself to
the mission of helping my sex to regain its independence, and to take up
the position which it has a right to."
"Of course we are both agreed on that, my dear, we only differ in the
best way of setting about it."
"I don't suppose Mr. Hartington will take what I said to heart," Mary
replied serenely, "and if he does it is a matter of entire indifference
to me."
The subject of their conversation certainly showed no signs of taking
the matter to heart. He smiled as he resumed his work.
"She is just what she used to be," he said to himself. "She was always
terribly in earnest. My father was saying last time I was down that he
had learned from Brander that she had taken up all sorts of Utopian
notions about women's rights and so on, and was going to spend two
years abroad, to get up her case, I suppose. She has grown very pretty.
She was very pretty as a child, though of course last time I saw her she
was at the gawky age. She is certainly turning the tables on me, and she
hit me hard with that stale old Latin quotation. I must admit it was
wonderfully apt. She has a good eye for dress; it is not many girls that
can stand those severely plain lines, but they suit her figure and face
admirably. I must get her and her friend to sit on a rock and let me put
them into the foreground of one of my sketches; funny meeting her here,
however, it will be an amusement."
After that it became a regular custom for the two girls to stop as they
came along the shore for a chat with Cuthbert, sometimes sitting down on
the rocks for an hour; their stay, however, being not unfrequently cut
short by Mary getting up with heightened color and going off abruptly.
It was Cuthbert's chief amusement to draw her out on her favorite
subject, and although over and over again she told herself angrily that
she would not discuss it with him, she never could resist falling into
the snares Cuthbert laid for her. She would not have minded had he
argued seriously with her, but this was just what he did not do, either
laughing at her theory, or replying to her arguments with a mock
seriousness that irritated her far more than his open laughter.
Anna Treadwyn took little part in the discussions, but sat an amused
listener. Mary had been the recognized leader of her set at Girton; her
real earnestness and the fact that she intended to go abroad to fit
herself the better to carry out her theories, but making her a power
among the others. Much as Anna liked and admired her, it amused her
greatly to see her entangled in the dilemma, into which Cuthbert led
her, occasionally completely posing her by his laughing objections. Of
an evening Cuthbert often went up to Porthalloc, where he was warmly
welcomed by Anna's mother, whose heart he won by the gentle and
deferential manner that rendered him universally popular among the
ladies of the families of his artist friends. She would sit smilingly by
when the conflicts of the morning were sometimes renewed, for she saw
with satisfaction that Anna at least was certainly impressed with
Cuthbert's arguments and banter, and afforded very feeble aid to Mary
Brander in her defence of their opinions.
"I feel really obliged to you, Mr. Hartington," she said one evening,
when the two girls happened to be both out of the room when he arrived,
"for laughing Anna out of some of the ideas she brought back from
Girton. At one time these gave me a great deal of concern, for my ideas
are old-fashioned, and I consider a woman's mission is to cheer and
brighten her husband's home, to be a good wife and a good mother, and to
be content with the position God has assigned to her as being her right
and proper one. However, I have always hoped and believed that she would
grow out of her new-fangled ideas, which I am bound to say she never
carried to the extreme that her friend does. The fact that I am somewhat
of an invalid and that it is altogether impossible for her to carry out
such a plan as Miss Brander has sketched for herself, and that there is
no opportunity whatever for her to get up a propaganda in this quiet
little Cornish town, has encouraged that hope; she herself has said but
little on the subject since she came home, and I think your fights with
Miss Brander will go far to complete her cure."
"It is ridiculous from beginning to end," Cuthbert said, "but it is
natural enough. It is in just the same way that some young fellows start
in life with all sorts of wild radical notions, and settle down in
middle age into moderate Liberals, if not into contented Conservatives.
The world is good enough in its way and at any rate if it is to get
better it will be by gradual progress and not by individual effort.
There is much that is very true in Miss Brander's views that things
might be better than they are, it is only with her idea that she has a
mission to set them right that I quarrel. Earnestness is no doubt a good
thing, but too much of it is a misfortune rather than an advantage. No
doubt I am prejudiced," he laughed, "because I am afraid that I have no
particle of it in my composition. Circumstances have been against its
growth, and there is no saying what I might be if they were to change.
At present, at any rate, I have never felt the want of it, but I can
admire it among others even though I laugh at it."
A month passed, and Wilson and his two companions moved further along
the coast in search of fresh subjects, but Cuthbert declined to
accompany them, declaring that he found himself perfectly comfortable
where he was, at which his companions all laughed, but made no attempt
to persuade him further.
"Do you know, Mary," Anna said, a few days later, "you and Mr.
Hartington remind me strongly of Beatrice and Benedict."
"What do you mean, Anna?" Mary asked, indignantly.
"Nothing, my dear," Anna replied, demurely, "except that you are
perpetually quarrelling."
"We may be that," Mary said, shortly, "but we certainly shall not arrive
at the same kind of conclusion to our quarrel."
"You might do worse, Mary; Mr. Hartington is charming. My mother, who is
not given to general admiration, says he is one of the most delightful
men that she ever met. He is heir to a good estate, and unless I am
greatly mistaken, the idea has occurred to him if not to you. I thought
so before, but have been convinced of it since he determined to remain
here while those men he was with have all gone away."
"You will make me downright angry with you, Anna, if you talk such
nonsense," Mary said, severely. "You know very well that I have always
made up mind that nothing shall induce me to marry and give up my
freedom, at any rate for a great many years, and then only to a man who
will see life as I do, become my co-worker and allow me my independence.
Mr. Hartington is the last man I should choose; he has no aim or purpose
whatever, and he would ruin my life as well as his own. No, thank you.
However, I am convinced that you are altogether mistaken, and Cuthbert
Hartington would no more dream of asking me to be his wife than I should
of taking him for a husband--the idea is altogether preposterous."
However, a week later, Cuthbert, on going up to Porthalloc one morning,
and catching sight of Mary Brander in the garden by herself, joined her
there and astonished her by showing that Anna was not mistaken in her
view. He commenced abruptly--
"Do you know, Miss Brander, I have been thinking over your arguments,
and I have come to the conclusion that woman has really a mission in
life. Its object is not precisely that which you have set yourself, but
it is closely allied to it, my view being that her mission is to
contribute to the sum of human happiness by making one individual man
happy!"
"Do you mean, is it possible that you can mean, that you think woman's
mission is to marry?" she asked, with scorn, "are you going back to
that?"
"That is entirely what I meant, but it is a particular case I was
thinking of, rather than a general one. I was thinking of your case and
mine. I do not say that you might not do something towards adding to the
happiness of mankind, but mankind are not yearning for it. On the other
hand I am sure that you could make me happy, and I am yearning for that
kind of happiness."
"Are you really in earnest, Mr. Hartington?"
"Quite in earnest, very much so; in the six weeks that I have been here
I have learnt to love you, and to desire, more earnestly certainly than
I have ever desired anything before, that you should be my wife. I know
that you do not credit me with any great earnestness of purpose, but I
am quite earnest in this. I do love you, Mary."
"I am sorry to hear it, and am surprised, really and truly surprised. I
thought you disapproved of me altogether, but I did think you gave me
credit for being sincere. It is clear you did not, or you could not
suppose that I would give up all my plans before even commencing them. I
like you very much, Cuthbert, though I disapprove of you as much as I
thought you disapproved of me; but if ever I do marry, and I hope I
shall never be weak enough to do so, it must be to someone who has the
same views of life that I have; but I feel sure that I shall never love
anyone if love is really what one reads of in books, where woman is
always ready to sacrifice her whole life and her whole plans to a man
who graciously accepts the sacrifice as a matter of course."
"I was afraid that that would be your answer," he said gravely. "And yet
I was not disposed to let the chance of happiness go without at least
knowing that it was so. I can quite understand that you do not even feel
that I am really in earnest. So small did I feel my chances were, that I
should have waited for a time before I risked almost certain refusal,
had it not been that you are on the point of going abroad for two years.
And two years is a long time to wait when one feels that one's chance is
very small at the end of that time. Well, it is of no use saying
anything more about it. I may as well say good-bye at once, for I shall
pack up and go. Good-bye, dear; I hope that you are wrong, and that some
day you will make some man worthy of you happy, but when the time comes
remember that I prophesy that he will not in the slightest degree
resemble the man you picture to yourself now. I think that the saying
that extremes meet is truer than those that assert that like meets like;
but whoever he is I hope that he will be someone who will make you as
happy as I should have tried to do."
"Good-bye, Cuthbert," she said, frankly, "I think this has all been very
silly, and I hope that by the time we meet again you will have forgotten
all about it."
There was something in his face, as she looked up into it, that told her
what she had before doubted somewhat, that he had been really in earnest
for once in his life, and she added, "I do hope we shall be quite good
friends when we meet again, and that you will then see I am quite right
about this."
He smiled, gave her a little nod, and then dropping her hand sauntered
into the house.
"It is the most foolish thing I have ever heard of," she said to
herself, pettishly, as she looked after him. "I can't think how such an
idea ever occurred to him. He must have known that even if I had not
determined as I have done to devote myself to our cause, he was the last
sort of man I should ever have thought of marrying. Of course he is nice
and I always thought so, but what is niceness when he has no aims, no
ambitions in life, and he is content to waste it as he is doing."
Five minutes later Anna Treadwyn joined her in the garden.
"So I was right after all, Mary?"
"How do you know, do you mean to say that he has told you?"
"Not exactly, but one can use one's eyes, I suppose. He said nothing
last night about going away, and now he is leaving by this afternoon's
coach; besides, although he laughed and talked as usual one could see
with half an eye that it was forced. So you have actually refused him?"
"Of course I have, how can you ask such a question? It was the most
perfectly absurd idea I ever heard of."
"Well, I hope that you will never be sorry for it, Mary."
"There is not much fear of that," Mary said, with a toss of her head,
"and let me say that it is not very polite, either of you or him, to
think that I should be ready to give up all my plans in life, the first
time I am asked, and that by a gentleman who has not the slightest
sympathy with them. It is a very silly and tiresome affair altogether,
and I do hope I shall never hear anything of it again."
CHAPTER III.
Cuthbert Hartington had been back in town but two days when he received
a letter from Mr. Brander apprising him of the sudden death of his
father. It was a terrible shock, for he had no idea whatever that Mr.
Hartington was in any way out of health. Cuthbert had written only the
day before to say that he should be down at the end of the week, for
indeed he felt unable to settle down to his ordinary course of life in
London. He at once sent off a telegram ordering the carriage to meet him
by the evening train, and also one to Mr. Brander begging him to be at
the house if possible when he arrived.
Upon hearing from the lawyer that his father had been aware that he
might be carried off at any moment by heart disease, but that he had
strictly forbidden the doctor and himself writing to him, or informing
anyone of the circumstances, he said--
"It is just like my father, but I do wish it had not been so. I might
have been down with him for the last three months of his life."
"The Squire went on just in his usual way, Cuthbert. I am sure that he
preferred it so. He shrunk, as he said, from knowing that people he met
were aware that his days were numbered, and even with me after our first
conversation on the subject, he made no allusion whatever to it. He was
as cheery and bright as ever, and when I last met him a week ago, even I
who knew the circumstances, could see no difference whatever in his
manner. I thought he was wrong, at first, but I came to the conclusion
afterwards that his decision was not an unwise one. He spared you three
months of unavailing pain; he had no fear of death, and was able to go
about as before to meet his friends without his health being a subject
of discussion, and in all ways to go on as usual until the call came.
His death was evidently painless; he sat down in his easy arm-chair
after lunch for his usual half-hour's nap, and evidently expired in his
sleep. The servant found him, as he believed, still asleep when he came
in to tell him that the carriage was at the door, and it was only on
touching him he discovered what had happened. They sent the carriage off
at once to fetch Dr. Edwards. He looked in at my office and took me over
with him, and I got back in time to write to you."
The shock that the Squire's sudden death caused in Abchester, was, a
fortnight later, obliterated by the still greater sensation caused by
the news that the bank had put up its shutters. The dismay excited
thereby was heightened when it became known that the manager had
disappeared, and reports got about that the losses of the bank had been
enormous. The first investigation into its affairs more than confirmed
the worst rumors. For years it had been engaged in propping up the firm
not only of Mildrake and Co., which had failed to meet its engagements
on the day preceding the announcement of the bank's failure, but of
three others which had broken down immediately afterwards. In all of
these firms Mr. Cumming was found to have had a large interest.
On the day after the announcement of the failure of the bank, Mr.
Brander drove up to Fairclose. He looked excited and anxious when he
went into the room where Cuthbert was sitting, listlessly, with a book
before him.
"I have a piece of very bad news to tell you, Mr. Hartington," he said.
"Indeed?" Cuthbert said, without any very great interest in his voice.
"Yes; I daresay you heard yesterday of the failure of the bank?"
"Dr. Edwards looked in here as he was driving past to tell me of it. Had
we any money in it?"
"I wish that was all, it is much worse than that, sir. Your father was a
shareholder in the bank."
"He never mentioned it to me," Cuthbert said, his air of indifference
still unchanged.
"He only bought shares a comparatively short time ago, I think it was
after you were here the last time. There were some vague rumors afloat
as to the credit of the bank, and your father, who did not believe them,
took a few shares as a proof of his confidence in it, thinking, he said,
that the fact that he did so might allay any feeling of uneasiness."
"I wonder that you allowed him to invest in bank shares, Mr. Brander."
"Of course I should not have done so if I had had the slightest idea
that the bank was in difficulties, but I was in no way behind the
scenes. I transacted their legal business for them in the way of drawing
up mortgages, investigating titles, and seeing to the purchase and sales
of property here in the county; beyond that I knew nothing of their
affairs. I was not consulted at all in the matter. Your father simply
said to me, 'I see that the shares in the bank have dropped a little,
and I hear there are some foolish reports as to its credit; I think as
a county gentleman I ought to support the County Bank, and I wish you to
buy say fifty shares for me.'"
"That was just like my father," Cuthbert said, admiringly, "he always
thought a great deal of his county, and I can quite understand his
acting as he did. Well, they were ten pound shares, I think, so it is
only five hundred gone at the worst."
"I am afraid you don't understand the case," Mr. Brander said, gravely;
"each and every shareholder is responsible for the debts of the bank to
the full extent of his property, and although I earnestly hope that only
the bank's capital has been lost, I can't disguise from you that in the
event of there being a heavy deficiency it will mean ruin to several of
the shareholders."
"That is bad, indeed," Cuthbert said, thoroughly interested now. "Of
course you have no idea at present of what the state of the bank is."
"None whatever, but I hope for the best. I am sorry to say I heard a
report this morning that Mr. Hislop, who was, as you know, the chairman
of the bank, had shot himself, which, if true, will, of course,
intensify the feeling of alarm among the shareholders."
Cuthbert sat silent for some time.
"Well," he said, at last, "this is sudden news, but if things are as bad
as possible, and Fairclose and all the estate go, I shall be better off
than many people. I shall have that five thousand pounds that came to me
by my mother's settlement, I suppose?"
"Yes, no doubt. The shares have not been transferred to my name as your
father's executor. I had intended when I came up next week to go through
the accounts with you, to recommend you to instruct me to dispose of
them at once, which I should have done in my capacity of executor
without transferring them in the first place to you. Therefore, any
claim there may be will lie against the estate and not against you
personally."
"That is satisfactory anyhow," Cuthbert said, calmly. "I don't know how
I should get on without it. Of course I shall be sorry to lose this
place, but in some respects the loss will be almost a relief to me. A
country life is not my vocation, and I have been wondering for the last
fortnight what on earth I should do with myself. As it is, I shall, if
it comes to the worst, be obliged to work. I never have worked because I
never have been forced to do so, but really I don't know that the
prospects are altogether unpleasant, and at any rate I am sure that I
would rather be obliged to paint for my living than to pass my life in
trying to kill time."
The lawyer looked keenly at his client, but he saw that he was really
speaking in earnest, and that his indifference at the risk of the loss
of his estates was unaffected.
"Well," he said, after a pause, "I am glad indeed that you take it so
easily; of course, I hope most sincerely that things may not be anything
like so bad as that, and that, at worst, a call of only a few pounds a
share will be sufficient to meet any deficiency that may exist, still I
am heartily glad to see that you are prepared to meet the event in such
a spirit, for to most men the chance of such a calamity would be
crushing."
"Possibly I might have felt it more if it had come upon me two or three
years later, just as I had got to be reconciled to the change of life,
but you see I have so recently and unexpectedly come into the estate
that I have not even begun to appreciate the pleasures of possession or
to feel that they weigh in the slightest against the necessity of my
being obliged to give up the life I have been leading for years. By the
bye," he went on, changing the subject carelessly, "how is your daughter
getting on in Germany? I happened to meet her at Newquay three weeks
ago, and she told me she was going out there in the course of a week or
so. I suppose she has gone."
"Yes, she has gone," Mr. Brander said, irritably. "She is just as bent
as you were, if you will permit me to say so, on the carrying out of her
own scheme of life. It is a great annoyance to her mother and me, but
argument has been thrown away upon her, and as unfortunately the girls
have each a couple of thousand, left under their own control by their
mother's sister, she was in a position to do as she liked. However, I
hope that a year or two will wean her from the ridiculous ideas he has
taken up."
"I should doubt whether her cure will be as prompt as you think, it
seemed to me that her ideas were somewhat fixed, and it will need a good
deal of failure to disillusionize her."
"She is as obstinate as a little mule," Mr. Brander said shortly.
"However, I must be going," he went on, rising from his chair. "I drove
over directly I had finished my breakfast and must hurry back again to
the office. Well, I hope with all my heart, Mr. Hartington, that this
most unfortunate affair will not turn out so badly after all."
Cuthbert did not echo the sentiment, but accompanied his visitor
silently to the door, and after seeing him off returned to the room,
where he reseated himself in his chair, filled and lighted his pipe, put
his legs on to another chair, and proceeded to think the matter out.
It was certainly a wholly unexpected change; but at present he did not
feel it to be an unpleasant one, but rather a relief. He had for the
last ten days been bemoaning himself. While but an heir apparent he
could live his own life and take his pleasure as he liked. As owner of
Fairclose he had duties to perform--he had his tenants' welfare to look
after, there would be the bailiff to interview every morning and to go
into all sorts of petty details as to hedges and ditches, fences and
repairs, and things he cared not a jot for, interesting as they were to
his dear old father. He supposed he should have to go on the Bench and
to sit for hours listening to petty cases of theft and drunkenness,
varied only by a poaching affray at long intervals.
There would be county gatherings to attend, and he would naturally be
expected to hunt and to shoot. It had all seemed to him inexpressedly
dreary. Now all that was, if Brander's fears were realized, at an end,
even if it should not turn out to be as bad as that, the sum he would be
called upon to pay might be sufficient to cripple the estate and to
afford him a good and legitimate excuse for shutting up or letting the
house, and going away to retrench until the liabilities were all cleared
off. Of course he would have to work in earnest now, but even the
thought of that was not altogether unpleasant.
"I believe it is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me,"
he said to himself. "I know that I should never have done anything if it
hadn't been for this, and though I am not fool enough to suppose I am
ever going to turn out anything great, I am sure that after a couple of
years' hard work I ought to paint decently, and anyhow to turn out as
good things as some of those men. It is just what I have always been
wanting, though I did not know it. I am afraid I shall have to cut all
those dear old fellows, for I should never be able to give myself up to
work among them. I should say it would be best for me to go over to
Paris; I can start on a fresh groove there. At my age I should not like
to go through any of the schools here. I might have three months with
Terrier; that would be just the thing to give me a good start; he is a
good fellow but one who never earns more than bread and cheese.
"There isn't a man in our set who really knows as much about it as he
does. He has gone through our own schools, was a year at Paris, and
another at Rome. He has got the whole thing at his fingers' ends, and
would make a splendid master if he would but go in for pupils, but with
all that he can't paint a picture. He has not a spark of imagination,
nor an idea of art; he has no eye for color, or effect. He can paint
admirably what he sees, but then he sees nothing but bare facts. He is
always hard up, poor fellow, and it would be a real boon to him to take
me for three months and stick at it hard with me, and by the end of that
time I ought to be able to take my place in some artist's school in
Paris without feeling myself to be an absolute duffer among a lot of
fellows younger than myself. By Jove, this news is like a breeze on the
east coast in summer--a little sharp, perhaps, but splendidly bracing
and healthy, just the thing to set a fellow up and make a man of him. I
will go out for a walk and take the dogs with me."
He got up, went to the stables, and unchained the dogs, who leapt round
him in wild delight, for the time of late had been as dull for them as
for him; told one of the stable boys to go to the house and say that he
would not be back to lunch, and then went for a twenty mile walk over
the hills, and returned somewhat tired with the unaccustomed exertion,
but with a feeling of buoyancy and light-heartedness such as he had not
experienced for a long time past. For the next week he remained at home,
and then feeling too restless to do so any longer, went to town, telling
Mr. Brander to let him know as soon as the committee, that had already
commenced its investigations into the real state of the bank's affairs,
made their first report.
The lawyer was much puzzled over Cuthbert's manner. It seemed to him
utterly impossible that anyone should really be indifferent to losing a
fine estate, and yet he could see no reason for Cuthbert's assuming
indifference on so vital a subject unless he felt it. He even discussed
the matter with his wife.
"I cannot understand that young Hartington," he said; "most men would
have been completely crumpled up at the news I gave him, but he took it
as quietly as if it had been a mere bagatelle. The only possible
explanation of his indifference that I can think of is that he must have
made some low marriage in London, and does not care about introducing
his wife to the county; it is just the sort of thing that a man with his
irregular Bohemian habits might do--a pretty model, perhaps, or some
peasant girl he has come across when out sketching."
"He never did care particularly about anything," Mrs. Brander said, "and
it may be he is really glad to get away from the country."
"That would be possible enough if he had a good income in addition to
Fairclose, but all that he will have is that five thousand that came to
him from his mother, and I should say he is likely enough to run through
that in a couple of years at the outside, and then where will he be?"
"I can't think, Jeremiah, how you ever permitted his father to do such a
mad thing as to take those shares."
"I know what I am doing, my dear, don't you worry yourself about that.
You have been wanting me for a very long time to give up business and
go into the country. How would Fairclose suit you?"
"You are not in earnest," she exclaimed, with an excitement very unusual
to her. "You can't mean that?"
"I don't often say what I don't mean, my dear, and if Fairclose comes
into the market, more unlikely things than that may come to pass; but
mind, not a word of this is to be breathed."
"And do you really think it will come into the market?" she asked.
"As certain as the sun will rise to-morrow morning. We only held our
first meeting to-day, but that was enough to show us that the directors
ought all to be shut up in a lunatic asylum. The affairs of the bank are
in a frightful state, simply frightful; it means ruin to every one
concerned."
"It is fortunate, indeed, that you did not hold any shares, Jeremiah."
"I was not such a fool," he said, shortly, "as to trust my money in the
hands of a body
|
seen some of his paintings, together
with those of Millais and Holman Hunt and Madox Brown. In all these
things Morris found the conception of life that he had already made
his own, in beautiful and more or less complete expression. Twelve
numbers of the magazine appeared, financed by Morris. Its aim was
the expression of the Brotherhood's artistic creed and its loyalty to
the essential idea of the identity of art with life. Rossetti was
among its contributors. Of Morris's own work in the venture, his
earliest poems and prose romances, something will be said in the next
chapter.
Before leaving Oxford Morris and Burne-Jones together definitely
abandoned their idea of entering the church. The latter decided on
the work to which his life was to be devoted, whilst Morris formally
adopted architecture as a profession. Arrangements were made for him
to enter G. E. Street's Oxford office, and after a second visit to
France and its churches and passing his Final schools, he took up his
new work at the beginning of 1856. In his spare time he continued
his writing and tried his hand at craftsmanship. Burne-Jones went up
to London a few months later. Morris followed shortly when Street
moved his headquarters. Together they formed a close acquaintance
with Rossetti. That dominating personality was not slow to recognize
the powers of his new friends, and insisted that Morris should turn
painter, asserting, with an inconsequence worthy of one of Oscar
Wilde's creations, that everybody should be a painter. His proposal,
although it had no permanent effect on Morris, showed that the
election of architecture was not unalterable. For a time Morris
painted, throwing into the work the energy that was inseparable from
all his undertakings, but he was quick to realize that with all his
understanding of the painter's art he could not achieve its mastery.
The fact that he had been tempted to alter his choice even
tentatively, however, was enough to make him suspicious of the choice
itself. Without any conviction as to the possibility of a career as
a painter, he abandoned his profession as architect at the end of a
year. His state was one of considerable danger. Rich enough to make
work unnecessary as a means of living, exposed to an influence so
impetuous as Rossetti's, already showing considerable power in
several forms of expression as an artist, wholly unable to dissociate
one from the other, seeing but one purpose behind them all, there was
a probability, in the light of experience almost a certainty, that he
would become an excellent amateur of the arts, practising many things
with credit and triumphant in none, a generous patron, a kind of
titanic dilettante. The manner in which he overcame this danger is
one of the most remarkable things in the history of art. Had some
circumstance, external or internal, forced him to concentrate himself
on one or another of the forms with which he was experimenting, the
escape would have been normal and relatively free of difficulty. But
there was no such circumstance. His activities daily became more
diffused rather than more concentrated. Carving, modelling,
illuminating, designing, painting, poetry and prose-writing, all
became part of his daily scheme. Painting, indeed, he left, save for
incidental purposes, but the scope of his practice widened with every
year. And instead of becoming, as would seem to have been
inevitable, an accomplished amateur, he became a master in everything
he touched. He revolutionized many manufacturing processes and
invested craftsmanship with a vitality that it had not known for
centuries; he rediscovered secrets of mediæval artistry that were
supposed to be finally lost, and re-established the union between
beauty and things of common use; he became printer, and the books
from his press are scarcely excelled in the history of printing; he
wrote prose romances which in themselves would have secured him an
honourable place in literature, and yet all these achievements might
be cancelled and he would still stand as one of the greatest poets of
his age; or, indeed, of any age. It is all an astonishing testimony
to the vitality of his artistic conscience. However uncertain might
be the expression of his art in these early days, the fundamental
significance of art was rooted in his being with an unassailable
strength. In the light of his life-work these first more or less
indefinite gropings appear no longer as the whims of a nature
uncertain of itself. The impulse within him was not to be satisfied
by any partial expression. If it was to create a new world in
poetry, it must also strive to bring that world in some measure into
the affairs of daily life. It was not sufficient for Morris that the
dishes and goblets on the king's table in his song should be
beautiful or that he should commemorate Jason in halls hung 'with
richest webs.' The furnishings of his own table must be comely too,
and the 'richest webs' should not be a memory alone. No more perfect
example of critical stupidity could well be found than the notion
that Morris, as a creative artist, separated himself from the affairs
of the life about him, as if in retreat. Every line of poetry that
he wrote was the direct expression of the spirit in which he ordered
his daily practice.
Morris's feeling for mediævalism must not be misunderstood. He was
fully conscious of the fact that a few centuries are as but a moment
in the development of man, and he did not turn to early art as to the
expression of a humanity differing in any fundamental way from the
humanity of his own day. Nor did he turn to that aspect of
mediævalism which has given it the name of the Dark Ages, but to the
life that produced Giotto and Angelico, Van Eyck and Dürer, and
Holbein and Memling, the monks whose illuminated books he prized so
dearly, and Chaucer.[1] He was not indifferent to the masterpieces
of the modern world. The range of Shakespeare's humanity, Shelley's
spiritual ardour, the passionate identification of truth with beauty
which was as a gospel to Keats, the earlier poems of Tennyson and
Browning, he accepted as revelations. Wordsworth and Milton he
professed to dislike, but he more probably disliked the people who
liked them wrongly. Nothing is more provocative than the praise of
fools. But it was in the work of those early artists, the men from
whom the Pre-Raphaelites took their name, that he found the most
perfect and satisfying expression of the spiritual life which was for
him the only true salvation on earth. It has been said by Paul
Lacroix that in the painting of Jan Van Eyck 'the Gothic school
decked itself with a splendour which left but little for the future
Venetian school to achieve beyond; with one flight of genius, stiff
and methodical conceptions became imbued with suppleness and vital
action.' The same is substantially true of Chaucer in poetry. Some
lessons in rudimentary technique might have been learned by these men
from their predecessors, but their powers of expression were vibrant
as some newly-discovered energy, and they used them in all their
freshness to embody a sane, simple view of life such as Morris
himself held. The subtlety which might follow in the evolution from
these beginnings, the greater intricacy of achievement, would take
their place in his consciousness, but nothing could ever displace his
worship of these frank and exultant records of man's joy in his work,
a joy that he hoped would yet be regained. They and their kind
remained for him, throughout his life, the supreme examples of the
meaning of art.
When he gave up his work in Street's office, Morris moved with
Burne-Jones to rooms in Red Lion Square. They were unfurnished, and
out of this circumstance really sprang the beginnings of 'Morris and
Company,' although the firm was not actually founded until 1861. The
two artists found nothing in the shops that was tolerable, so Morris
made rough designs of furniture and commissioned a carpenter to
execute them in plain deal. Chairs, a massive table, a settle and a
wardrobe were among the first acquisitions. Rossetti painted two
panels of the settle, and Burne-Jones decorated the wardrobe with
paintings from Chaucer. When Morris built his own house this process
was carried out on a larger scale, but the beginnings of the
revolution of house-furnishing in England are clearly traceable to
the rooms in Red Lion Square.
In the Long Vacation of 1875 Rossetti conceived the ill-fated scheme
of mural paintings for the new hall of the Oxford Union. The story
need not be told here in any detail. Morris and Burne-Jones were
pressed unto the service with some six or seven others, and each
painted one picture, Morris in addition designing and carrying out
the decoration of the ceiling. No proper preparations were made for
the work, and the paintings have perished. The undertaking is
interesting to us here as throwing sidelights on certain aspects of
Morris's temperament. He had begun and finished his picture long
before any of the others, and while they were still engaged on their
appointed shares he had voluntarily set himself to the ceiling
design. His capacity for work, of which this is the first striking
example, was always enormous, and it is not surprising to hear that a
distinguished doctor, speaking of his comparatively early death at
the age of sixty-three, said, 'I consider the case is this: the
disease is simply being William Morris and having done more work than
most ten men.' It was on this occasion, too, that his strange store
of assimilated knowledge was put to practical use. The paintings
were all taken from the "Mort d'Arthur," and models were required for
arms and armour. They were not to be found, and Morris, unaided by
books of reference, designed them, and they were made by a jobbing
smith under his supervision. When the Union work was finished he
took rooms in Oxford instead of returning to London, and among the
new friends that he made was Swinburne, then an undergraduate at
Balliol. He continued his apprenticeship as a painter with
enthusiasm but lessening conviction, but poetry was already becoming
a first consideration with him. He had already published a few
poems, as we have seen, in the "Oxford and Cambridge Magazine," and
several others were written during his temporary residence in Oxford.
He was a man of fine physique and a remarkable vehemence of temper.
Burne-Jones tells us that when they were painting the Union walls and
needed models they sat for each other, and that Morris 'had a head
always fit for Lancelot or Tristram.' To think a thing was generally
to say it. His intolerance of everything vulgar and mean and
disloyal in art and life found immediate and forceful expression. A
friend who knew him well tells me of an occasion when he went with
Burne-Jones to the theatre. They were sitting in the pit, and one of
the actresses was incurring Morris's particular displeasure by reason
of her misuse of her mother-tongue. At a moment of tension she had
to enter and announce that her father was dead. She did so, but to
the effect that her 'father was dad.' Morris could bear it no
longer, and standing up with his hands clenched he roared across the
theatre, 'What the devil do you mean by dad?' to the utter
discomfiture of his companion. Insincerity--and incompetence he took
to be a form of insincerity--at all times exhausted his patience, and
he was never careful to conceal his feelings.
The time of preparation was now passing into the time of achievement.
Morris's nature had been spared much of the shock and stress to which
it might have been subjected in its growth by the vulgarity and
violent uncertainty of his age, by the fortunate contact with men who
were in revolt. The movement that they represented and of which he
was a part was large and strong enough to make a positive and
progressive life of its own instead of being merely an isolated
expression of turbulent disagreement. It was one of those rare
manifestations, a revolt the first purpose of which was not to
destroy but to create. To this influence had been added that of a
countryside gravely beautiful, one full of the shadows and colour of
romance, or, more precisely, of the northern romance to which he was
always to lend his most faithful service. It must not be supposed
that this implies any coldness in his nature, which was at all times
finely passionate. But it was, always, also simple, and simplicity
of passion is the ultimate distinction of the North. The luxuriance
of the South, with all its beauty, tends to obscurity. Nothing is
further from wisdom than to suppose that the passion of the North is
cold; it is merely naked. His characteristic simplicity of outlook
was not yet impressing itself with its final certainty on his work,
but it was already in being, as is clear from the records of his
personality as it appeared to his friends at the beginning of his
career.
Such was the nature of the man, who, fostered to articulate
expression in a spiritual atmosphere which it has been my purpose to
describe, was about to make his first appeal as poet to the public.
Early in 1858, Messrs. Bell and Daldy published _The Defence of
Guenevere and Other Poems_.
[1] The chronological irregularity in this passage is deliberate, and
I am aware, of course, that certain of the names mentioned cannot
strictly be credited to mediævalism. But a nice distinction of
epochs is not necessary for the present purpose. There was, in
Morris's view of art, a kinship between Giotto and Holbein which was
unaffected by the fact that the former died in 1336, whilst Holbein
saw the full day of the northern renaissance two hundred years later.
II
EARLY POEMS AND PROSE
In insisting upon the simplicity of Morris's artistic ideal it is
well to examine a little closely the precise meaning of simplicity.
Spiritual adventure is the supremely momentous thing in a man's life,
but it is also the most intangible. Art being the most perfect
expression of spiritual adventure, its function is to impart to the
recipient some measure of that exaltation experienced by its creator
at the moment of conception. But to attain this end the art must
have that instinctive rightness which cannot be achieved by taking
thought but only by a rarity of perception which lends essential
truth to the common phrase that the artist is born, not made. If you
give a potter a lump of clay he may shape it into a vessel ugly or
beautiful. If our artistic intelligence or our spiritual
intelligence is awake, we shall instantly determine the result; if
ugly it will revolt us, or at best leave us indifferent; if beautiful
it will give us joy. But the difference, which is evident enough to
our consciousness, does not enable us to define the distinction
between the ugly and the beautiful, the dead and the quick. We only
know that in the one there is an obscure and wonderful vitality and
satisfying completeness that is lacking in the other. The beautiful
thing may be perfectly simple, but it nevertheless has in it
something strange and indefinable, something as elusive as life
itself. The simple must not be confused with the easy. When Morris
read his first poem to the acclamation of his friends, and announced
that if this was poetry it was very easy to write, it must be
remembered that he meant that it was easy for the rare creative
organisation that was William Morris. No doubt it was just as easy
for Shelley in the moment of creation to set down an image of
desolation as perfect as
Blue thistles bloomed in cities,
as it is for the veriest poetaster to produce his commonplaces, and
the result is certainly as simple, but the one is touched into life
by the god-like thing which we call imagination, whilst the other is
nerveless. The bow that was as iron to the suitors bent as a willow
wand to the hand of Ulysses. The simplicity of Morris's art is yet
compact of the profound and inscrutable mystery. It is not wholly
true to say that all great or good art is simple. From Donne to
Browning and Meredith there have been poets whose art is complex and
yet memorable. It is not my present purpose to discuss the precise
value of simplicity in art, but to point out that simplicity does not
imply either superficiality or the worthless kind of ease.
Richard Watson Dixon said that in his opinion Morris never excelled
his early poems in achievement, and his judgment in the matter has
been echoed a good many times with far less excuse than Dixon himself
could plead. To him they represented the first impassioned
expression of a life which he had shared, and enthusiasms which he
had helped to kindle, and by which in turn he had been fostered. He
was the man to whom Morris first read his first poem, and there was
naturally a fragrance in the memory which nothing could ever quite
replace. But the echoes have no such justification, and are
generally the result of incomplete knowledge. _The Defence of
Guenevere and Other Poems_ is quite good enough to make it safe to
avow a preference for it, without reading the later work. A
reputation for taste may be preserved here, with the least possible
labour. But there is nothing in the volume which helps to make the
position really tenable. There is, indeed, scarcely any poet who can
point to a first volume of such high excellence, so completely
individual, so certain in intention, as could Morris. But to set it
above the freedom and poignancy of _The Life and Death of Jason_, the
tenderness and architectural strength of _The Earthly Paradise_ and
the fiery triumph of _Sigurd the Volsung_ is a critical absurdity.
It is a remarkable book, one which in itself would have assured
Morris of his place in the history of poetry, but it remains no more
than the exquisite prelude of a man whose complete achievement in
poetry was to stand with the noblest of the modern world.
The chief evidence of immaturity which is found in Morris's first
book is a certain vagueness of outline in some of the poems. The
wealth of decorative colour of which he was never to be dispossessed
is already here, and on the whole it is used fitly and with
restraint. Effects such as
A great God's angel standing, _with such dyes
Not known on earth, on his great wings_
and
he sat alone
_With raiment half blood-red, half white as snow._
and
Also her hands have lost that way
Of clinging that they used to have;
They look'd quite easy, _as they lay
Upon the silken cushions brave
With broidery of apples green._
And again,
_The blue owls on my father's hood_
Were a little dimm'd as I turn'd away,
and whole passages in such poems as _The Wind_, and even poems in
their entirety such as _The Gilliflower of Gold_ depend as much upon
their colour as if actually done with a brush; and they depend
safely, whilst the use of one art by another can scarcely be more
triumphantly vindicated than by the lines in _A Good Knight in
Prison_, where Sir Guy says:--
For these vile beasts that hem me in
These Pagan beasts who live in sin
* * * * *
Why, all these things I hold them just
_Like dragons in a missal-book,
Wherein, whenever we may look,
We see no horror, yea delight,
We have, the colours are so bright._
There are moments, however, in this volume when the poet's power of
visualizing, as with the eyes of the painter, lead him into a
weakness from which his later work is entirely free. When Guenevere
says:--
This is true, the kiss
Wherewith we kissed in meeting that spring day
I scarce dare talk of the remember'd bliss,
When both our mouths went wandering in one way,
And aching sorely, met among the leaves;
Our hands being left behind strained far away.
we feel that a certain sacrifice of emotional directness of speech is
being made to a sense that intrudes on the poetry without
intensifying it. And we have the same feeling when Galahad says:--
No maid will talk
Of sitting on my tomb until the leaves
Grow big upon the bushes of the walk,
East of the Palace-pleasaunce, _make it hard
To see the minster therefrom._
The elaboration in these places blurs rather than quickens our
vision, as it does again in Rapunzel's song:--
Send me a true knight,
Lord Christ, with a steel sword, bright,
Broad and trenchant; yea, _and seven
Spans from hilt to point, O Lord!
And let the handle of his sword
Be gold on silver._
We may almost forgive a young poet flaws which are in themselves
lovely and are but excesses of a method which he commonly uses to
wholly admirable ends; but they are flaws none the less. The sense
of values is not yet consistently true. But the indistinctness of
outline of which I have spoken is a more serious weakness than this
occasional indiscretion in the use of colour.
The poems in the volume may, somewhat arbitrarily, but fitly for the
present purpose, be considered as four or five groups. The poems in
the first, headed by _The Defence of Guenevere_, _King Arthur's Tomb_
and _Sir Galahad_, have love for their central theme and aim at
conducting a more or less simple love story to its successful or
disastrous issue with directness and clarity. The obscurity that
alone threatens their complete success is not due to subtlety on the
one hand nor to vagueness of conception on the other, but merely to a
power of expression that was not yet sure of itself. Psychological
subtlety was not, as is sometimes supposed, outside Morris's range;
on the contrary, he gives constant and varied evidence of a depth of
perception in human affairs quite remarkable, as will be shown. But
the subtlety was never confused and blurred by the sophistry that
tempts so many poets on making a really pregnant psychological
discovery into all kinds of unintelligible elaboration. When he saw
clearly into the workings of the mind he recorded his vision in a few
sharp and clearly defined strokes, and left it. Subtlety and
obscurity are never synonymous in his work. And although, at
twenty-four, his understanding of man's love for woman was naturally
not very profound or wide in its range, it was passionate and quite
sure of itself within its own imaginative experience. His failure in
places to give his understanding clear utterance is the failure of a
man not yet wholly used to his medium. When Guenevere says:--
While I was dizzied thus, old thoughts would crowd,
Belonging to the time ere I was bought
By Arthur's great name and his little love;
Must I give up for ever then, I thought,
That which I deemed would ever round me move
Glorifying all things; for a little word,
Scarce ever meant at all, must I now prove
Stone-cold for ever?
the thought is neither close nor difficult, nor, on the other hand,
is it loose, but the statement is not lucid. It is, however,
intelligible after we have sifted it a little carefully, but in such
a passage as--
A little thing just then had made me mad;
I dared not think, as I was wont to do,
Sometimes, upon my beauty; if I had
Held out my long hand up against the blue,
And, looking on the tenderly darken'd fingers,
Thought that by rights one ought to see quite through,
There, see you, where the soft still light yet lingers,
Round by the edges; what should I have done,
If this had joined with yellow spotted singers,
And startling green drawn upward by the sun?
the thought is hidden in an utterance so tangled and involved as to
make it almost impossible to straighten it out, and in any case
poetry so enigmatic ceases to be poetry at all. Such extreme
instances are, however, very rare even in this first volume, and
scarcely ever to be found in his later work. The title-poem
throughout is uncertain in its expression. There are passages of
fine directness and precision as--
And fast leapt Caitiff's sword, until my knight
Sudden threw up his sword to his left hand,
Caught it, and swung it; that was all the fight,
and the picture of Guenevere at the close, listening for Launcelot,
'turn'd sideways,'
Like a man who hears
His brother's trumpet sounding through the wood
Of his foe's lances.'
but in spite of these and the unquestionable beauty of the poem's
cumulative effect, there is a troubling lack of firmness in many
places that makes the achievement incomplete. I think that the use
of _terza rima_ in itself has something to do with this. In a poem
like Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" we are prepared to follow the
poet in any imaginative flight that he may attempt from moment to
moment, and his adventurousness finds all the time some turn of
thought that will perfectly fit the exacting demands of the form that
he is using. But in Morris's poem the process of the narrative to be
convincing can only be conducted in one way, and that way the poet
frequently finds obstructed by the necessity of a verse-form
particularly difficult in English. However this may be, _King
Arthur's Tomb_ is certainly less open to this charge of obscurity in
utterance, and the thought has more imaginative force in it. There
are passages here that suggest the presence of a poet to whom the
highest things in poetry may yet be possible. Guenevere's cry--
Unless you pardon, what shall I do, Lord,
But go to hell? and there see day by day
Foul deed on deed, hear foulest word on word,
For ever and for ever, such as on the way
To Camelot I heard once from a churl,
That curled me up upon my jennet's neck
With bitter shame; how then, Lord, should I curl
For ages and for ages? _dost thou reck_
_That I am beautiful, Lord, even as you_
And your dear mother? why did I forget
You were so beautiful, and good, and true,
That you loved me so, Guenevere? O yet
If even I go to hell, _I cannot choose
But love you, Christ, yea, though I cannot keep
From loving Launcelot._
has a poignancy and a curious understanding of the action of a mind
in spiritual anguish that were to be so nobly employed in things like
the close of _Jason_. The dramatic opposition of Guenevere's love,
which is all the while troubled by the half-consciousness of sin, to
Launcelot's, which is its own sole cause and justification, is,
further, a first indication of the poet's power to set the elemental
passions in action at once simple and convincing. When the Queen
finds her lover lying on the dead king's tomb, she schools her tongue
to a cold absurdity, not daring to trust herself,--'Well done! to
pray for Arthur,' and Launcelot cries out:--
Guenevere! Guenevere!
Do you not know me, are you gone mad? fling
Your arms and hair about me, lest I fear
You are not Guenevere, but some other thing.
and the queen's answer falls with the tragic intensity of spiritual
self-betrayal--
Pray you forgive me, fair lord Launcelot!
I am not mad, but I am sick; they cling,
God's curses, unto such as I am; not
Ever again shall we twine arms and lips.
There is in this, and in the whole of the poem from this point a true
and incisive sense of conflict, continually heightened by such
perfectly balanced turns of the imagination as when Launcelot says:--
lo you her thin hand,
That on the carven stone can not keep still
Because she loves me against God's command.
culminating in the confused feelings of terror and appeased destiny
at the end of Guenevere's speaking.
_Sir Galahad: A Christmas Mystery_ is, it may be said, entirely free
of the obscurity, and shows, if not a profounder, yet a more acute
power of perception. The beauty and tenderness of love-sorrow are
themes common enough in poetry, but Morris by making Galahad's
experience of them spring from his thought of other men's love
presents them with a peculiarly fresh poignancy. Galahad on his
quest, 'dismal, unfriended,' thinks of the other knights.
And what if Palomydes also ride,
And over many a mountain and bare heath
Follow the questing beast with none beside?
Is he not able still to hold his breath
With thoughts of Iseult? doth he not grow pale
With weary striving, to seem best of all
To her, 'as she is best,' he saith? to fail
Is nothing to him, he can never fall.
For unto such a man love-sorrow is
So dear a thing unto his constant heart,
That even if he never win one kiss,
Or touch from Iseult, it will never part.
And Launcelot can think of Guenevere, 'next month I kiss you, or next
week, And still you think of me,' but Galahad himself
Some carle shall find
Dead in my arms in the half-melted snow,
and people will but say that he 'If he had lived, had been a right
good knight' and that very evening will be glad when 'in their
scarlet sleeves the gay-dress'd minstrels sing.' The force of the
poet's thought about a particular phase of love is intensified in an
unmistakable way by placing the utterance on the lips of a man who is
not speaking of his own experience, which would have been beautiful
but a little sentimental, but of his hunger for the experience,
sorrowful though it may be, which is emotionally tragic. And we find
another stroke of memorable subtlety when the voice of the vision
says to the knight, speaking of Launcelot's love for Guenevere:--
He is just what you know, O Galahad,
This love is happy even as you say,
But would you for a little time be glad,
To make ME sorry long day after day?
Her warm arms round his neck half throttle me
The hot love-tears burn deep like spots of lead.
The thought here, with wonderful instinct on the part of the poet, is
precisely Galahad's own. It shapes the compensation to his spirit
for its hunger and loneliness. We feel, in passages such as these,
that here is a poet exultant in the exercise of a rare faculty of
statement. The spiritual discovery and the announcement are in
perfect correspondence. _A Good Knight in Prison_, _Old Love_, _The
Sailing of the Sword_ and _Welland River_ are the other poems that
may be included in this first group. They attempt a smaller
psychological range than the poems already considered, but they have
the same emotional intention and achieve it with clarity and
precision. These poems already show the pervasive passion for the
earth that has been discussed; the landscape is everywhere informed
by intimacy and tenderness. Another aspect of the poet's temper too
finds expression--an extraordinarily vivid sense of natural change
and death. With speculation as to the unknown Morris was never
concerned in his poetry. Death was to him neither a fearful thing
nor yet a deliverance or a promise. It was simply the severing of a
beautiful thing that he loved--life; the end of a journey that no
labours could make wearisome. He did not question it, nor did he
seek to evade its reality, but the thought of it was always coloured
with a profound if perfectly brave melancholy. Without ever
disputing with his reason the possibility of death's beneficence, it
was not the beneficence of death that he perceived emotionally, but
the pity of it. It was a fading away, and as such it filled him with
a regretful tenderness, just as did the fading of the full year. The
close of _The Ode to the West Wind_ crystallizes a mental attitude of
which Morris was temperamentally incapable. But it is, of course, a
mistake to suppose that the beauty of his poetry suffers in
consequence. It is not the nature of the mood that matters, but its
personal intensity.
The poems of the second group, of which _The Chapel in Lyoness_ is
the most notable example, have a central point in common with those
of the first, but there is a mysticism in them which is quite
unrelated to the obscurity which has been examined. It is not a
mysticism that has any definite scheme or purpose underlying it;
indeed I am not sure that mysteriousness would not be a fitter word
to use. It is just the mysteriousness of artistic youth, proud of
the faculty of which it finds itself possessed and a little prodigal
in its use. There is still the effort to keep the lines of the story
clear, but they are deliberately the lines of a soft brush rather
than a steel point. To read _The Chapel in Lyoness_, _Concerning
Geffray Teste Noire_ and _The Judgment of God_ is to receive an
impression which is clear enough as long as we refrain from seeking
to define it too precisely. The central thought and incidents of
these poems are set out perfectly plainly, but there is superimposed
a mysticism to which, happily, there is no key. We may never be
quite sure of its meaning, but we know at least that it does not mean
something which would be clear if once we divined some elusive secret
of its nature. It is like the soft scent of an orchard, and we
accept it as gratefully and with as little question.
In poems such as _Rapunzel_ and _The Wind_, however, the quality that
in those other poems was but an incident is adopted as a definite
manner. What was before merely atmosphere is here employed as the
substance. These two poems scarcely make any direct statement at
all, and yet they succeed in an extraordinary way in conveying a
precise intellectual impression. Through a wealth of imagery and
verbal colour run thin threads of suggestion that, fragile as they
are, yet stand out as clearly as the veins in dark marble and have
the same values. It is remarkable that the coloured clouds in which
these poems are, as it were, wrapped, are never stifling. The
flowers of Morris's poetry are never of the hot-house. At the
moments when he is most freely putting language to decorative use, he
preserves a freshness as of windy moorlands or the green stalks of
lilies. At times the threads of suggestion disappear altogether, and
in the third group we find poems which are frankly essays in colour
without any attempt at concrete significance. _The Tune of Seven
Towers_, _Two Red Roses Across the Moon_, _The Blue Closet_, are
examples. It is wrong to say that these poems have no meaning. They
mean exactly the colours that they themselves create. It would be as
wise to say that a sunset or a blue distance of mountains is
meaningless. Somewhere between poems like _The Wind_ and _The Tune
of Seven Towers_ may be placed _The Gilliflower of Gold_, _Spell
Bound_,
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.