SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER
STACKS
Accession
S\ Lv^^ I \^t3^5
NOT TO^BE TAKEN FROM THE LlSRARY
Form No. 37—1500-1-19 -^l^itlTe
For
THE
LANTERN
EDITED BY
THEODORE F. BONNET
AND
EDWARD F. O'DAY
THIRD VOLUME
— MARGHt 1917 TO MARCH, 1918
FIRST STREET SAN FRANCISCO
%\
w%^
13v
333
INDEX
ESSAYS
Pictro Arctino
By Theodore F. Bonnet
The Father of Alice
By Edward F. O'Day Cats and Dogs
By The Bookworm
Lincoln's Comrade Baker
By Theodore F. Bonnet
The Cheerful Russians
By Edward F. O'Day Concerning Bruisers
By The Bookworm The Fan
By Theodore F. Bonnet Confessions of a Bridger
By Edward F. O'Day The Dangerous Widow
By Edward F. O'Day Pope ....
By Robert Lynd The Winds of Anarchy
By Vincent McNabb
Eyes and Tresses
By Edward F. O'Day American Humor
By An Englishman Reflections on Teuton Culture
By Theodore F. Bonnet The Poetry of San Francisco
By Edward F. O'Day On Spending Time
By Norman Keith
Book Endings
By The Bookworm
Riley's Child-Rhymes .
By Edward F. O'Day
Babies .... The Laureate of California
By Edward F. O'Day Our Masks Sneaking of the Middle-Aged
By Theodore F. Bonnet The World of Henry James
By An Englishman A Memory of Rodin
By George Bernard Shaw
Auguste Rodin
By Arthur Symons
Rodin
By Laurence Binyon
Venus De Milo
By Auguste Rodin (translated by Edward F. O'Day)
Adah Isaacs Afenken 323
By Edward F. O'Day Concerning Islands 349
By H. M. T. Adah Isaacs Menken (Concluded) .... 374
By Edward F. O'Day
POETRY Democracy 17
Bv George Sterling
A Cycle 26
By Joe Whitnah
The Price 74
Bv Henry Head
The Lily Pool 98
By Harold Horton Euthanasy 105
By R. H. Law To My Pet Aversion 117
By Brenda Draper
The Inn of a Thousand Dreams .... 131
By Gilbert Frankau
Host 194
By A. Wickham
A Maid Takes Sanctuary 195
By R. A. Foster-MelHar
The Wall-Paper 212
By Edmund Gosse Sentimental Conversation 218
By Virginia Brastow
Gifts 241
By Theodore Maynard Unwritten Poems 247
By William Winter
The Hound of Death 248
By John Gurdon
The Sexton's Story 265
By Edward F. O'Day
To George Sterling . .* 276
By Andrew Dewing
Danse Macabre 283
By Xavier Martinez Cradle Song 290
By Padraic Colum In Time of War 306
By W. H. Davies The Ghost Bereft 320
By E. Nesbit Rose-Leaves 322
By M. M. Johnson Invocation 348
By Siegfried Sassoon
Values 353
By T. P. C. Wilson
Alice Cleaver 371
By Horace B. Samuel
Cathedral Spires . .
Hy Andrew Dewing
Nearer
By Robert Nichols
FICTION Laughter
By L. N. Andreyev
Samson and Delilah
By D. H. Lawrence
Man and Brute ....
By Grant Watson
The Man Who Was Ninety-Nine
By John Higgins Dr. Faber's Last Experiment
By Contamine de Latour Fuscline .....
By Louis Pergaud The Ego in Hades
By Horace B. Samuel The Silver Girl ....
By Richard Le Gallienne Broken Lights ....
By Hervey Fisher Tiger Law
By Elizabeth Kirby
DRAMA
The Mole
By Theodore F. Bonnet
MISCELLANFOI
The Broderick Oration By E. D. Baker
The Death of Pierrot
By Paul Marguerite The Dancing of Columbine
By N. C. Hermon-Hedge Why the Milkman Shudders When the Dawn ....
By Lord Dunsany Trivia
By L. Pearsall Smith Pastels
By Louis Bertrand Poems in Prose ....
By Charles Baudelaire
An Evening at Madame Rachel's
By Alfred de Musset
Caution . ....
By L. Pearsall Smith A Fantasy
By Theodore F. Bonnet The Lantern Goes Out .
By Theodore F. Bonnet Au Revoir
By Edward F. O'Day
'S
He
t
tit»iir»Niiii 1 1 1 1 iVi I
It is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for April, 1917
PIETRO ARETINO
By THEODORE F. BONNET
THE BRODERICK ORATION
By E. D. BAKER
DEMOCRACY (A Poem)
By GEORGE STERLING
THE FATHER OF ALICE
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
A CYCLE (A Poem)
By JOE WHITNAH
CATS AND DOGS
By THE BOOKWORM
Single Copies, 15 Cents
$ 1 .50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
7/95 Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is p5 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipis received the first Gold Medal awarded by the American Museum of Safety for the "Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention/* and at the San Francisco Exposition, ipi5, received the Grand Prise, the highest azvard, for Safety First Appliances, as zvell as for Raihvay Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Pgzver.
Travel via Southern Pacific
504-3 Phones Douglas 5044-
*7n a Class by Itself^
TheGRANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 April, 1917 No. 1
Pietro Aretino
By Theodore F. Bonnet
Come with me to the Renaissance and form the acquaintance of Pietro Aretino, the cobbler's son, of whom, I fancy, you have never heard, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Never to have heard of Pietro does not argue yourself wofully uninformed. Yet Pietro Aretino was once the most celebrated man in all Italy. I mention this here to expose a not too obvious reason for my writing. Early in being famous, the great Aretino was also early in being forgotten. He is now so dead that oblivion has made him a live figure, one that vivifies aspects and manners of the Renaissance as well, if not better, than any other. An exceptionally tempting figure to deal with is Aretino's, the lives of all the other great personages of the Renaissance having been worn threadbare. And one may revive Aretino for a moment without fear of being tedious even though one lack that essential quality of the biographer, — the ability to make the subject stand out in bold relief, as a living, active and command- ing personality. Aretino stands out even in the midst of the brilliant company of his day like a monument on a mountain. There were many mani- festations of greatness in that period, but none for which anybody was more celebrated than Aretino. There were great saints and great sinners in that period, and they all got along swimmingly, for life was then a very jolly affair. Conducted amidst what we now regard as picturesque and romantic surround- ings, life was marked by an amiable tolerance of
The Lantern
things as they were. As the general aim was the joy of living the period was one of universal Bo- hemianism in the sense that men and women in- stinctively found a natural repugnance to life made dull, conventional, prosaic and drab. Chiefly for this reason Aretino, more saliently than any other of his contemporaries, typified his period. How strange, it may be said, that he should now be buried in the pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is hard to find him elsewhere, and there he is hardly given the distinction to which he is entitled.
As I have said, Pietro Aretino was early famous. He was famous not only in Italy but as far away from his home as the remote England of the period where he had a warm friend and admirer in the person of Thomas Cromwell. He was more universally and intimately known than his contemporary Michel- angelo or that other superman of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci. Here were men v/ho shared the principal characteristics of their day — a preternatural versatility and a ceaseless emanation of energy, like radium, and yet Pietro filled a larger space in the sun. Yes, even Leonardo, the man who painted the lady with the enigmatic smile that still stumps the curious, Leonardo, the sculptor and painter and scien- tist and engineer who visualized the flying machine and invented or suggested the system of lock canals, the amazing Leonardo was not nearly so familiar a figure of the Renaissance as the genius of whom I am writing. Fame has her caprices. The qualities of genius that won her esteem in the period of the world's greatest brilliance she no longer beams upon. She has turned prude and reckons virtue of some kind among the essentials of a perfect action. Ham- pered by no virtues, Pietro Aretino is now remem- bered chiefly as the man who died in a fit of laughter at an obscene jest about his own sister. Naturally modern Fame is more inclined to lift her eyebrows than blow her trumpet when the name of Pietro Aretino is mentioned. This man's manifestations
PlETRO ArETINO
of greatness were marked wholly by a supreme adap- tation of means to an end, and he lived in a period that was great because men were encouraged to indulge their congenial aptitudes and were in no danger of having their genius dwarfed by the repro- bation of the moralist. May not mankind get better service in the long run when individuality is not too rigidly restrained in the interest of convention? This is one of the reflections to be induced by con- sidering the life and times of Aretino. Perhaps it will be of some service to reflective readers, especial- ly those with a mind's eye of narrow range, to have their curiosity excited regarding Aretino. There is light for all in the lessons taught by the Renaissance, not only in the lessons illumined by radiant per- sonalities but in those to be read in the shadow?. It was such a bad period that the superstitious might have thought the world would come to an end with it, and such a good period too that one might wonder how it was possible thereafter for the world to have degenerated in the course of evolution to the climax of our own day. Of that day were Leonardo and Pietro, and today we have Leonardo analyzed in a book by a Professor Freud, a twentieth century scholar of Vienna. If you would adequately size up your own day read the unconscious self-analysis of Freud, consider the bent of mind thus revealed and ponder the demonic potentialities of our halted civ- ilization.
But to return from my absent-minded wanderings, Pietro, the forgotten by all but bookworms and those who remember the manner of his death, was thus written of as late as the middle of the eighteenth century by Count Mazzuchelli, one of the distin- guished litterateurs of his day : ''The name of Pietro Aretino has ahvays been so famous in the world that it could never be hid from the knowledge of even the least learned." In the same century Addison, writing in The Spectator, dismisses Aretino as "too trite an instance," a man to whom as "everyone
The Lantern
knows" all the kings of Europe once paid tribute. Obviously a man not easy to forget, this cobbler's son who was born the year Columbus discovered America; the same man, by the way, whose head Sansovino cast in bronze for the doors of Saint Mark's ; the same to whom the city of Arezzo, where Pietro was born, gave the title of Salvator Patriae, to whom the King of France sent a present of a gold chain weighing eight pounds. Ariosto thought enough of him to mention him in Orlando Furioso thus : ''Behold the scourge of princes, the divine Aretino."
Withal Pietro was the blithe companion of any day's or night's adventure, as Titian who painted him out of pure friendship, could tell you, or Raphael who loved to dine at his table. And what a table! It was loaded with deHcacies contributed by kind friends, haunted by men who created with pen, pencil or chisel. The divine Aretino was a wonderful en- tertainer who sometimes lapsed into what might be regarded as the vulgarities of Trimalchio's feast; only that he was not a man of wealth and could not be suspected of making an ostentatious show of vulgar riches. Only things beautiful were precious in his eyes, and with beautiful things, gifts of great genius, it was his conceit to be ostentatious, as for instance at a dinner when at the end of each course the gold and silver dishes were flung out of a window into a river. Great goldsmiths were there to grieve at the loss not realizing that Aretino was the in- genious jokesmith of the occasion. He had nets stretched beneath the surface of the river wherein the precious articles were caught.
But it was not as an entertainer that Aretino flourished and prospered ; nor was it as a host that he won fame and celebrity. It was chiefly as a waiter. Like nearly all the great men of the period he was a versatile genius, and in him were united talents that are generally regarded as incongruous — the talents of a literary man and the talents of a
PlETRO ArETINO
business man. In the life of every g^reat g-enius there is some element of uniqueness which renders the possessor elusive to the common herd. So it was with my hero. Pietro Aretino made his writings pay but not in the usual way. He scorned to sell his books. He wrote for pleasure, he said, and would not de- grade the handiwork of his genius by converting it into an article of commerce. Commercializing his genius was not his way of doing business. He had exquisite scruples that kept his work unspotted of trade without raising his moral tone. He was a kind of free lance journalist who produced genuine literature at the expense of people afraid of his wit. It was Aretino who invented the pasquinade and made it a fine medium for the distribution of poison. Vitriolic abuse was the kind of poison he employed for his purpose. Of course he made other kinds of literature. A connoisseur of art, he was the first great art critic, and when he gave an artist a send- ofif in a sonnet or in a letter he expected a quid pro quo and was seldom disappointed; so generally was the power of his pen recognized that to disappoint his expectations was hazardous. Nevertheless he prided himself on his integrity and not without reason; his praise was always deserved and his abuse was always truthful, or at least there were principles to justify it, as, for example in the case of Michelangelo. This is a case from which one may derive an accurate conception of Aretino's rating in Italy. As a matter of fact his judgment of art was so good that painters and sculptors consulted him about their work and they valued his advice as well as his criticisms. But more than either they feared his biting sarcasms. Michelangelo was in a measure an exception, or at least he was not to be blackmailed by the parasite. Aretino having written to Michelangelo saying that he was tempted to visit Rome to see "The Last Judg- ment" and give a pen picture of the stupendous effects, the artist wrote the critic in this flattering and affectionate manner:
Thk Lantern
"Magnificent Messer Pietro. my master and brother: Your letter gave me both pain and pleasure. I con- gratulate myself because it came from you, who are unique in the world in virtu, and at the same time I was very sorry that, having completed the greater part of my picture, I could not use your imagination, which is so successful that if the day of judgment had taken place and you had seen it, your words could not have reproduced it better. I should not only be glad to have you answer my letter, but I beg you to do so, because kings and em- perors consider it the greatest of favors to be named by your pen. Meantime if I have anything which pleases you, I offer it to you with my heart.
Always yours, Michelangelo Buonaruoti."
Aretino wrote many fine criticisms of Michel- angelo's work, but he received nothing in return. He sent word that he would be pleased to receive recog- nition of his service. Nothing doing. Repeatedly the artist was reminded, but he had the courage to resist importunity, and the result was a most unpleasant criticism. He was denounced for employing nude saints and angels in his picture. The painting was pronounced blasphemous, and Aretino found people who agreed with him.
Is it not remarkable that this sort of perverted genius should have flourished during the Renaissance? Here was a parasite who lived off the very men by whom the Renaissance was made the most brilliant period of history. And some of them were proud of his acquaintance and friendship. Vasari, who knew both Titian and Aretino, wrote that the latter's friend- ship was of the greatest advantage to Titian ''both as a matter of honor and material gain because Aretino had made him known far and wide, especially to princes of importance." It was for these same reasons that the art critic's friendship was appreciated by Sansovino of whom he wrote, ''The works of his
PlETRO ArKTINO
genius have put the finishing touches on the pomp of Venice."
Of course there were other manifestations of Are- tino's genius. He wrote poetry, great tragedy and great comedy. He also wrote pornographic sketches and reHgious works. He wrote a tragedy called Horace which has been pronounced by a French critic superior to Corneille at his best. An Italian historian of literature ranks it with Shakespeare. Of his pornographic works competent judges say they earn for him the primacy of writers who dedicated their pens to the goddess of lubricity.
H, as some folks say, an absolute moral judgment has no place in history and that to see life in the perspective of the ages we must discard our own standards of right and wrong, then certainly we must own that Pietro Aretino was one of the very greatest men of the Renaissance. Assuredly there was no greater power in the world of his time, and in order to form a judgment of the time one must know Pietro. In this connection consider the sig- nificance of the fact that the most popular of all his writings in his own day were his religious books — The Life of Christ, the Penitential Psalms and others — while it is his pornographic works that have had the most continuous life in print. They have been translated into four languages and some years ago were retranslated into French and English and issued in sumptuous editions. In other words, it appears that whereas the most "proper" of Pietro's works were the most popular in the bad, glad days of old, the works that have grown in popularity are the ones that reek of obscenity. Shocking in our own puri- tanical day is the story of Pietro Aretino's life, but the indecent books he wrote live and are relished.
THE BRODERICK ORATION
By E. D. Baker
(Senator Broderick died on the third day after he was shot in his duel with Judge Terry. He died on Friday, September 13, 1859. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Fathers Hugh Gallagher and Maraschi. The Baker oration was delivered on a platform erected in the "Plaza" on Kearny street. Among the pall- bearers at the funeral were Judge Ogden Hoffman, Gen- eral Vallejo, ex-Governor McDougal, Judge Currey, D. J. Oliver, S. M. Durvelle, Frank Soule, F. D. Kohler and William M. Lent, Under the marshalship of David Scannell the whole fire department marched in the fun- eral procession along with the Society of California Pioneers. Immediately after the duel Justice Terry re- signed from the Supreme Court. On Broderick's death Terry was arrested, and immediately the friends who were suspected of having baited Broderick got busy in the prisoner's behalf. The case was transferred to Marin county where it was dismissed without a hearing by a judge from Stockton who was afterwards impeached for his action. It was openly charged at the time that there had been juggling with the dueling pistols and that Broderick had been foully dealt with. — Editor's note.)
Citizens of California: A Senator lies dead in our midst! He is wrapped in a bloody shroud, and we, to whom his toils and cares were given, are about to bear him to the place appointed for all the living. It is not fit that such a man should pass to the tomb unheralded; it is not fit that such a life should steal unnoticed to its close; it is not fit that such a death should call forth no rebuke, or be followed by no public lamentation. It is this conviction which impels the gathering of this assemblage. We are here of every station and pursuit, of every creed and char- acter, each in his capacity of citizen, to swell the mournful tribute which the majesty of the people offers to the unreplying dead. He lies today sur- rounded by little of funeral pomp. No banners droop above the bier, no melancholy music floats upon the reluctant air. The hopes of high-hearted friends droop like fading flowers upon his breast, and the
The Broderick Oration
struggling sigh compels the tear in eyes that seldom weep. Around him are those who have known him best and loved him longest; who have shared the triumph, and endured the defeat. Near him are the gravest and noblest of the State, possessed by a grief at once earnest and sincere ; while beyond, the masses of the people whom he loved and for whom his life was given, gather like a thunder-cloud of swell- ing and indignant grief.
In such a presence, fellow citizens, let us linger for a moment at the portals of the tomb, whose shadowy arches vibrate to the public heart, to speak a few brief words of the man, of his life, and of his death.
Mr. Broderick was born in the District of Co- lumbia, in 1820. He was of Irish descent, and of obscure and respectable parentage; he had little of early advantages, and never summoned to his aid a complete and finished education. His boyhood and his early manhood were passed in the city of New York, and the loss of his father early stimulated him to the efforts which maintained his surviving mother and brother, and served also to fix and form his character even in his boyhood. His love for his mother was his first and most distinctive trait, and when his brother died — an early and sudden death — the shock gave a serious and reflective cast to his habits and his thoughts, which marked them to the last hour of his life.
He w'as always filled with pride, and energy, and ambition. His pride was in the manliness and force of his character, and no man had more reason than he for such pride. His energy was manifest in the most resolute struggles with poverty and obscurity, and his ambition impelled him to seek a foremost place in the great race for honorable power.
Up to the time of his arrival in California, his life had been passed amid events incident to such a char- acter. Fearless, self-reliant, open in his enmities, warm in his friendships, wedded to his opinions, and marching directly to his purpose through and over all
10 The Lantern
opposition, his career was checkered with success and defeat; but even in defeat, his energies were strength- ened and his character developed. When he reachd these shores, his keen observation taught him at once that he trod a broad field, and that a higher career was before him. He had no false pride ; sprung from a people and of a race whose vocation was labor, he toiled with his own hands, and sprang at a bound from the workshop to the legislative hall. From that time there congregated around him and against him the elements of success and defeat — strong friend- ships, bitter enmities, high praise, malignant cal- umnies ; but he trod with a free and a proud step that onward path which has led to glory and the grave.
It would be idle for me, at this hour and in this place, to speak of all that history with unmitigated praise ; it will be idle for his enemies hereafter to deny his claim to noble virtues and high purposes. When, in the Legislature, he boldly denounced the special legislation which is the curse of a new country, he proved his courage and his rectitude. When he opposed the various and sometimes successful schemes to strike out the salutary provisions of the Consti- tution which guarded free labor, he was true to all the better instincts of his life. When, prompted by ambition and the admiration of his friends, he first sought a seat in the Senate of the United States, he aimed by legitimate effort to attain the highest of all earthly positions, and failed with honor.
It is my duty to say that, in my judgment, when at a later period he sought to anticipate the senatorial election, he committed an error which I think he lived to regret. It would have been a violation of the true principles of representative government, which no reason, public or private, could justify, and could never have met the permanent approval of good and wise men. Yet, while I say this over his bier, let me remind you of the temptation to such an error, of the plans and reasons which prompted it, of the many good purposes it was intended to effect. And
The Broderick Oration 11
if ambition, *'the last infirmity of noble minds," led him for a moment from the better path, let me re- mind you how nobly he regained it.
It is impossible to speak within the limits of this address of the events of that session of the Legis- lature at which he was elected to the Senate of the United States ; but some things should not be passed in silence here. The contest between him and the present Senator had been bitter and personal. He had triumphed. He had been wonderfully sustained by his friends, and stood confessedly ''the first in honor and the first in place." He yielded to an appeal made to his magnanimity by his foe. If he judged unwisely, he has paid the forfeit well. Never in the history of political warfare has any public man been so pursued ; never has malignity so ex- hausted itself.
Fellow citizens ! the man whose body lies before you was your Senator. From the moment of his election his character has been maligned, his motives attacked, his courage impeached, his patriotism as- sailed. It has been a system tending to one end — and the end is here. What was his crime? Review his history — consider his public acts — weigh his private character, — and before the grave incloses him forever, judge between him and his enemies.
As a man — to be judged in his private relations — v/ho was his superior? It was his boast, and amid the general license of a new country, it was a proud one, that his most scrutinizing enemy could fix no single act of immorality upon him! Temperate, decorous, self-restrained, he had passed through all the excitements of California unstained. No man could charge him with broken faith or violated trust; of habits simple and inexpensive, he had no lust of gain. He overreached no man's weakness in a bargain, and withheld from no man his just dues. Never, in the history of the State, has there been a citizen who has borne public relations more stainless in all respects than he.
12 The Lantern
But it is not by this standard he is to be judged. He was a public man, and his memory demands a public judgment. What was his public crime? The answer is in his own words: '7 die because I was opposed to a corrupt administration, and the extension of slavery/' Fellow citizens, they are remarkable words, uttered at a very remarkable moment; they involve the history of his senatorial career, and of its sad and bloody termination.
When Mr. Broderick entered the Senate, he had been elected at the beginning of a Presidential term as the friend of the President-elect, having undoubt- edly been one of his most influential supporters. There were unquestionably some things in the exer- cise of the appointing power which he could have wished otherwise; but he had every reason to remain with the Administration which could be supposed to weigh with a man in his position. He had heartily maintained the doctrine of popular sovereignty, as set forth in the Cincinnati platform, and he never wav- ered in his support till the day of his death. But when in his judgment the President betrayed his obligations to his party and country — when, in the whole series of acts in relation to Kansas, he proved recreant to his pledges and instructions — when the whole power of the Administration was brought to bear upon the legislative branch of the Government, in order to force slavery upon an unwilling people — then, in the high performance of his duty as a Senator, he rebuked the Administration by his voice and vote, and stood by his principles. It is true, he adopted no half-way measures. He threw the whole weight of his character into the ranks of the opposition. He endeavored to arouse the people to an indignant sense of the iniquitous tyranny of Fed- eral power, and kindling with the contest, became its fiercest and firmest opponent. Fellow citizens, what- ever may have been your political predilections, it is impossible to repress your admiration, as you review the conduct of the man who lies hushed in death
The Broderick Oratiox 13
before you. You read in his history a glorious imitation of the great popular leaders who have op- posed the despotic influences of power in other lands and in our own. When John Hampden died on Chal- grove field, he sealed his devotion to popular liberty with his blood. The eloquence of Fox found the sources of its inspiration in his love for the people. When Senators conspired against Tiberius Gracchus and the Tribune of the people fell beneath their daggers, it was power that prompted the crime and demanded the sacrifice. Who can doubt, if your Senator had surrendered his free thought, and bent in submission to the rule of the Administration — who can doubt that, instead of resting on a bloody bier, he would have this day been reposing in the inglorious felicitude of Presidential sunshine?
Fellow citizens, let no man suppose that the death of the eminent citizen of whom I speak was caused by any other reason than that to which his own words assign it. It has been long foreshadowed — it was predicted by his friends — it was threatened by his enemies : it was the consequence of intense po- litical hatred. His death was a political necessity, poorly veiled beneath the guise of a private quarrel. Here, in his own State, among those who witnessed the canvass, who know the contending leaders, among those who know the antagonists on the bloody ground — here, the public conviction is so thoroughly set- tled, that nothing need be said. Tested by the corre- spondence itself, there was no cause, in morals, in honor, in taste, by any code, by the customs of any civilized land, there was no cause for blood. Let me repeat the story — it is as brief as it is fatal: A judge of the Supreme Court descends into a political con- vention— it is just, however, to say that the occasion was to return thanks to his friends for an unsuc- cessful support. In a speech bitter and personal, he stigmatized Senator Broderick and all his friends in words of contemptuous insult. When Mr. Broderick saw that, he retorted, saying in substance, that he
14 The Lantern
had heretofore spoken of Judge Terry as an honest man, but that he now took it back. When inquired of, he admitted that he had so said, and connected his words with Judge Terry's speech as prompting them. So far as Judge Terry personally was con- cerned, this was the cause of mortal combat; there was no other.
In the contest which has just terminated in the State, Mr. Broderick had taken a leading part; he had been engaged in controversies very personal in their nature, because the subjects of public discussion had involved the character and conduct of many public and distinguished men. But Judge Terry was not one of these. He was no contestant; his con- duct was not in issue ; he had been mentioned but once incidentally — in reply to his own attack — and, except as it might be found in his peculiar traits or ])eculiar fitness, there was no reason to suppose that he would seek any man's blood. When William of Nassau, the deliverer of Holland, died in the presence of his wife and children, the hand that struck the blow was not nerved by private vengeance. When the fourth Henry passed unharmed amid the dangqrs of the field of Ivry, to perish in the streets of his capital by the hand of a fanatic, he did not seek to avenge a private grief. An exaggerated sense of personal honor — a weak mind with choleric passions, intense sectional prejudice united with great con- fidence in the use of arms — these sometimes serve to stimulate the instruments which accomplish the deep- est and deadliest purpose.
Fellow citizens ! One year ago today I performed a duty, such as I perform today, over the remains of Senator Ferguson, who died as Broderick died, tangled in the meshes of the code of honor. Today there is another and more eminent sacrifice. Today I renew my protest ; today I utter yours. The code of honor is a delusion and a snare; it palters with the hope of a true courage and binds it at the feet of crafty and cruel skill. It surrounds its victim with
The Broderick Oration 15
the pomp and grace of the procession, but leaves him bleeding on the altar. It substitutes cold and deliberate preparation for courageous and manly impulse, and arms the one to disarm the other; it may prevent fraud between practiced duelists who should be forever without its pale, but it makes the mere "trick of the weapon" superior to the noblest cause and the truest courage. Its pretense of equal- ity is a lie — it is equal in all the form, it is unjust in all the substance — the habitude of arms, the early training, the frontier life, the border war, the sec- tional custom, the life of leisure, all these are ad- vantages which no negotiation can neutralize, and which no courage can overcome.
But, fellow citizens, the protest is not only spoken in your words and in mine — it is written in indelible characters ; it is written in the blood of Gilbert, in the blood of Ferguson, in the blood of Broderick; and the inscription will not altogether fade.
With the administration of the code in this par- ticular case, I am not here to deal. Amid passionate grief, let us strive to be just. I give no currency to rumors of which personally I know nothing; there are other tribunals to which they may well be re- ferred, and this is not one of them. But I am here to say, that whatever in the code of honor or out of it demands or allows a deadly combat where there is not in all things entire and certain equality, is a prostitution of the name, is an evasion of the sub- stance, and is a shield blazoned with the name of Chivalry, to cover the malignity of murder.
And now, as the shadows turn toward the east, and we prepare to bear these poor remains to their silent resting place, let us not seek to repress the generous pride which prompts a recital of noble deeds and manly virtues. He rose unaided and alone ; he began his career without family or fortune, in the face of difficulties; he inherited poverty and ob- scurity; he died a Senator in Congress, having
16 The Lantern
written his name in the history of the great struggle for the rights of the people against the despotism of organization and the corruption of power. He leaves in the hearts of his friends the tenderest and the proudest recollections. He was honest, faithful, earnest, sincere, generous, and brave: he felt in all the great crises of his Hfe that he was a leader in the ranks; that it was his high duty to uphold the in- terests of the masses ; that he could not falter. When he returned from that fatal field, while the dark wing of the Archangel of Death was casting its shadows upon his brow, his greatest anxiety was as to the performance of his duty. He felt that all his strength and all his life belonged to the cause to which he had devoted them. ''Baker," said he— and to me they were his last words — ''Baker, when I was struck I tried to stand firm, but the blow blinded me, and I could not." I trust it is no shame to my manhood that tears blinded me as he said it. Of his last hour I have no heart to speak. He was the last of his race; there was no kindred hand to smooth his couch or wipe the death damp from his brow; but around that dying bed strong men, the friends of early manhood, the devoted adherents of later life, bowed in irrepressible grief, "and lifted up their voices and wept."
But, fellow citizens, the voice of lamentation is not uttered by private friendship alone — the blow that struck his manly breast has touched the heart of a people, and as the sad tidings spread, a general gloom prevails. Who now shall speak for California? — who be the interpreter of the wants of the Pacific Coast? Who can appeal to the communities of the Atlantic who love free labor? Who can speak for masses of men with a passionate love for the classes from whence he sprung? Who can defy the blandish- ments of power, the insolence of office, the corruption of administrations? What hopes are buried with him in the grave !
Democracy 17
"Ah! who that gallant spirit shall resume. Leap from Eurotas' bank, and call us from the tomb?
But the last word must be spoken, and the im- perious mandate of Death must be fulfilled. Thus, O brave heart! we bear thee to thy rest. Thus, surrounded by tens of thousands, we leave thee to the equal grave. As in life, no other voice among us so rung its trumpet blast upon the ear of freemen, so in death its echoes will reverberate amid our mountains and valleys, until truth and valor cease to appeal to the human heart.
Good friend ! true hero ! hail and farewell.
DEMOCRACY
By George Sterling
Because of the decision of a few, —
Because in half a score of haughty minds The night lay black and terrible, thy winds,
O Europe ! are a stench on heaven's blue.
Thy scars abide, and here is nothing new :
Still from the throne goes forth the dark that blinds, And still the satiated morning finds
The unending thunder and the bloody dew.
Shall night be lord forever, and not light?
Look forth, tormented nations ! Let your eyes Behold this horror that the few have done ! Then turn, strike hands, and in your burning might Impel the fog of murder from the skies, And sow the hearts of Europe with the sun!
THE FATHER OF ALICE
By Edward F. O'Day
Have you ever noticed that eccentric men are some- times passionately fond of children? I have found it so even with those irritating eccentrics whom we call cranks. In the company of children cranks can be quite normal. No matter how crotchety they may be with grown-ups, when there is an opportunity to enjoy the society of the very young they subdue their vagaries of brain and postpone their impossibilities of conduct. A gentle influence is shed upon their humorsome minds, the wrinkles are ironed out of their crankiness ; for the nonce they are agreeably human. I am speaking of some eccentrics, not all. To maintain that all eccentrics are soothed by child- ren from their habitual freakishness would be absurd.
One of the completest cranks I ever knew had this great affection for kiddies. It was a beauty spot on a character always difficult, sometimes unlovely. At odds with the rest of the world, he cultivated children with an eagerness that was pathetic. He sought to bribe their fear of him, with indifferent success. When he called at a house where there were youngsters he brought a great box of French mixed and made much of the presentation. Yet the children feared him. His candy was a Greek gift. It was acceptable, to be sure ; but he was not. This crank was a tyrant to his family. His grown daughters trembled before him, and with reason: he was unkind to them. Per- haps he was furious with them for having ceased to be children, treated them harshly because they had grown up.
This crank is not my present subject. The man of whom I would write was an eccentric who loved children beyond anything else in this world, but he was not a crank. I refer to Charles Lutwidge Dodg- son, the Father of Alice.
The Father of Alice had no children. Indeed, he
The Father of Alice 19
never married. He was honorably celibate. And yet he was and is and immortally will be the Father of Alice. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is better known as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderlayid.
During his whole life (which began in 1832) Charles L. Dodgson never once publicly acknowledged that he was Lewis Carroll, any more than William Sharpe acknowledged that he was Fiona Macleod; it was part of his eccentricity. But since his death (which came in 1898) he has been known to few by his right name. Lewis Carroll has, by the wise de- cree of fame, become his right name, for it is the name indissolubly linked to his deathless book. The lesser name is on his tombstone and will be obliterated in due course; the greater is on his brightest title- page and will survive forever.
There was a deal more difference between Charles L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll than between those celebrities of his Wonderland, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Charles L. Dodgson was an Oxford don and loved logarithms ; Lewis Carroll invented puzzles and adored children. Charles L. Dodgson wrote A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry; Lewis Carroll wrote The Hunting of the Snark.
This remarkable man who insisted on keeping his two-fold activities separate and distinct from each other, was born in Cheshire where the cheeses come from, and the cat which he immortalized. Educated at Oxford he liked the university so much that he never left it. The son of an archdeacon he heeded a vocation to the ministry and obtained a Student- ship at Christ Church, Oxford. One of the condi- tions of this Studentship was that he should take Holy Orders; another that he should remain unmarried. But he was afflicted with a stammer, like that other great wit Charles Lamb, and this impediment halted him at minor orders. Stammering, however, is no bar to celibacy, and that condition he observed not only religiously but piously. His bachelorhood was no part of his eccentricity ; it was a spiritual observ-
20 The Lantern
ance. He was not a bachelor because he was eccen- tric ; perhaps he was eccentric because he was a bachelor. Many men are.
For twenty-six years Charles L. Dodgson stam- mered through brilliant lectures on mathematics which those Oxford students who were gifted that way must have attended with profit, if not with enthusiasm. And he published any number of books on that dreary science. Of his book on Determinants it has been gravely said that it was "as attractive as the nature of the subject will allow," a dubious com- pliment at which only fanatical mathematicians will take umbrage. He also edited Euclid, omitting how- ever— doubtless to the great grief of those same fanatical mathematicians — the celebrated Theory of Incommensurable Magnitudes. Just why he omitted this I have no idea. Perhaps he thought it was too well known to require new treatment.
Most great mathematicians are eccentric — they work out problems in their sleep and all that sort of thing. Dodgson did not confine his eccentricity to mathematics. He was an indefatigable photographer, and all his life plagued celebrities to sit for their pictures. Once the Prince of Wales shied away from his camera; he digested the rebufif and asked for the Prince's autograph instead. He had a weakness for autographs. When he asked Lionel Tennyson for an autograph Lionel who knew an eccentric when he saw one offered to exchange the autograph for the privilege of hitting Dodgson on the head with a mallet. Dodgson never accepted a dinner invitation, but if you wrote and informed him that you were dining on a certain evening at a certain hour you might expect him if he liked your company and your table. For many years he kept in his exhaustive diary the particulars of all the dinner parties he gave — menus and lists of guests, with diagrams show- ing the positions they occupied at table. He did this to avoid the embarrassment of inviting the same people to meet the same people and partake of the
The Father of Alice 21
same food twice in succession. When he received a letter he wrote a summary of its contents and filed this summary carefully ; then he numbered the letter, entered it in a catalogue, with all sorts of cross references, and carefully filed the letter. At his death it was found that he had thus summarized, indexed and catalogued 98,721 letters. He invented a mechanical contrivance which enabled him to write in the dark, so that none of the mathematical or literary inspirations which came to him in bed might escape. He never permitted strangers to talk to him about his books, often leaving a drawing room abruptly when the subject was broached. He never in his life read a criticism of his books, favorable or unfavorable ; but whether this comes under the head of eccentricity I am not quite sure. He hardly ever wore an over- coat, no matter what the state of the weather might be; this eccentricity was at the opposite pole from the eccentricity of James Clarence Mangan who al- ways carried three umbrellas, summer and winter. He always wore a top hat, even when boating or at the seashore. He wrote standing up, and brewed tea walking about his rooms, waving the teapot violently. When he prepared for a journey he wrapped every article of apparel and toilet use in a separate piece of paper, so that almost half the space in his trunk was given over to wrapping paper. And he always sent his trunk by freight a day or two before he set out himself with a little black bag which he would not give up on any consideration. He had an extreme horror of infection. Although he spent his life in the service of the Episcopal church he did not believe in the eternity of Hell. He was opposed to vivisection. Walking one day with a friend at Oxford he showed the liveliest repugnance when a professor of surgery passed. ''I am afraid he vivi- sects," he whispered. One of the red letter days of his life was when he dined with an artist who had seen a ghost and painted its picture. In later life he was subject to an optical delusion which took
22 The Lantern
the form of seeing moving fortifications. Once he wrote to Ellen Terry sugesting an improvement on Shakespeare which he begged her to lay before Irving. In most other respects he was normal.
Insofar as boys were concerned, Dodgson re- mained an eccentric, for he didn't like boys ; but when it came to girls all his eccentricity was superseded by a tender and touching naturalness. It has been sur- mised that a thwarted love affair in early life recon- ciled Dodgson the more readily to the celibate state. However that may be, his remarkable affection for little girls became the ruling passion of his life when he was still a young man and continued to dominate his thoughts and to shape many of his activities to the day of his death. It was this ruling passion which made him a happy man. It was also this ruling pas- sion which made him famous in a way that his undoubted mathematical genius never could have made him famous, for it was this that caused Charles L. Dodgson to publish Alice in Wonderland and other beautiful books for children under the pen disguise of Lewis Carroll.
I have called Lewis Carroll the Father of Alice. Readers of the dear Saint Charles, the gentle Elia, will recall that he too was the father of an Alice ; but that Alice was a dream-child. Lewis Carroll's Alice was not fashioned of dreams ; she was a little girl of flesh and blood whom he translated bodily into the pages of his enchanting masterpiece. The original of that Alice whose adventures in Wonderland have been read by countless children of all ages from six to sixty in all the countries of the civilized world, was Alice Liddell, the little daughter of the Dean of Christ Church. Dodgson delighted to photograph her, and the pictures show that she was a sweet and beautiful child. She was only one of many little girl friends Lewis Carroll had, but she was the first, and as far as readers are concerned, she will be re- membered when all the rest are forgotten.
It was one "golden afternoon" in July of 1862 that
The Father of Alice 23
Dodgson took his little favorite and her two sisters for a boat ride up to the river from Oxford. They had tea on the bank, and then the eccentric mathe- matician suddenly launched out into the telling of that wonderful story which was to go round the world. He invented incidents as he proceeded, sometimes taking his cue from the eager questions with which the children interrupted his recital. The tale took its characteristic form of delightful nonsense not only from his own peculiar genius but also from the con- stantly repeated demand of little Alice who loved nonsense. Of course it was not all told on that first excursion up the river. There were many boating trips before it was finished. "Sometimes to tease us," Alice wrote years afterwards when she was a married woman, **Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, 'And that's all till next time.' 'Ah, but it is next time,' would be the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. An- other day, perhaps, the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay."
When it was finished little Alice asked him to write it all out, and so Alice in Wonderland was born to the world. The inimitable John Tenniel was engaged to illustrate it after the author had attempted and failed. Never was such a happy collaboration of author and artist. It is impossible to imagine Alice and the White Rabbit and the March Hare and the Mad Hatter and the Mock Turtle and Father William and the Cheshire Cat and Humpty Dumpty and the Duchess and Tweedledum and Tweedledee and all the rest of that inimitable company otherwise than as Tenniel drew them according to the directions of the exacting author who had perfectly visualized them all.
A book might be written about all the little girls who came into the life of Lewis Carroll to share the inexhaustible stores of love which he first discovered
The Lantern
within him when his heart went out to Alice Liddell, the lover of nonsense. Some of these little girls were the children of his friends ; others were strangers with whom he made acquaintance on the sands of the sea shore, on park benches, anywhere. The ac- quaintance usually began by his propounding a riddle or making a paper puzzle or telling a fairy story. Then he would seek an introduction to the parents of his newly-found little friends, for despite his ec- centricities in other respects he was here a strict observer of the conventions. These acquaintances always led to letter writing, and in all the epistolary literature of Great Britain there are no letters more charming, more whimsical, more sweetly imagined or more delightfully written than these letters of Lewis Carroll to his little girl friends.
What these child friendships meant to him he ex- pressed in a letter to a grown-up friend: "That children love the book (Alice in Wonderland) is a very precious thought to me, and, next to their love, I value the sympathy of those who come with a child's heart to what I have tried to write about a child's thoughts. Next to what conversing with an angel might be — for it is hard to imagine it — comes, I think, the privilege of having a real child's thoughts uttered to one. I have known some few real children, and their friendship is a blessing and a help in life." His biographer has written of him : "The reality of children appealed strongly to the simplicity and genuineness of his own nature. I believe that he understood children even better than he understood men and women ; civilization has made adult human- ity very incomprehensible, for convention is as a veil which hides the divine spark that is in each of us, and so this strange thing has come to be, that the imperfect mirrors perfection more completely than the perfected, that we see more of God in the child than in the man."
Lewis Carroll needed no monument to keep his greatness in men's minds. He has one, however;
The Father of Atjce 25
and it is the most appropriate that could have been given him — a cot in the London Children's Hospital endowed perpetually by the subscriptions of a loving public which had never met the eccentric Charles L. Dodgson but claimed intimate acquaintance with Lewis Carroll, the Father of Alice.
How sweet those happy days gone by, Those days of sunny weather,
When Alice fair, with golden hair, And we — were young together ; —
When first with eager gaze we scanned
The page which told of Wonderland.
And other children feel the spell
W^hich once we felt before them,
And while the well-known tales we tell, We watch it stealing o'er them :
Before their dazzled eyes expand
The glorious realms of Wonderland.
A CYCLE
By Joe Whitnah EVENING
The glittering sphere of fire we call the sun Grows black, and one by one
The starry orbs of sleep
Glow dully red, then leap
Bright-eyed across the twilight of the deep. The weary planet sighs, An angel choir hums lullabies, The breath of God Almighty fires the fading skies.
Then peace descends, and each to each we say, "Thus dies another day."
NIGHT
The Night, soft-footed and with starry face. Creeps out through soundless space
While lip to lie we lie
And soul with soul we fly
To undreamed lands of dreams, my Love and I. On fairy wings and light We take our dear nocturnal flight While hush of death eternal crowns the blue-black Night.
On dim, celestial, misty, unnamed streams
We sail and dream our dreams.
DAWN
Then somewhere in the swirling void a star Grows cold; a thin, faint bar
Of dim.mest light is shorn
From Night's thick robe, and sweet-voiced Morn
Comes singing that another day is born. My loved one's drowsy eyes Are smiling, and we kiss and rise To watch the ancient kiss of dawn on kindling skies.
Then life revives, and each to each we say, 'Thus lives another day."
CATS AND DOGS
By The Bookworm
"In particular, like all good men, he was a devoted lover of cats." This is the concluding sentence in an obituary notice of Dr. Garnett, written by Sir Wil- liam Robertson Nicoll. I am not sure that the state- ment is as true as it is provocative. Men famous in the world of books have written about cats with en- thusiasm. Others have regarded them as objects of antipathy. If the cat was a god in ancient Egypt, she — why do we usually speak of a cat as "she" and of a dog as "he"? — was throughout the Middle Ages a hunted and unholy thing. Her enemies describe her as decadent, disobedient, dissembling, treacherous and cruel. Her friends, seemingly unable to deny these charges, praise what they call the independence of her character. What they mean is that the cat is the most contemptuous of creatures, and I see no reason why affection should be attracted by contempt. As showing the lengths to which cat-lovers will go, I have heard a famous novelist, who has lately at- tempted to preach a crusade against dogs, pronounc- ing a panegyric in praise of the melodious voice of a friend's cat.
Horace Walpole, Dr. Johnson, Cowper, Scott, Southey, Shelley, Huxley and Swinburne wer<e all cat-lovers. Horace Walpole's cat, as everybody knows, had the grace to drown herself, and, like Spring and Eton College, to inspire one of Gray's odes.
"I shall never forget," Boswell writes of Johnson, "the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat, for whom he used to go out and buy oysters, lest the ser- vants, having that trouble, should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when I am in the room with one; and I own I suffered a great deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him
2S The Lantern
one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend, smiling and half- whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why, yes, sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'But he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.' "
Cowper's cats are the friends of every reader of some of the most delightful letters in English, and Southey's letters, if they do not take such high rank, are well worth reading, especially by cat-lovers. They have some charming passages about Dido, Hurly- burlybuss, Rumpilstilzchen and other cats with whom Southey associated.
**Dogs are well — cat sick — supposed with eating birds in their feathers," Scott wrote from Abbotsford to his son, who had just become a cornet in the 18th Hussars. A month later he is able to report, "dogs and cat are well," adding, by way of afterthought, the news that "poor Lady Wallace died of an in- flammation after two days' illness." This demon- strates that Scott thought intelligence about his four- footed companions was as likely to interest his corre- spondent as the fate of his human friends. Lockhart tells us that the two constant inmates of Scott's study were Maida, his favorite dog, and Hinse of Hinsfeldt, "a venerable cat, fat and sleek, and no longer very locomotive." When Maida had occasion to leave the room, "Hinse came down purring from his perch, and mounted guard by the footstool, vice Maida, ab- sent upon furlough." Another instance of Scott's fondness for cats is found in a letter to Abbotsford when he was detained against his will in London. "There are no dogs in the hotel where I lodge," he wrote, "but a tolerably conversant cat, who eats a mess of cream with me in the morning." Nobody but a cat-lover would have made choice of the fitting pronoun.
That Shelley liked cats is proved by his description.
Cats and Dogs 29
in a letter to Peacock, of certain evenings in England "whose hymns are the purring of kittens, the hissing of kettles, and the laugh of children." The best cat story in all literature, according to Miss Agnes Rep- plier — whose Agrippina displays her in the dual ca- pacity of enthusiastic cat-lover and engaging essay- ist— is one which ''Monk" Lewis told to Shelley. Here it is in Miss Repplier's words:
"A gentleman, late one night, went to visit a friend living on the outskirts of a forest in -East Germany. He lost his path, and, after wandering aimlessly for some time, beheld at last a light streaming from the windows of an old and ruined abbey. Looking in, he saw a pro- cession of cats lowering into the grave a small coffin with a crown upon it. The sight filled him with horror, and, spurring his horse, he rode away as fast as he could, never stopping until he reached his destination, long after midnight. His friend was still awaiting him, and at once he recounted what had happened; whereupon a cat that lay sleeping by the fire, sprang to its feet, cried out, 'Then I am the King of the Cats!' and disappeared like a flash up the chimney."
''Only a Frenchman," wrote Theophile Gautier, "can understand the subtle organization of a cat." Certainly the most enthusiastic pages in the Book of the Cat have been written by Frenchmen. Gautier himself has written some of them in La Menagerie Intime. There he discourses of the cats of the Black and White dynasties — equally worthy of fame with the race of Peppers and Mustards — who inhabited his house; of Don Pierrot de Navarre, who resented his master's staying out late at night — no rare event in the life of "le bon Theophile" — of Madame Theo- phile, who made up her mind that the parrot was a green chicken, of Zizi, who lived the contemplative life of a Buddhist, of Gavroche, and Enjolras, and Epo- nonine, and Mummia. and Seraphita. So devoted was Gautier to these animals that whenever he reread Les Miserahles he thought of all the characters in the novel as transformed into black cats, and he found that this added to its interest. And Gautier is but
30 The Lantern
one of a multitude of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who have written in praise of cats. They include Montaigne and Chateaubriand, Baudelaire and Sainte- Beuve, Madame de Custine and M. Fee, and Champ- fleury, whose book on cats is undoubtedly a classic. Among our contemporaries two have written about cats with exceptional understanding and affection. Those who like Pierre Loti least have little fault to find with his descriptions of Moumotte Blanche and Moumotte Chinoise. And Hamilcar is not the least of Anatole France's creations. This is how Sylvestre Bonnard, seated in his study, addresses its guardian cat:
"Hamilcar, somnolent Prince of the City of Books, thou nocturnal guardian! Thou dost defend from vile nibblers those manuscripts and printed volumes which the old scholar has acquired at the cost of his poor savings and indefatigable zeal. Sleep on, Hamilcar, in this library which thy military virtues protect, sleep on with all the luxury of a Sultana! For in thy person are united the formidable aspect of a Tartar warrior and the slumbrous grace of a woman of the Orient. Heroic and voluptuous Hamilcar, sleep until comes the hour in which the mice will come forth to dance in the moonlight be- fore 'Acta Sanctorum' of the learned Bollandists!"
Ronsard's lines :
"No living man, of things beneath the sky, Can hate a cat more bitterly than I,"
are a poor counterpoise to these tributes of affection. But let not the reader, misinterpreting these notes about the part played by cats in the world of books, charge me with an anti-canine prejudice. I am will- ing that the dogs shall have their day. But I refuse to exalt dogs at the expense of cats, as does the cat- hater. So far from agreeing with Sir William Robertson Nicoll that a love of cats is the mark of a good man, the cat-hater maintains that such af- fection is almost confined to doctrinaires or decad- ents. Even the least reprehensible of cat-lovers are,
Cats and Dogs 31
he says, more or less Pharisaical ; they desire to sep- arate themselves from the common run of mankind, and, trusting that they are superior, despise dogs. Dogs, he holds, are different. A fondness for them is an indication of genuine democracy. It is common to plutocrat and peasant, and it is a foe of that fastidiousness which every democrat in his heart dis- likes. The cat-hater's warmth confirms my belief that this is one of the subjects that sharply divide mankind. There are Platonists and Aristotelians, Republicans and Democrats, those who like sweets and those who like savories, those who care for cats and those who care for dogs. This much at least can be ventured in defense of the dog, that if he be obsequious, he is also faithful. He does not forsake his master, even when that master deserves to be for- saken, and his heart, like the University of Oxford, is often the "home of lost causes, and forsaken be- liefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties." Of this, the dog owned by Bill Sikes is the standing evidence.
Dogs have undoubtedly played a worthy part in the world of books. They have graced the pages of a long line of authors from Homer to Mr. John Galsworthy, and if there is no dog of merit in the Bible, profane Hterature has done much to make amends. Some of the dogs of fiction, indeed, are like Cowper's hare who "would bite if he could." This seems to have been the case with Cerberus, one of the earliest of them, if one can class as a dog that "triple-headed hound of Hell." Time, however, seems to have done something to soften even Cerberus. Disraeli, in The Infernal Marriage, tells us how much Pluto cared for his pet. Pluto is on his way home with his bride:
" 'For myself,' he says to her, 'I have none but pleas- ant anticipations. I long to be at home once more by my own fireside, and patting my faithful Cerberus.'
"'I think I shall like Cerberus; I am fond of dogs.'
32 The Lantern
" 'I am sure you will. He is the most faithful creature in the world.'
" 'Is he very fierce?'
"'Not if he takes a fancy to you; and who can help taking a fancy to Proserpine?'
"'Ah! my Pluto, you are in love.'"
It is a relief to turn from this monster to, if I may use the epithet, the first human dog in literature, Ulysses's Argos. The few Hues given to him in the Odyssey, when he is the first to recognize Ulysses after all his wanderings, form one of the most touch- ing animal episodes in the whole world of books. I make no apology to the learned reader for quoting from Butcher and Lang's version:
"And lo, a hound raised up his head and pricked his ears, even where he lay, Argos, the hound of Odysseus, the hardy beast which of old himself had bred, but had got no joy of him, for ere that he went to sacred Ilios
There lay the dog Argos, full of vermin. Yet
even now, when he was aware of Ulysses standing by, he wagged his tail and dropped both his ears, but nearer to his master he had not now the strength to draw. But Odysseus looked aside and wiped away a tear that he easily hid from Eumaeus .... But upon Argos came the fate of black death, even in the hour that he beheld Odysseus again, in his twentieth year."
There is more knowledge of canine nature in this than in Byron's unjustly cynical supposition:
"Perhaps my dog will whine in vain Till fed by stranger hands; But long ere I come back again, He'd tear me where he stands."
Shakespeare was not neglectful of dogs. For breed and for points that would be valued at a show, he gives us Theseus's hounds. Launce's dog, Crab, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, was, I suspect, a mongrel, but a pleasant companion for all that, in spite of his master's complaints about his aloofness :
"I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my
Cats and Dogs 33
sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than
a dog Now, the dog al! this while sheds not a
tear, nor speaks a word."
This introduction of Crab comes perilously close to giving the do£2^ a bad name. Yet there must have been something about him to engage so thorough a devotion as Launce's.
Scott was one of the few who had a profound af- fection for dogs and yet held cats in almost equal esteem. Dandie Dinmont's dogs in Guy Mannering are deservedly immortal :
"There's auld Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pepper and young Alustard. and little Pepper and little Mustard; 1 had them a' regularly entered, first wi' rottens — then wi' stoats or weasels — and then wi' the tods and brocks — and now they fear naething that ever cam wi' a hairy skin on't."
Scott's fondness for dogs is visible in all his novels, and most of his poems. He had a special passion for deerhounds, and he makes Rowsal, "a large stag- greyhound," of which one of his Abbotsford pets was clearly the model, the hero of The Talisman. The two main canine episodes in the story are Rowsal's defense of the banner of England when Sir Kenneth is induced to leave his guard, and the dog's exposure of the Marquis of Montserrat's treachery, by pulling him from his horse. Scott's attitude towards dogs is expressed by King Richard, when the latter is asked if he ''would impeach a confederate on the credit of a dog," and base a charge of treason against the Marquis of Montserrat on the demeanor of a hound:
" 'Royal brother,' returned Richard, 'recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be the companion of our pleasures and toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit. He forgets neither friend nor foe — remembers, and with accuracy, both benefit and injury. He hath a share of man's intelligence, but
34 The Lantern
no share of man's falsehood. You may bribe a soldier to slay a man with his sword, or a witness to take life by a false accusation; but you cannot make a hound tear his benefactor — he is the friend of man, save when man justly incurs his enmity.'"
Dickens hardly yields to Scott in his afifection for dogs and his knowledge of their character. His great- est canine creation is Bullseye, the dog whom, as Fagan put it, Bill Sikes "humored sometimes." Hum- oring was not, however, a practice congenial to Bill Sikes, and no small amount of the detestation he ex- cites is due to his treatment of Bullseye. And are there many passages in fiction more dramatic or more poignant than that which describes how the dog's mistaken loyalty brought about the deaths of both ? To go through all Dickens's portraits of dogs would be an interesting study, but Bullseye is imdoubtedly his masterpiece. An account of all the dogs in books would make a large volume, and one worth reading. Some notable ones that present themselves to the mind are Lieutenant Vanslyperken's vile brute in Snarleyyoiv, Ouida's Puck, Kingsley's Bran in Hy- patia, and Mr. Barry Pain's Zero. As a sop to cat- lovers I conclude with Somerville's assertion that, like the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria and An- tioch, a dog may err:
"He may mistake sometimes, 'tis true, None are infallible but you; The dog whom nothing can mislead Must be a dog of parts indeed."
Theodore t Imd and Umd 1 (H)#
It is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for May, 1917
LINCOLN'S COMRADE BAKER
Bv THEODORE F. BONNET
THE CHEERFUL RUSSIANS
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
LAUGHTER (A Story)
By L. N. ANDREYEV
CONCERNING BRUISERS
By THE BOOKWORM
Single Copies, IS Cents $1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
i/p^ Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is 95 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern PaciHc in ipij received the first Gold Medal awarded by the American Museum of Safety for the ''Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention,'* and at the San Francisco Exposition, 191 5, received the Grand Prize, the highest azvard, for Safety First Appliances, as zvell as for Raikvay Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Power.
Travel via Southern Pacific
504-3 Phones Douglas 5044
"In a Class by Itself"
TTieGRANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 May, 1917 No. 2
Lincoln's Comrade Baker
By Theodore F. Bonnet
Nothing remains of Colonel Edward Baker save a few orations, a few poems and a record of noble deeds, most of which have been forgotten. Yet Col- onel Baker was a man of undoubted distinction, a really great man who carried himself with modesty far above his fellows. He is, as it were, a marking- stone on the road of humanity. Now remembered chiefly for the speeches by which he touched his fellows, he was a rare type of genius with that in- calculable force of personality which, possessed in a high degree by varied natures, defies analysis. Na- poleon perceived this imponderable quality at a glance when on seeing Goethe he exclaimed, "Voila un homme!" The gods recognized one another. Carlyle or Byron would have recognized Baker with the same faciHty with which Napoleon discerned the indescribable secret in Goethe. We may be sure of this, for we know that Lincoln recognized the great- ness of Edward Dickinson Baker. Why is it then that so little remains of the hero of this little sketch? Maybe it is because his career was cut short. He was killed in his fiftieth year, an age at which the process of human development is far from com- plete; but long before that age Colonel Baker did many things that render his memory a living inspira- tion. Here was a man whose career is at once so exciting a story of adventure, so interesting a study in character, that one marvels that more of his re- mains were not unearthed long ago. True his life has been written. True we have a few pamphlets dealing with events in his career, but the greatness of the man has yet to be discovered by the average
36 The Lantern
reader. It is only by accident that I happen to be writing about him.
While looking for data about the Vigilantes, of whom I have been writing of late, I came across a letter between the leaves of an old book. I remem- bered the letter as having been sent to me by one unknown to me ten years ago, at which time I was writing a serial story of the Broderick-Gwin contest for Town Talk. Doubtless it was put aside for future reference. Somewhat crudely written, it is however an interesting fragment, presenting as it does a por- trait of Colonel Baker and some reminiscences of early days in San Francisco. Here it is:
Mr. Logan : Although unknown to you, I cannot resist writing to you and refer you to Mr. Bonnet. I am 72 years of age and came to S. F. in 1852 and am the widow of Joel Ferree Lightner and daughter of Captain Thomas Gray who died in 1892 aged nearly 90 years. I know well what I write and felt it might interest you, as I have been interested and moved by your record of Vigilance Committee and Edward Baker.
The Vigilance Committee was an outgrowth of Know-Nothingism. We knew James King of Wil- liam well and from his own lips how he added "of William" (William Co. of Virginia) — he had dif- ficulty receiving his mail to James King and added "of William."
My father and his friends regarded him as a Bragadocio, because from St. Louis and all Mis- souri no man dare insult another without retribution — by fist or pistol — We all know of his losing his money through Adams Express, etc., etc., of his editorship of Bulletin, Casey, etc.
I am and was intensely Law and Order as was every member of our large family. My father was for years a personal friend of E. D. Baker and ad- mired him, although he had taken many a rash step in life, none more so than at Stone's River where he
Lincoln's Comrade Baker 37
met his death. Rushing in his men through a gorge or canon and fired on from above — no way to get out. At that time my father was Quarter Master U. S. A. at Alexandria, Va.
Col. Baker was a most eloquent man and his eulogy over Broderick in his coffin was remembered and quoted by his friends years after. Broderick's funeral went up from Stockton street up the steep grade of Pacific street to Laurel Hill. Col. Baker then lived on Pacific street and Leavenworth and my mother and I went to his home to see the funeral pass.
My father knew E. D. Baker in 1840 or '41, as for years he was Capt. of the Galena and the Gipsy and from Cairo to Galena and St. Paul's he knew nearly every prominent man in Illinois and Missouri. Mr. Baker came from England, a boy, taught school when very young in Southern Illinois where he married a widow (American) with three children. In his lonely life previous to his marriage he was a constant student — ancient history and of Rome and Greece — his favorite themes. With his fine memory, these recol- lections were always great assistance to him in his speeches. He went to Springfield, 111. and studied Law and from there came to St. Louis to start to Mexico. The headquarters for soldiers, recruits etc. were there and at Jefiferson Barracks, 15 miles from there, and started to Mexican War under Gen'l Stephen W. Kearny for whom our Kearny st. is called — and Carney not Kerney — was the way he pronounced his name.
We knew Col. Baker well in 1853 and '54. ( He gained his title in Mexico), when with his wife, two sons and two daughters (afterwards Mrs. Robert J. Stevens and Mrs. Charles Hopkins) he lived on Greenwich st. near Powell. A dike or small stream ran through Greenwich and to reach his home from ours on Filbert street we had to cross over on a beam resting on ground either side. This led to their gate. My father saw him almost daily, and we had many pleasant visits there. He was a charming
38 The Lantern
conversationalist, not at all egotistic nor contradictory, stating- facts and many anecdotes about the war. Among his treasures was a small wine-glass which had been left in Gen'l Santa Anna's tent, and from it, in turn, we each had a glass of Angelica or Cali- fornian Port. These wines were in general use in almost every family. We were neighbors, as my husband and I lived on Union near Mason. Mother lived on Filbert and in those days people were neighborly. Soon after '54 Col. Baker's family moved to 3rd and Mission streets. Two large brick houses had been built there near the toll gate on old Mission Road which began there. They were very handsome houses. There Miss Carrie was married to R. Julius Stevens, afterwards Superintendent of the Mint, and we were all at the wedding, going in Omnibus and walked home — carriages luxuries in those days, and everyone walked more than of later years.
Then came '56, always remembered by Vigilance Committee, which separated no more from friends than did the Civil War when we were treated with tenderest sympathy by many ''Secessionists." So far did feeling against Col. Baker go that one of our dear friends and fellow-passengers from Havanna — across the Isthmus and up from Panama — ceased to be our friend when she said after Cora's death she would like to see Col. Baker's grey hairs blown in the wind as he hung from the same window. His speech at Cora's trial we all know, and he was right about Richardson who brought on his own death by previous and most aggravating causes.
Col. Baker was a handsome man. Although rather small he had a beautiful head, prematurely gray and somewhat bald, with hair brushed to the front as was then the style; he had clear, bright complexion and blue eyes — but dark when excited — very pleasant, cordial manner and courtesy of the then Western States to all women. He was very careless in dress — shoe strings often untied — fine tapes that at that time tied on gentlemen's collars often visible. His
Lincoln's Comrade Baker 39
black silk handkerchief as cravat very carelessly tied or if he wore a black silk stock, most probably it would be on one side.
I think often of those days and the sad times he spent before he concluded to go to Oregon, leaving his friends, his lifework; to begin Hfe anew, after his hitherto brilliant prospects. The reception of appreciation in Oregon, his senatorship and rejoining the Army are all familiar to us, his funeral etc.
If these items are any use, they are yours, even if you are only interested in reading them once. I told them, yesterday, to a friend who said "Why not write them to Mr. Logan" and I have done so.
ELIZABETH GRAY LIGHTNER.
Aug. 27th 1906 27 Beulah st.
Though a great American, Edward Dickinson Baker was not of American birth. But no American- born citizen ever took a more active interest in the affairs of the nation, no American ever played so many parts in its upbuilding. Baker was born in London in February, 1811. His father was of a family of Quakers. His mother was a sister of Thomas Dickinson, a naval officer who fought with distinction under Collingwood at Trafalgar. We may be justified in attributing to both parents a share in the son's most notable characteristics ; for Colonel Baker had not only a taste for war, like his mother's brother, but also a taste for literature, which was a taste his father loved to indulge and which the father cultivated in his son. The family came to this country when young Baker was only four years of age, set- tling in Philadelphia where the father became a teacher.
It is to be presumed that the elder Baker came to this country with a warm attachment for the people who had thrown off the yoke of an unjust Govern- ment, since there is evidence in the manner of the younger Baker's early training that his father strove to impress him with American ideals. In his school days the younger Baker was made familiar with the
40 The Lantern
history of the Colonies, and there is an anecdote of him from which we learn that when his father was expounding the Constitution to him and he learned for the first time that a person of foreign birth was forever excluded from the Presidency he shed bitter tears. When he was in his teens the family migrated to Illinois where young Baker was admitted to the bar before he reached his twentieth year. The law was his chosen profession and therein he attained eminence. Those were days of many eminent lawyers, especially on the prairie frontiers where schooling was to be had with difficulty. But where diversions were few, distractions were rare and those who possessed the gift of a thirst for knowledge applied themselves for, as well as to, their heart's content. In those days the case of the self- educated Abraham Lincoln was far from singular. Of course Baker, with his father for teacher suffered not, as Lincoln did, from lack of advantages. Atmong his contemporaries he was something of a "boy won- der," as he could read Latin as well as English ; and when addressing a jury he could not only quote from the Scriptures, like the average lawyer of the day, but he could also quote from Milton and the poets and orators of classic literature. Indeed he was a poet himself, a genuine poet with imagination and skill in the technique of his art which is exhibited in the few of his poems that survive, one of which he entitled
TO A WAVE Dost thou seek a star with thy swelling crest, O Wave, that leavest thy mother's breast? Dost thou leap from the prisoned depths below, In scorn of their calm and constant flow? Or art thou seeking some distant land, To die in murmurs upon the strand?
Hast thou tales to tell of pearl-lit deep Where the wave-whelmed mariner rocks in sleep? Canst thou speak of navies that sunk in pride Ere the roll of their thunder in echo died? What banners, what trophies are floating free In the shadowy depth of that silent sea?
Lincoln's Comrade Baker 41
It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar, Of banner, or mariner, ship or star; It were vain to seek in thy stormy face Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace. Thou art swelling high, thou art flashing free, How vain are the questions we ask of thee!
I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea;
I, too, am a wanderer driven like thee;
I, too, am seeking a distant land.
To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand.
For the land I seek is a waveless shore,
And they who once reach it shall wander no more.
Usually the lawyer with a passion for the display of his eloquence is renowned as a lawyer chiefly among laymen. Though he may warm juries he is very likely to leave judges cold, for judges listen to what lawyers say, hardly at all to how they say it. Baker was a lawyer who impressed judges and thrilled juries. The most captivating orator of his day, AQ was recognized by judges as a leader of the bar in whatever community he settled, and instinc- tively he was a wanderer. He represented several bars in his time, and was associated with some of the best lawyers of his day, among them Albert T. Bledso who afterwards became assistant Secretary of the Treasury for the southern Confederacy. He practiced law on the same circuit with Lincoln and figured in a great deal of important litigation. Later, in the fifties, when he came to this State he im- mediately rose to distinction in the practice of the law. His fame as an orator preceded him, and it is related of him that once in Sacramento, after he had won a suit on a promissory note, which was all a matter of cold law, the people, who crowded the courtroom, disappointed at their failure to observe an exhibition of the lawyer's power of impassioned eloquence demanded a speech. To quiet them he promised to deliver a lecture after dinner, and he did. The subject of the lecture was "Books."
Colonel Baker lived at a time when destiny went with a whirl and no one was idle. Being enamored
42 The Lantern
of the gamble of life he found the profession of the law at times insufficiently exciting, and to vary its monotony he practiced at intervals the soldier's pro- fession— intervals that offered opportunities of fresh impact with the world. Three times he went a-fighting for his country. His first experience of the soldier's profession was sought in 1832 when he enlisted in the Black Hawk War, among the volunteers of which was Abraham Lincoln, who subsequently came to love Baker as a brother. Baker came out of that war with a major's commission. He did not at once retire to the quiet life. He was only twenty-one and his adventurous spirit was not yet gratified. Instead of returning directly home when the troops were mustered out near the headwaters of the Mississippi, young Major Baker said good-bye to his companions, bought a canoe from an Indian, and descended the Father of Waters three hundred miles to a point in Calhoun county whence he tramped to his home near Carrolton. Three years later we find him roving again. Again the anguish of curiosity and romance overcoming him he went forth into unfamiliar realms, through lands of virgin forests where nature was opulent and sweet to breathe. How delightful is the life of the wanderer in strange lands where happiness is married to silence, where under the stars the un- forseen is constantly coming into view !
Doubtless the young lawyer encountered many perils, for he wandered through much sparsely settled terri- tory before arriving in Springfield where he halted to make his home. That was long before the Civil War. The strife between the States was but hardly adumbrated by the signs of the times. But there was some little agitation of the question of State rights, and as a consequence the gift of oratory was a fine asset for lawyers of the period. Men were taking very seriously to politics. By the year 1844 Baker had sufficiently estabUshed himself and ingratiated himself in Springfield to venture into a campaign for Congress. He sought the nomination in the Spring-
Lincoln's Comrade Baker 43
field district; and whom should he have for prin- cipal opponent but one Abraham Lincoln ! We may in a measure judge of Baker's standing in the com- munity from the circumstance that he beat Lincoln for the nomination ; also we may glimpse the char- acter of both men in the circumstance that they were warm friends ever after. But we are pretty familiar with the character of Lincoln, and it is because we know Lincoln so well that we should like to know more of Baker. As it is, however, in his orations as we read them his character as it stands out has great charm. He had a great human feeling, and he had an instinct for the phrase and the idea that fired men with patriotism and affection.
Almost from the time of his entrance in the field of politics Baker's career was closely bound up with Lin- coln's hopes and fears. If you would know the sort of man Lincoln esteemed you could not do better than study the life of Colonel E. D. Baker. Proof of the strong attachment between the two men is to be found in the fact that Lincoln named his second son Edward Baker. At that time Baker was serving his term in Congress in the seat that Lincoln had aspired to; and it is perhaps worth noting that Baker's colleague from Illinois was Stephen A. Douglas, who is now remem- bered only on account of his historic debates with the Great Emancipator. We know that the friendship be- tween Lincoln and Baker continued down to the day of Baker's untimely end just after the opening of the Civil War.
I have never seen this friendship referred to, but I have been struck with more than one incident in his- tory whereby it is unerringly implied. First there is the record of the christening of Lincoln's son, indicat- ing the early formation of the friendship. That it was an enduring attachment we know from a letter written by Lincoln thirty years after the Black Hawk War to a friend in Oregon. The letter touched on Baker's election from the State of Oregon to the Senate. The pro-slavery Democrats of Oregon were threatening to
44 The Lantern
deprive Baker of his certificate of election when Lin- coln wrote to his friend expressing the hope that the fraud would not be consummated. Of equal sig- nificance is the historical fact that in General Taylor's campaign for the Presidency Lincoln and Baker to- gether stumped several States for the soldier. At the close of the campaign we find Lincoln vainly supporting Baker for a Cabinet secretaryship. But perhaps the best proof of a man's love of a friend is a willingness to fight for him, and that is pre- cisely what Lincoln once did for his old comrade of the Black Hawk War. Part of the story is to be found in Herndon's Life of Lincoln.
The author relates that when he and Lincoln oc- cupied the same law office in. Springfield it was di- rectly over the town hall and that in the floor was a trap-door which Lincoln always opened when there was good speechmaking to hear. It was Lincoln's habit to stretch himself on the floor and in this com- fortable position take in the sentiments of the speak- ers. In those days orators were warming up in de- bates on questions of national politics. One day Baker was engaged in a debate and his friend Lin- coln was at the trap-door in his customary auditorial attitude. In the course of his speech Baker ex- claimed: "Wherever there is a Land Office there you will find a Democratic newspaper defending its corruption."
*Tull him down," shouted an ardent Democrat in the audience, and at once there was a rush for the platform. Before anybody reached the speaker a pair of legs were seen dangling through the trap- door and in a moment Lincoln dropped on the plat- form alongside of Baker. Seizing the stone water- jug on the speaker's table, he raised it in the air, and with one sentence stilled the angry mob.
"I'll break this over the head of the first man that lays a hand on Baker," said Lincoln. There was not a man with the courage to approach an inch nearer to the gaunt figure that towered above the surging
Lincoln's Comrade Baker 45
crowd. Men stood transfixed in the presence of a dominating personality, and a little later Baker, who had not for a moment lost his composure, resumed his speech.
Fearlessness was but one of the minor aspects of Baker's greatness. Like all men who enhance the joys of life by courting its perils he never lost his composure. It was this serenity of temper that fitted him so well for the emergencies of war and qualified him for service as a soldier when his coun- try called. Some of the personal qualities that re- flected the character of Bernadotte, the revolutionary hero who became a king, qualities that won for the great Gascon a shining place in history, are to be found in a study of the life of the great but for- gotten American. Both possessed a natural charm, a dexterity and gift of leadership, quickness and dash and felicity in speech and language. But Baker possessed more than these qualities. He had a strong sense of personal loyalty, as he proved in the days of the Vigilantes when he stuck to his friend Broderick. Also, he was an inexhaustible source of passionate inspirations and he could carry success as well as he could bear reverses. Moreover he was at once a statesman and a soldier, a dominating person- ality in debate as well as a leader on the battlefield.
The quality of leadership he brilliantly exhibited in the Mexican War. He was a Representative in Congress when that war broke out, but he immedi- ately enlisted. Not only that: he resigned, which is something few Congressmen are able to do. As soon as the war broke out Baker went from Washington to his home in Illinois where he speedily raised a regiment of volunteers which he led to the Rio Grande. The state of affairs in camp was the same as it always is when war breaks out under our benefi- cent Government, as it always has been. The camp was bad, the equipage insufiicient. Baker immedi- ately returned to Washington and started the wheels of Government revolving in the interest of the sol-
46 The Lantern
diers. In the uniform of a soldier, the only clothes he had, he addressed Congress by consent, thus being the only man that ever spoke on the floor of Con- gress in military garb. His speech made a tremen- dous impression, the desired legislation was enacted. Thereupon Baker resigned. He got back to camp in time to take part in the capture of Vera Cruz. Later at Cerro Gordo, when General Shields fell mortally wounded. Baker, flashing his sword and calling to his men, led the charge that drove the Mexicans out of the fortifications. Thereafter he was continued by General Scott in command of Shields' brigade.
Colonel Baker loved fighting when he was doing it for his country's good, but in time of peace he loved the arts of peace. When the Mexican War was over he returned to Illinois, and presently we find him again in Congress. We find him there, by the way, when California was admitted to the Union.
Here I am reminded that there has been much dis- cussion in recent years of Oregon's suggestion that San Francisco for sentimental reasons should per- mit the removal of Baker's bones to the State that elected him to the Senate of the United States. This is a suggestion for the sentiment of which much may be said. The people of San Francisco in a moment of hysteria made it advisable for this great man to leave town. Because of his masterly defense of Charles Cora, an innocent man, it was feared that the murderous Vigilantes might do violence to his attor- ney. Now it is true that the people of Oregon ap- preciated Baker's ability and paid tribute to his char- acter, but it is not too late for California to render homage to the great man. Homage from California is due his memory for two reasons : first because he was instrumental in procuring the admission of this State to the Union and secondly because, though a Senator from Oregon at the time of the Civil War, the volunteers whom he rounded up for the struggle were California pioneers whom he organized in New York under the title "CaHfornia Regiment." These
Lincoln's Comrade Baker 47
are facts which I think it worth while bringing to light with a view to calhng them to the attention of California societies interested in the preservation of our traditions.
I am getting a little ahead of my story. It was in that session of Congress at which California was admitted to the Union that we find the first official records of Baker's devotion to the cause with which his friend Lincoln was at the same time preoccupied. Opposition to the admission of California came from the South. Among Southern politicians it was as- sumed that sentiment in the far Western territory was anti-slavery. In the midst of the debates on the subject Baker excited the wrath of Representative Venable who took occasion to allude to his confrere's foreign birth. Quickly Baker retorted: "If it is anything to be ashamed of," he said, '*I regard it as an infinitely greater disgrace for a man to try to make one section of his country foreign to another." From this time on Baker consecrated his noble talents at every opportunity to the advocacy of abolition. Also he continued to rove. In 1851 we find him in Panama superintending the building of a section of the Isthmian railroad. In 1852 he came to California, and here he resumed the practice of his profession, at once also taking an active interest once more in the exciting politics of the period. Here, too, he be- came a candidate for Congress again, and here he acquired the sobriquet. Gray Eagle of Republicanism.
Though California justified the fears of the poli- ticians who opposed the birth of the State there was a time when the partisans of the South threatened to capture its political machine. Colonization in the in- terest of the South was very active in this State, and through several campaigns Baker was uttering here the sentiments that Lincoln was uttering through the Middle West. As a consequence Baker created many enemies. They made him the storm-centre of political agitation in California and defeated him for Congress. All the while, however, his reputation as
48 The Lantern
a powerful advocate of his cause was spreading all over the Pacific Coast. Shortly after his defeat a remarkable thing- occurred: down from Oregon came a committee of leading citizens with an invitation to Baker to come to that State and there enter the contest for the senatorship. They pleaded for his leadership in the interest of the Union. They urged him to return with them and fire the hearts of the people of every legislative district. Baker was at that time practicing law in partnership with Judge Dwindle at 148 Clay street. His business was pros- pering, but his adventurous spirit was tempted. He accepted the invitation and was soon once more on a voyage to pastures new. On the 17th of February, 1860, he left town on a steamer for Portland. Many of the leading citizens of this city accompanied him to the steamer and gave him a royal send-off. Among them was Fred Low, afterward Governor of the State. At parting Low bet Baker a suit of clothes that he would be defeated in Oregon, at the same time expressing the hope that he himself would lose the bet. That hope was realized.
With Baker it was a case of Veni, Vidi, Vici. Within the year of his arrival in Oregon Baker was elected to the Senate. Immediately he returned to San Francisco en route to Washington via the Pan- ama route. He made the trip hither aboard the steamer Brother Jonathan. His old friends having been informed of his coming, made arrangement for a public reception. As the steamer passed Fort Point a salute of one hundred guns was fired ; from Tele- graph Hill came a salvo of two hundred and at Steuart street wharf one hundred guns were fired just as Baker was leaving the ship. All San Fran- cisco was on the water front to participate in the reception of the distinguished man and a parade was held in his honor.
We are at the close of this great man's career. Once more in Congress, once more he entered the army to fight for his country and fighting fell.
The Cheerful Russians 49
He was commanding a brigade on October 21st, 1861, on the Virginia side of the Potomac; in a battle historically known as the Battle of Ball's Bluff he was leading his men when he was riddled with bullets. Many eulogies of the great man were de- livered in Washington and in many legislatures. Among the eulogists was John Hay to whom history is indebted for this fine sentence: "Edward Dickin- son Baker was promoted by one grand brevet of the Lord of Battles above the acclaim of the field, above the applause of the world, to the heaven of the martyr and the hero."
THE CHEERFUL RUSSIANS
By Edward F. O'Day
There was a very amusing story published lately wherein the hero was represented as inventing a Russian novelist. The name of this story was Hobohemia and its author was Sinclair Lewis. In order to become a personage in Hobohemia Lewis's hero evoked from the vasty deeps of imagination a Russian novelist named Zuprushin, and not only gave out the titles of his books but actually wrote some of them in English and sprang them upon the literary public of New York as translations from the original. In one of these novels called Mute Madness the hero murdered his grandmother and then chewed a strand of her blood-stained hair, whispering "It tastes gritty." Naturally enough, Zuprushin was hailed as "the most startlingly pessimistic of Russian novelists," and his novels became tremendously popular.
Fiction is rarely stranger than fact. Some years ago a press agent and a painter in San Francisco invented an Icelandic poet and palmed him off on several women's clubs. So there is nothing implaus- ible about the feat achieved by the hero of Sinclair
50 The Lantern
Lewis's story. But the particular point to which I would draw attention just now is that in order to deceive the reading public it was necessary to have Zuprushin choose as his hero a gentle youth capable of murdering his grandam and chewing her blood- soaked hair. Had a cheerful book been attributed to Zuprushin the deception would have been impos- sible. The American reading public would never stand for a jolly Russian novelist; they would know right away that he was a fake.
The Russian novelists are exceedingly popular in this country just now. They have "the call," so to speak. Novelists of other foreign countries have had their day, but there was never a time in this country when our highbrows cultivated translated literature wholesale the way they are now cultivating Russian fiction. D'Annunzio had his seasons of vogue here, but nobody bothered about his Italian contemporaries, some of them exceedingly worth while. Anatole France captured the highbrow American reading public, but that public did not pass on from his books to the books of the fifty-seven other Frenchmen who were writing great novels in Paris before the war. And so of other countries. But when our highbrows "went in" for the Russian novelists they proceeded to devour them all.
Strangely enough, considering our national tem- perament, the American popularity of a Russian novelist is measured in terms of gloom. The gloomier a Russian novelist is the better he is liked. The more he depresses your spirits the more highly you are expected to regard him. So far as I know, there are no Russian novelists who make you laugh. Most of them strive to make you cry, and some of them succeed. All of them plunge you headlong into the most cerulean of blues. A select few are so preeminently accomplished in their art that they drive their weaker readers to the verge of suicide. I have no doubt that the most successful Russian novels have a few cases of insanity to their immortal credit.
The Cheerful Russians 51
When you read the Hves of the Russian novelists you are surprised that most of them reached man's estate, that they didn't lay violent hands upon them- selves in childhood. For they seem to have been intolerably unhappy from birth. Take Fedor Dos- toieffsky, for instance. He was born in a hospital for the poor, and was afflicted with epilepsy. As a youngster he was violently socialistic, got into trouble with the authorities and was condemned to death with twenty-one others. The two-and-twenty were not reprieved until after the firing squad had leveled their rifles. One of the wretches went mad from this experience, but curiously enough it is not stated that he became a popular Russian novelist. Dos- toieflfsky ran truer to form. Subsequent years spent in a Siberian prison fitted him for his literary career, and throughout his active writing life he was often on the edge of starvation. Whenever they review his pleasant career the best critics of our best literary papers point out that it was inevitable that Dos- toieffsky should become a Force in Russian fiction. Fate, they insist, meant him to be a popular Russian novelist. It must be true, since the best critics say so, but I am lowbrow enough to thank heaven that in these United States we don't train our popular novelists that way. I am glad Dean Howells is not an epileptic ; that Mark Twain never faced a firing squad ; that Gertrude Atherton has never been in prison ; that Frank Norris never had to go hungry.
Consider the titles of Dostoieffsky's novels : Recol- lections of a Dead House, Buried Alive, The Demons, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment. These are the novels Russians take with them to the country for light vacation reading. And these are the novels Americans must read if they have any regard for their literary standing. Is it not a gay list? Do not the very names pleasantly depress you? I can only speak of one of them from personal knowledge. I shall never forget the nights I devoted to Crime and Pun- ishment. I have dipped into all sorts of melancholy
52 The Lantern
books from John Halifax, Gentleman to Kraft-Ebb- ing, and I am case-hardened. But my experience with Crime and Punishment was as exhilarating as a midnight stroll through the morgue with a gossipy coroner. It was as cheering as I conceive it must be to keep the death watch with a condemned mur- derer who insists on telling for the last time on earth the complete story of his various little jobs. Crime and Punishment bowed my spirits lower than the shoulders of the Man with the Hoe. I'd rather have acute indigestion than read it again.
The plot of this masterpiece is built round a young fellow who murders an old woman with a hatchet. I have just picked up the book to refresh my memory, and my eye lights on these jolly words:
There was not a moment to lose now. He pulled out the hatchet, raised it with both hands, and let it de- scend without force, almost mechanically, on the old woman's head. . . . Her scanty grey locks, greasy with oil, were gathered in one thin plait, which was fixed to the back of her neck by means of a piece of horn comb.
The hatchet struck her just on the sinciput She
scarcely uttered a faint cry and collapsed at once all in a heap on the floor. . . . Then Raskolnikoff struck two fresh blows with the hatchet on the crown of the old woman's head. The blood spurted out in streams and the body rolled heavily over.
This sort of thing is quite commonplace with these popular Russians. They wouldn't dream of cheat- ing the reader of the sweet thrill that accompanies the most violent crimes. I think I prefer the method of the wise old Greek dramatists who had this sort of butchery done offstage. I make this confession in spite of knowing that it puts me beyond the pale, that it excludes me from those highbrow literary circles where Russian novelists are esteemed in proportion to the liquid ounces of gore they spill and the hair- raising ingenuity with which the spilling is achieved.
I have never known American critics to deprecate these Russian horrors. They revel in them. They rub their hands gleefully as they point out the beauty
The Cheerful Russians 53
that is inherent in this sort of reaHsm. An Eng^lish critic of some standing once wrote of a Dostoieffsky novel: "I must confess that there are things in The Brothers Karamazoif from which I shrink." This critic promptly lost caste among his brethren. It was generally conceded that he was unworthy to read the great Russian novels.
The critics who command respect are those who swallow all the murders and lusts and cruelties of the Russian masters of fiction, and then cry out for more. Here is the proper note, sounded in a criti- cism of this same cheerful Dostoieffsky:
The long days and the long nights had revealed their
meaning to him. Memories, sufferings, doubts, misgiv- ings, all had converged in the simplicity of compassion.
He was able to pass up creaking staircases and
to open the rotting doors of stifling, brooding rooms. He was able to throw light into cellars where human be- ings survive as rats In later years he was to
pierce through the last barriers of concealment, and to reveal, not the cellars of the tenement house, but the cellars of the human soul.
Do not think that I exaggerate when I say that the gloomier a Russian novelist the greater his popularity. Gogol is regarded as a Russian humor- ist; he is not much read among us. Truth to tell, there is not much of what we call humor in his Dead Souls. Yet this book is called the Russian Pickwick Papers. Perhaps the critic who dubbed it so made a sHp of the pen; perhaps he meant the Russian Hard Times, for it is depressing enough to be bracketed with Dickens's least exhilarating story. Certainly what the Russians mean by humor is a dark mystery to us. On the grave of Gogol the humorist they carved these merry words : 'T shall laugh my bitter laugh." What would they carve on the grave of a satirist? Turgenieff was another Russian novelist who tried to be humorous, or at least pleasant ; but not one American reads Turgenieff for a dozen who revel in Artzibasheff or Pryzbyszewski. And despite Turgenieff 's endeavors to be light and happy we find
54 The Lantern
a critic writing of him : "The closing chapter of A Nest of Nobles is one of the saddest and at the same time truest pages in the whole range of existing novels."
Pick up any literary paper and read a review of a newly translated Russian. Here is one in the latest issue of that ultra-highbrow periodical The Nezu Re- public. A book of Veresaev, translated into English by Wienev is praised as "a simple and straightforward narrative of dirt and despair and cruel slaughter." I hazard the prediction that that book will be im- mensely popular. People who never heard of Vere- saev before last week will reshape their lives accord- ing to his "message" and will doubtless write letters to Wienev thanking him for placing at their disposal all this "dirt and despair and cruel slaughter" for which their souls were instinctively yearning.
This widespread enthusiasm for Russian novelists is a recent phenomenon in American highbrow circles. The fad is only a little older than the vogue of Rus- sian dancing and Russian music. It seems to have sprung up independently of the popularity of Tolstoi in this country. When Tolstoi was first called to the attention of American novel readers he excited the same sort of interest as do the Russian novelists who are popular today. For Tolstoi first became a force in American literary life, so-called, when former Post- master General Wanamaker refused the mails to a translation of his Kreutser Sonata. At once every- body who was anybody wanted to read it. At the time there were mighty few people in this country who cared a snap of the finger about Russian liter- ature. Indeed, most Americans at that time would have been surprised to hear that there was a Russian literature. They knew about the Cossacks and the Steppes and the burning of Moscow and the scan- dalous behavior of Catherine the Great; but they had never heard of vodka or samovars or moujiks or Russian novelists. But when the postal ban was placed on The Kreutser Sonata that particular piece
The Cheerful Russians 55
of Russian literature became an object of general in- terest. Cheap editions of the prohibited book sold like hot cakes. Readers who had hitherto been con- tent with The Duchess and Nick Carter (the latter confiscated from the children and read surreptitiously- after the children had gone to bed) found The Kreutzer Sonata delightfully depressing. Incidentally they learned for the first time that Beethoven had written a musical composition of that name. They didn't learn much else from the book that was of any particular good to them, and in most cases they burned it for fear the children might read it. Had Tolstoi gone on writing books like The Kreutzer Sonata he might have had a vogue like Gorky and Artzibasheff and others. But Tolstoi became quite respectable, and by the time he wrote Resurrection he had been taken up by religious people and dropped by highbrows.
Perhaps the present vogue may be traced to the publication of Gorky's Foma Gordeyev. That was a nice novel of disreputable Hfe, full of drunkenness and blood and illicit love and vagabondage and all that sort of irresistible thing. It was quite soaked in vodka, with a spree on every other page, and it in- toxicated our highbrows. From then on our high- brows have had a thirst for vodka, figuratively speak- ing. They have become dipsomaniacs, forever sous- ing themselves in Russian novels. The American market for these books grew rather slowly at first, but it was stimulated ever and anon by a furore sim- ilar to that kicked up over The Kreutzer Sonata. That well meaning and much maligned man Anthony Com- stock would confiscate a particularly rancid specimen, or some old-fashioned public librarian would sprinkle chloride of lime on a masterpiece of decay, and im- mediately there would be a brisk trade in Russians. Only a short time ago high school girls who couldn't pronounce Artzibasheflf's name were making the most determined efforts to get hold of a novel of his, simply because it was whispered that the edition was going to
'56 The Lantern
be withdrawn from circulation. I have not read the book in question, but I am told by mothers who were warned by their daughters not to read it that it is very colluvial. Of course high school girls are not highbrows, but singularly enough they try to read all the books affected by highbrows. The highbrows have what is called taste, the high school girls what is called curiosity (a politer word than prurience), but they arrive by different routes at the same ob- jective point.
How long will the popularity of the Russians con- tinue in this country? One can only guess. Judging however from the trend of American fiction I should say that the vogue of the Russians will terminate in the not too distant future. For our own Americans have learned to imitate the Russians, and will soon be turning out a more entrancing article of novelistic depression than the worst or best of the gloomsters from the eastern front. Believing in home industry, we shall manufacture our own despondency. Con- sider the posthumous novel in two psychopathic-sexual volumes by David Graham Philipps. Consider the strides Theodore Dreiser has made since he de- pressed and was suppressed in Sister Carrie. Con- sider what Gouverneur Morris and Robert W. Cham- bers will be writing twenty years from now, when they grow tired of depicting the less sinister forms of eroticism and give us the dead-sea fruit of their blase imaginations. Or if you prefer to consider the consumer rather than the producers, think what the high school girls of today will demand when their jaded literary palates tire of the fare provided for them by the impure-food experts of the Cosmo- politan Magazine. In that rapidly approaching time the cheerful Russians with their nice little murders and the rest of their entrancing horrors will be considered reticent old fogies.
LAUGHTER
By L. N. Andreyev
(Translated from the Russian by W. H. Lowe)
I.
At 6:30 I was certain that she would come, and I was desperately happy. My coat was fastened only by the top button, and fluttered in the cold wind; but I felt no cold. My head was proudly thrown back, and my student's cap was cocked on the back of my head; my eyes with respect to the men they met were expressive of patronage and boldness, with respect to the women, of a seductive tenderness. Al- though she had been my only love for four whole days, I was so young, and my heart was so rich in love, that I could not remain perfectly indifferent to other women. My steps were quick, bold and free.
At 6:45 my coat was fastened by two buttons, and I looked only at the women, but no longer with a seductive tenderness, but rather with disgust. I only wanted one woman — the others might go to the devil ; they only confused me, and with their seeming re- semblance to Her gave to my movements an uncer- tain and jerky indecision. At 6:55 I felt warm. At 6:58 I felt cold. As it struck seven I was convinced that she would not come. By 8 :30 I presented the appearance of the most pitiful creature in the world. My coat was fastened with all its buttons, collar turned up, cap tilted over my nose, which was blue with cold : my hair was over my forehead, my mus- tache and eyelashes were whitening with rime, and my teeth gently chattered. From my shambling gait, and bowed back, I might have been taken for a fairly hale old man returning from a party at the almshouse.
And She was the cause of all this — She! *'Oh, the Dev — !" No, I won't. Perhaps she could not get away, or she is ill, or dead. Dead ! I swore.
58 The Lantern
11.
"Eugenia Nikolaevna will be there tonight," one of my companions, a student, remarked to me, with- out the slightest arriere pensee. He could not know how I had waited for her in the frost.
''Indeed," I replied, as in deep thought, but within my soul there leapt out: **Oh, the Dev — !" "There" meant at the Polozovs' evening party. Now the Polozovs were people with whom I was not upon visiting terms. But this evening I would be there.
"You fellows!" I shouted cheerfully, "today is Christmas Day. Let us enjoy ourselves."
"But how?" one of them mournfully replied.
"And where?" continued another.
"We will dress up, and go round to all the evening parties," I decided.
And these insensate individuals actually became cheerful. They shouted, leapt, and sang. They thanked me for my suggestion, and counted up the amount of "the ready" available. In the course of half an hour we had collected all the lonely, dis- consolate students in town ; and when we had re- cruited a cheerful dozen or so of leaping devils, we repaired to a hairdresser's — he was also a costumier — and let in there the cold, and youth, and laughter.
I wanted something sombre and handsome, with a shade of elegant sadness; so I requested:
"Give me the dress of a Spanish grandee."
Apparently this grandee had been very tall, for I was altogether swallowed up in his dress, and felt there as absolutely alone as though I had been in a wide, empty hall. I asked for something else.
"Would you like to be a clown ? Motley, bells !"
"A clown, indeed !" I exclaimed with contempt.
"Well, then, a bandit. Such a hat and dagger !"
Oh! dagger! Yes, that would suit my purpose. But unfortunately the bandit whose chothes they gave me had scarcely grown to full stature. Most probably he had been a corrupt youth of eight years.
Laughter 59
His little hat would not cover the back of my head, and I had to be dragged out of his velvet breeks as out of a trap. A page's dress was no go: it was all spotted like the pard. A monk's cowl was all holes.
''Look sharp; it's late," said my companions, who were already dressed, trying to hurry me up.
There was but one costume left — that of a dis- tinguished Chinaman. "Give me the Chinaman's," said I with a wave of my hand. And they gave it to me. It was the devil knows what! I am not speaking of the costume itself. I pass over in silence those idiotic flowered boots, which were too short for me, and reached only half-way to my knees; but in the remaining, by far the most essential part, stuck out like two incomprehensible adjuncts on either side of my feet. I say nothing of the pink rag which covered my head like a wig, and was tied by threads to my ears, so that they protruded and stood up like a bat's. But the mask !
It was, if one may use the expression, a face in the abstract. It had nose, eyes, and mouth all right enough, and all in the proper places ; but there was nothing human about it. A human being could not look so placid — even in his coffin. It was ex- pressive neither of sorrow, nor cheerfulness, nor surprise — it expressed absolutely nothing! It looked at you squarely, and placidly — and an uncontroll- able laughter overwhelmed you. My companions rolled about on the sofas, sick with laughter.
"It will be the most original mask of the evening," they declared.
I was ready to weep; but no sooner did I glance in the mirror than I too was convulsed with laughter.
"In no circumstances are we to take off our masks," said my companions on the way. "We give our word."
"Honor bright!"
III.
Positively it was the most original mask. People followed me in crowds, turned me about, jostled me, pinched me. But when, harried, I turned on my
60 The Lantern
persecutors in anger — uncontrollable laughter seized them. Wherever I went, a roaring cloud of laughter encompassed and pressed on me; it moved together with me, and I could not escape from this circle of mad mirth. Sometimes it seized even myself, and I shouted, sang, and danced till everything seemed to go round before me, as if I was drunk. But how remote everything was from me ! And how solitary was I under that mask ! At last they left me in peace. With anger and tenderness I looked at her.
"Tis I."
Her long eyelashes were lifted slowly in surprise, and a whole sheaf of black rays flashed upon me, and a laugh, resonant, joyous, bright as the spring sunshine — a laugh answered me.
"Yes, it is I; I, I say," I insisted with a smile, "Why did you not come this evening?"
But she only laughed, laughed joyously.
"I suffered so much ; I felt so hurt," said I.
But she only laughed. The black sheen of her eyes was extinguished, and still more brightly her smile lit up. It was the sun indeed, but burning, pitiless, cruel.
"What's the matter with you?"
"Is it really you?" said she, restraining herself. "How comical you are!"
My shoulders were bowed, and my head hung down — such despair was there in my pose. And while she, with the expiring afterglow of the smile upon her face, looked at the happy young couples that hurried by us, I said: "It's not nice to laugh. Do you not feel that there is a living, suffering face behind my ridiculous mask — and can't you see that it was only for the opportunity it gave me of seeing you that I put it on? You gave me reason to hope for your love, and then so quickly, so cruelly de- prived me of it. Why did you not come?"
With a protest on her tender, smiling lips, she turned sharply on me, and a cruel laugh utterly over- whelmed her. Choking, almost weeping, covering her
Laughter 61
face with a fragrant lace handkerchief, she brought out with difficulty: "Look at yourself in the mirror behind. Oh, how droll you are!"
Contracting my brows, clenching my teeth with pain, with a face grown cold, from which all the blood had fled, I looked at the mirror. There gazed out at me an idiotically placid, stolidly complacent, inhumanly immovable face. And I burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. And with the laughter not yet subsided, but already with the trembling of rising anger, with the madness of despair, I said — nay, almost shouted:
"You ought not to laugh!"
And when she was quiet again I went on speaking in a whisper of my love. I had never spoken so well, for I had never loved so strongly. I spoke of the tortures of expectation, of the venomous tears of mad jealousy and grief, of my own soul which was all love. And I saw how her drooping eyelashes cast thick dark shadows over her blanched cheeks. I saw how across their dull pallor the fire, bursting into flame, threw a dull red reflection, and how her pliant body involuntarily bent toward me.
She was dressed as the Goddess of Night, and was all mysterious, clad in a black, mist-like lace, which twinkled with stars of brilliants. She was beautiful as a forgotten dream of far-ofif childhood. As I spoke my eyes filled with tears, and my heart beat with gladness. And I perceived, I perceived at last, how a tender, piteous smile parted her lips, and her eye- lashes were lifted all a-tremble. Slowly, timorously, but with infinite confidence, she turned her head to- wards me, and — A shriek of laughter !
"No, no, I can't," she almost groaned, and throw- ing back her head, burst into a cascade of laughter.
Oh, if but for a moment I could have had a human face! I bit my lips, tears rolled over my heated face ; but it — that idiotic mask, on which everything was in its right place, nose, eyes, and lips — looked with a complacency stolidly horrible in its absurdity.
62 The Lantern
And when I went out, swaying on my flowered feet, it was long before I got out of reach of that ringing laugh. It was as though a silvery stream of water were falling from an immense height, and breaking in cheerful song upon the hard rock.
IV.
Scattered over the whole sleeping street and rousing the stillness of the night with our lusty, excited voices, we walked home. A companion said to me :
"You have had a colossal success. I never saw people laugh so — Halloa! what are you up to? Why are you tearing you mask? I say, you fellows, he's gone mad! Look, he's tearing his costume to pieces! By Jove, he's actually crying."
CONCERNING BRUISERS
By The Bookworm
"Boxing," I learn from the pages of the Encyclo- paedia Britannica, "is the art of hitting without get- ting hit." Pugilism has left its mark both on Eng- lish life and English literature. Mr. Shaw cynically complains that in novel writing there are two trust- worthy dodges for capturing the public. "One is to slaughter a child and pathosticate over its deathbed for a whole chapter. The other is to describe either a fight or a murder." And he goes on to hope that his own description of Cashel Byron's profession "may help in the Herculean task of eliminating fisticuifs from English fiction." I sincerely trust not. If by romantic fisticuffs Mr. Shaw means triumphant as- sault and battery by the hero on the body of the villain, I should be sorry to see English fiction de- prived of the theme. Take one of its first appear- ances in an English novel. Who does not enjoy the fight, discreditable as was its occasion, that Tom Jones put up against Parson Thwackum and Blifil, which,
CoN'CERNiNG Bruisf:rs 63
through the interposition of Squire Western, ended in the hero's favor? And mark the terms that Field- ing uses in his description. "This parson," he says, "had been a champion in his youth, and had won much honor by his fist, both at school and at the university. He had now indeed, for a great number of years, declined the practice of that noble art."
Another English novelist, separated from Fielding by more than a hundred years, is even more en- thusiastic. The fight between Tom Brown and Slogger Williams is one of the most famous in fiction, and the author of Tom Brozvn's Schooldays explains that he wrote the chapter describing it "partly because of the cant and twaddle that's talked of boxing and fighting with fists now-a-days." As further evidence of the universal appeal of pugilism, I quote Birrell:
"A gentle lady, bred amongst the Quakers, a hater of physical force, with eyes brimful of mercy, was lately heard to say, in heightened tones, at a dinner table, where the subject of momentary conversation was a late prize- fight: *Oh! pity was it that ever corruption should have crept in amongst them.' 'Amongst whom?' inquired her immediate neighbor. Amongst the bruisers of England,* was the terrific rejoinder. Deep were her blushes — and yet how easy to forgive her! The gentle lady spoke as one in dreams; for, you must know, she was born a Borrovian, and only that afternoon had read, for the first time, the famous twenty-fifth chapter of 'Lavengro.' "
In my edition of Lavengro the passage is to be found in the twenty-sixth chapter, and I would recommend any reader unfamiliar with its contents to read it at once, and then to turn to the eighty-fifth chapter of the same book, and follow the fortunes of the fight in the dingle between Lavengro, with Isopel Berners for his second, and the Flaming Tinman.
Perhaps my advice is a little hazardous, for Bor- row's lyrical eulogy of the English bruisers has a passage that distinctly tends to anti-Semitism. "It was fierce old Cobbett, I think," he writes, "who first said that the Jews first introduced bad faith amongst pugilists. He did not always speak the
64 The Lantern
truth, but at any rate he spoke it when he made that observation." Still, let him that would cast a stone against the Jews pause and remember that they are the race who produced a Mendoza. There is, I think, nothing in our literature to compare with Borrow's chapter except Hazlitt's essay on The Fight, not re- printed, I regret to say, in every edition of Table- Talk. Hazlitt witnessed the contest between Bill Neate and Thomas Hickman the Gas-man, and his description is worthy of the occasion :
"By this time they had stripped, and presented a strong contrast in appearance. If Neate was like Ajax, 'with Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear' the pugilistic reputation of all Bristol. Hickman might be compared to Diomed, light, vigorous, elastic, and his back glistened in the sun, as he moved about, like a panther's hide. There was now a dead pause — attention was awe-struck. Who at that moment, big with a great event, did not draw his breath short — did not feel his heart throb? All was ready. They tossed up for the sun, and the Gas-man won. They were led up to the scratch — shook hands, and
went at it When it was over I asked Cribb if
he did not think it was a good one. He said: 'Pretty well!' The carrier pigeons now mounted into the air, and one of them with the news of her husband's victory to Mr. Neate. Alas for Mrs. Hickman!"
Fights in fiction, though numerous, are often de- scribed without a proper regard for pugilistic prin- ciples, and in most cases the hero's pluck is made to compensate for his lack of science. Kenelm Chillingly is an example to the contrary. His first fight brought him defeat, and it was not until he took lessons in boxing from the Rev. John Chillingly that he was able to avenge the disgrace. These lessons cost him some scruples, which were, however, dissipated by the muscular divine's pronouncement: *Tf a gentleman thrashes a drayman twice his size, who has not learned to box, it is not unfair; it is but an exempli- fication of the truth that knowledge is power." In later years Kenelm was able to exemplify this truth in his great fight with Tom Bowles, over as well as under the beaux yeux of Miss Jessie Wiles. 'Tt ended
Concerning Bruisers 65
with a blow upon that part of the front where the eyes meet, followed up with the rapidity of light- ning, flash upon flash, by a more restrained but more disabling blow with the left hand just where the left ear meets throat and jaw-bone." John Ridd's fight with Robin Snell in Lorna Doone is a confused affair, although John should have described it better, for he ''had been three years at Blundell's, and foughten, all that time, a fight at least once every week." Marryat is another author who sinks into generalities when he introduces a bout of fisticuffs. Midshipman Easy "won his way up in school by hard and scientific combat," but of his affair with Vigors, which ended bullying on H.M. sloop Harpy, we are told nothing but the result.
Dickens has one good portrait of a pugilist in Dombey and Son — Mr. Toots's mentor, the Game Chicken, who "wore a shaggy white great coat in the warmest weather, and knocked Mr. Toots about the head three times a week, for the small consideration of ten and six per visit." But of the Chicken's con- tests we know far too little, merely that he covered himself and his country with glory in his encounter with the Nobby Shropshire One, and that when he met the Larkey Boy "the Chicken had been tapped and bunged, and had received pepper and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had en- dured a complication of similar strange inconveniences until he had been gone into and finished." Meredith is more explicit. His chapter in The Amazing Mar- riage, recording the prize fight between Kit Ines and Ben Todds, which Lord Fleetwood and Carinthia witnessed on their honeymoon, proves that he had more than a superficial knowledge of the subject.
But for fights described with a full appreciation of technique, we have to turn to two living writers — Mr. Bernard Shaw and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Cashel Byron's battle with Billy Paradise is narrated in realistic style, even to the foul at the end, yet, per- haps because the author so intended, it does not carry
66 The Lantern
one away like the vivid and exciting- account of Cham- pion Harrison's last battle in Rodney Stone. In spite of Mr. Shaw's contention, pugilism had best be viewed through a haze of romance. Otherwise it might be abolished, both by sense and sensibility. And, as the creator of Tom Brown asked: "What substitute for it is there, or ever was there? What would you like to see take its place?"
STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT. CIR-
CULATION. ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS
OF AUGUST 24, 1912, of The Lantern, published monthly at San Francisco, California,
for April 1, 1917. State of California. County of San Francisco — ss.
Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and County aforesaid, personally appeared John J. Dwyer, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the Business Manager of The Lantern and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, manage- ment, etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of Congress of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 443, Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to-wit:
1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, manag- ing editor and business manager are: Publishers, Theo. F. Bonnet and Edv/ard F. O'Day, 88 First street, San Francisco; Editor, Theo. F. Bonnet, 88 First street, San Francisco; Managing Editor, Ekiward F. O'Day, 88 First street, San Francisco; Business Manager, John J. Dwyer, 88 First street, San Francisco.
2. That the owners are: Theo. F. Bonnet, 88 First street, San Francisco; Edward F. O'Day, 88 First street, San Francisco.
3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities are: None.
4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving the names of the owners, stockholders and security holders, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and security holders as they appear upon the books of the company but also, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or cor- poration for whom such trustee is acting, is given ; also that the said two paragraphs contain statements embracing affiant's full knowl- edge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds or other securities than as so stated by him.
JOHN J. DWYER.
Business Manager. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 31st day of March, 1917. (Seal) JULIUS CALMANN,
(My commission expires May 29th, 1917)
Theodore I! BoiHiet md. MmvA B ODay"
It is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for June, 1917
THE FAN
By THEODORE F. BONNET
THE PRICE (A Poem)
By HENRY HEAD
CONFESSIONS OF A BRIDGER
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
SAMSON AND DELILAH
By D. H. LAWRENCE
THE DEATH OF PIERROT
By PAUL MARGUERITE
THE LILY POOL (A Poem)
By HAROLD HORTON
Single Copies, 15 Cents
$1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
1795 ^^^^^^ of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is p5 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipr^ received the first Gold Medal awarded by the American Museum of Safety for the "Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention'^ and at the San Francisco Exposition, 1915^ received the Grand Prize, the highest award, for Safety First Appliances, as well as for Raihvay Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Poiver.
Travel via Southern Pacific
504-3 Phones Dou^glas 5044-
''In a Class hy Itself
The GR ANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 June, 1917 No. 3
- ' ' ' '
The Fan
By Theodore F. Bonnet
From Stella's memorable saying about the Dean it is to be inferred that in her critical judgment fine writing is not so much a matter of style as of ideas. The Dean, she said, could do some fine writing even on so dry a subject as broomsticks. In tnith the Dean could write robustious prose, if not with preciosity at any rate in language that upstands. In the haste of his inspiration, in his burning creative energy, he did not stop, like Flaubert, to choose the exact word in order to turn the exquisite phrase, but — he could get inspiration even out of a broomstick. Few writers are so fortunate. Many require ad- ventitious aids to inspiration. I am one of them, and so I am facilitating my task this month in the com- pany of nymphs and Graces, writing of an imple- ment that titillates the imagination and tells its own story.
Much preferable to the broomstick for a topic, I submit, is the Fan. The thought of a broomstick begets little more than the thought of insufferable toil and makes one sad like Tom Hood's immortal classic of a weary, workaday world. But ah, the Fan! Think of the fan, of the part it has played in the gay world of pleasure, and what agreeable fancies come trooping, trifling, disporting in !
There is but one objection to the fan as an essay topic — it affords so much material there is difficulty in the boiling down process. And then besides there is no credit to be gained from writing an essay on a subject so rich in historical material. To write of common things in an uncommon way is really the chief end of the essay w^riter ; to write of them prettily
68 The Lantern
and fluently, as Charles Lamb used to do, and thus make real literature on the principle of art for art's sake. The genuine essayist is the writer who trans- forms the little things, the trifling incidents of life into a beauty compounded of laughter and tears. There is pleasure in this sort of performance for folks who like to have their own familiar sensations and ideas placed before them in literary guise. It is a great thing by the bye to have the knack of writing as though you were chatting amiably with a little group of friends. Having it not, and being pressed for a subject, I must avoid the abstract and quit rambling about my theme.
The fan is the thing, the dainty instrument of coquetry with a history, a subject really for dry- as-dust pedants, having at once a high and ancient lineage. It comes from a land of heat and sunshine where it is to be found not merely as a symbol of lively heart-beats and much else, but as the solemn appanage of power or sacred to priestly usage. The fan is of interest to archeologists who have spent much time trying to solve the mystery of its origin. A great volume could be written on the history of the fans of all times and all nations. We are told, as of so many other things, that the fan had its origin in China where it was evolved from the screen, and where mothers used it to put their children asleep in the cradle while schoolmasters used it to punish recal- citrant pupils. There are legends of the fan extending back to all time of which we have any record. An- cient sculptures show the fan in use in the religious ceremonies of India where it was well understood that among the pleasures reserved for the faithful in Calaya, one of the five paradises, was that of fanning the presiding deity unceasingly; not a very tempting appeal to the righteous, but the people of India have a taste all their own, and after all even according to the dogma of believers in the one true God isn't love of Him the great desideratum ; and how may one better vindicate his love than by ameliorating the con-
The Fan 69
dition of the object of his affection — especially in a hot country?
The fan of religious ritual was known even before the days of Pharaoh's daughter. This was not the folding fan of modern fashion. It was of great size and rigid with a pole for handle swayed slowly and in majestic rhythms. The gorgeous plumes of the peacock venerated as a sacred bird, with their hundred eyes, appropriately enriched the fan's significance.
The story of the fan, belonging as it does, as much as the story of the sword to the vital history of man, one might easily pretend to much erudition in the writing of these remarks, but the theme is not one for savants in spectacles. In truth this feminine trinket is more suitable to readers of books of the boudoir, like the muff and the garter or bracelet. Through the ages it appealed to frolicsome poets of the Secundus temperament, who wrote of the arts of love, and to painters, like Watteau, who decorated many a fan with rosy nymphs and shepherdesses. Ah, the art of the fan! (I don't mean the art of using it). The art it inspired! Here is a pregnant theme in itself. The fan invited many great artists to voluptuousness of composition ; and the museums are full of chefs-d'oeuvre of decorations in pretty water colors. Artists who dreamed only of the Graces decorated the fans of France in the days of her glory, and it is on these trinkets, companions of many a pleasant seducement that we find what some folks regarded before the war as the true expression of French genius. To look at some of the creations of French painters on fans owned by La Valliere or Marie Antoinette reflecting the life, the sentimental associations and absorbing events of the day is to regret that an Anatole France has not written a monograph on the fan. If the Dean could have rnade literature of the broomstick what might the lineal literary descendant of Voltaire have done with the fan, redolent as it is of the perfumes that intoxicated the beauties and amiable coquettes of some of the
70 The Lantern
sprig-htliest periods of history. How delightful a book misfht be written on the fan by the author of Thais! What better theme to fillip his fancy than that of the follies to which the pretty bauble was a grace- ful aid in the days, let us say, of the Regency, when it was the companion of fair women in their most gorgeous fetes galantes. Surely there would be in- spiration enough for a writer in the fan-pictures of the time, pictures of a nudity all too radiant for the austere. I have seen many copies of them — pictures of country parties, hunts peopled with huntresses, il- lustrations of the pleasures of enchanted isles, flights of Loves on rosy clouds, an Amphitrite stretched face downward on her shell of mother-of-pearl, an Adonis dying of wanton caresses — all very fetching to the eye that delights in beauty unadorned. It is on fans thus decorated and ornamented that one reads the thoughts that appear to have been somewhat common to the poets of the day. Typical are the following verses from the pen of Louis de Boissy, author of the Babillard:
Become the darling of my darhng's rest, Good Fan, I give my rights to you; And should some daring beau my love molest, Touch her fair hand, or come too near her breast, Good Fan! do rap his knuckles soundly, do!
What more congenial theme than the fan for Ana- tole France (if he be not too old) to embroider with dainty arabesques. What a delightful contribution he could make to the pillow library, with a prose poem to the instrument that has served fair woman through the ages in all her moods.
The fan, by the way, served so many purposes that one wonders how the darlings of fashion ever dis- pensed with it. Perhaps its non-usage marked the rise of the solemn-visaged New Woman, who has serious problems to solve and no time for frivolity. Perhaps The Vote was fatal. But let us not despair. The use of woman's favorite toy of other days is
The Fan 71
worth reviving for the art it encoura.sfes ; not merely the decorator's art but the art of all the handicrafts- men to whom it gave employment and to whom the student of social history is indebted for a rich field. Perhaps the fan will **come back" after the war when there will probably be a revival of the spirit of ro- mance as in the Napoleonic period. For we shall have been sad so long that human nature will revolt and crave a new deal. And there is a chance of the wom- anly woman, blithesome and gay and delightfully feminine, returning to her former place and preferring to be her own sweet self, the darling of the passing show, rather than the grave and official master of ceremonies or grand marshal of the parade. There is much in the fan that appeals to the characteristic in woman. It lends her grace and helps her in the cultivation of pretty ways. It was once said that you could tell from the way a woman wielded a fan whether she was innately refined or not. With her fan a woman could reveal her native elegance, and if she had wit she could use her fan to give point to the irony of an epigram. It was also said (but this is of no consequence in these Puritanical days) that the fan gave women a defensive armor. At any rate there was an eloquence in the opening or shuttmg of a fan and it was understood that it was so eloquent it expressed a woman's moral state. God forbid that it will ever again be revived for this interpretative purpose. Better far to limit it to the utilitarian pur- poses of its ancient career, as for instance in the days of Cleopatra, reared by the priests of Isis and edu- cated in the mysteries of Memnon and Osiris. We know that this eminent lady, when indulging in her orgies with her Nubian lovers, enjoyed the zephyrs of a fan wielded by her favorite slaves. A fan to ex- press her moral state would probably have been super- fluous. However, we know that morality then as now was in a measure a matter of geography, and certainly Cleopratra was guilty of no impropriety in her sec- tion of the countrv, not at least when her slaves were
72 The Lantern
fanning her and her lovers with the feathers of the sacred Ibis while there smoked on the tripod the balm of Judea. In truth it was not till we come down to Ovid's time that we hear of the fan fig-uring in the arts of love and appealing to the sensualist rather than the devotee of religion. The Assyrians, the Medes and Persians — to name folks familiar to us — all used their fans in a perfectly respectable way. Even in Rome on the Appian Way, outside the Capena gate where we meet the fan in chariots and litters it merely kept ladies cool, but we find Ovid, the frivolous gossip, recommending it for the purpose of seduction. In Lesbos modest maidens used it as a shield to beauty on emerging from the wave after bathing in the twilight; but it is to be found on the bas-reliefs of the Greeks, and there it has been given extra- ordinary significations.
Now, one word more (and merely for the purpose of giving to these remarks something of historical value) — it was those zealous religious men, the Cru- saders, who introduced the fan to modern Europe. It is among the souvenirs of the old chivalric period, and we hear of Queen Marguerite of the Heptameron making a present of a fan to the Queen of Lorraine. It was a royal gift, having a mother-of-pearl handle and being valued at twelve hundred crowns. The fan was commonly used in the realm of starched and plaited ruflPs and there it was worn by women, sus- pended from the hips. It was in those days that the painting and making of fans became a trade of considerable importance in Europe. There were at one time nearly two hundred fan-makers in Paris and the fan was often the joint handiwork of a score of different craftsmen. But despite the importance of the industry we have no classic examples in fan- painting as rivals to those other classics of the Far East.
Later the fan made its appearance in French poetry and on the French stage where it enjoyed a notable career. In some of Moliere's plays actresses are not
The Fan 73
to be deprived of the bauble without spoiling the action. Very important sensations and emotions are expressed by the fan in scenes in the Hotel de Rambouillet. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the evi- dent importance of the fan as an aid to conversation it fell into innocuous desuetude for the reason, chiefly, I believe, that men of the effeminate type began to wear fans. The same significance was then attached to the fan in the masculine hand, as has since been attached to the bracelet on the arm of a latter-day dandy. In this connection some light may be re- flected from the anecdote told by d'Alembert of the Queen of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. When Michael Dahl was painting that lady's portrait he suggested that she hold a fan.
"A fan !" she exclaimed indignantly. "Never ! Give me a lion, it is the sole attribute which suits a Queen like me."
The fashion of the fan was revived again in the years just preceding the period of the French Revo- lution. All the women of the aristocracy of the Regency wore fans and Charlotte Corday's fan is mentioned in the papers dealing with her trial. So the fan, you see, my dear, indulgent reader, has had a long and honorable career. This is not all, I hope, I have made you see. Behind my remarks lies the purpose of leading you to appreciate the fan as a means of increasing the influence of lovely woman upon society. It may occur to you (for I have so suggested) that the fan is an aid to conversation and a sceptre more powerful in the hands of fair ladies than any of the things they secured in the course of their recent political and mannish activities. Now the art of conversation has never had an ef- fective substitute. It was the means of luring men to women's feet where they received much benefit, for there is nothing so wholesome as the influence of women in hospitable family society where agreeable acquaintances are to be made in drawing-room and dining-room. Let us pray that the fan may soon
74 The Lantern
flourish again and that women may become adepts in its use learning to employ their hands with more grace than they now put into their feet while dancing to uninspiring cafe music. The fan may serve to lead us back once more to the diversions of a more polite society wherein the motor car and its parts may cease to be the chief topic of conversation.
THE PRICE
By Henry Head
Night hovers blue above the sombre square,
The solitary amber lanterns throw
A soft penumbra on the path below,
And through the plumed pavilion of the trees
A solemn breeze
Bears faintly from the river midnight bells ;
While at this peaceful hour my spirit tells
Its tale of arduous joys,
Pain conquered. Fear resolved, or Hope regained,
Swift recognition of some law divine,
Shy gratitude that could not be restrained,
All these were mine.
And so, supremely blest,
I sink to rest.
Through labyrinthine sleep I grope my way,
F'eeble of purpose, sick at heart, and sure
Some unknown ill will lead my steps astray,
Till, cold and grey.
The dawn rays through my shuttered windows steal
And with closed eyes I thank my God for light,
For the fierce purpose of another day.
When work and thought forbid the heart to feel.
CONFESSIONS OF A BRIDGER
By Edward F. O'Day
The skilful nymph reviews her force with care; Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.
— The Rape of the Lock.
I am neither a nymph nor skilful, but like Belinda in the mock epic beloved of all card players with a literary turn, I am wont to examine my cards with the utmost care, and when I bid spades (they are my favorite trumps) it is usually under the impression that I hold a strong hand and can make my contract. Unlike Pope's heroine, however, I usually lose.
The melancholy truth of the matter is that I am an enthusiast of Auction but a very bad player. This is not the self-depreciation of modesty, for there is no modesty in bridge players; it is the judgment passed upon my game by unbiased experts. Acutely I re- member the first and only time I ventured into the society of top-notchers. A fourth hand was wanted at a country place where Auction is tolerated in the pauses of trap-shooting and tennis. In a moment of irrational boldness I volunteered. So an ancestor of mine may have volunteered for the forlorn hope at the Battle of the Boyne. I trust for the honor of the family that he did not repent his rashness as quickly as his descendant did that summer Sunday afternoon. Very nervous, I sat down with a panicky determination to pass all bids and leave the rest to Heaven and my partner. It could not have been a pleasant rubber for the trio of experts, yet they main- tained a noble politeness until I tried to excuse a particularly inexcusable lead with the words:
'T am a very poor player."
"Obviously," was the crushing retort of my part- ner. We were set I know not how many hundreds on that deal and lost the rubber most ingloriously. I had wondered at starting why they played for a
76 The Lantern
tenth of a cent, their ordinary stake being much stiffer. On thinking it over I understood: your good bridge player scents a tyro before the cards are shuffled, and your good bridge player is no robber. At the outlay of a few dimes I learned a valuable lesson, not in bridge but in conduct. Tom Hays, Ed Landis and Paul Bancroft, with hand on heart I assure you all that I have not since inflicted myself on good players.
I have my moments of triumph, it is true; but they will not bear analysis. When I win, it is apt to be my partner's glory or my opponents' fault. Honesty requires the admission that I am a very bad player even in shocking bad company. Nevertheless, though defeat is my accustomed portion, and the portion of my partner, my enthusiasm for the game refuses to abate. If enthusiasm were a substitute for skill I might, without misgivings, sit down to a rubber with R. F. Foster, Milton C. Work and the only Elwell; but in Auction there is no substitute for skill, not even luck — and I have never been lucky at cards. I should never play for money, yet I am guilty of that folly. But let me be fair to myself: I am a graceful loser. Why not? I have had much practice.
Religiously 1 peruse Foster and Milton Work, striving manfully to commit to memory a little of what I read. The influence upon my playing is negligible at best, at worst demoralizing. I recollect the proper play at the improper time, and in the grip of the distraction resultant upon the effort to re- arrange my ideas I lose track of an ace or king, with consequences disastrous to my book. Before I have succeeded in purging my mind of muddle (meanwhile playing with mechanical desperation) the scorer is tallying unmentionable sums and my partner is mut- tering sinister things.
As study of controversial religious books unsettles the faith of the simple pietist, so much turning of Foster's pages has upset my pet theories of play. For a long time I felt secure in the orthodoxy of the maxim: Second hand low, third hand high. With
Confessions of a Bridger 77
blind belief I sacrificed indispensable tricks rather than violate what I considered a rule as fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians. And then one day I read in Foster these unsettling- words :
"There are still many persons who will remind you of the old saw : 'Second hand low ; third hand high,' as if they were quoting some authority on the game. You may search through the eighty-odd standard works on the whist family of games without fear of finding any such maxim. It is simply a tradition, born of the brain of some bumblepuppy expert, and of as much value as its companion in error, 'If you have neither ace, face nor trump, you are entitled to a new deal.' "
My game has still to be adjusted to this revolu- tionary dictum.
A little knowledge we know to be a dangerous thing; hence my Auction hours are hours of peril, for myself and co-laborer. Unhappily, my little knowledge was never properly coordinated. I didn't learn Auction ; I picked up fragments of it, and am like those dreadful persons who smatter French with- out knowing a declension or a conjugation. Time and time again I have promised myself that another day should not pass without my acquiring the con- ventions ; alas, I am still but vaguely aware of thenv Many a night I have sat down with my pipe and my Foster to play those hands the great man so obligingly sets forth in his manual. Always the labor has defied my patience. Just to sort out the cards into the hands he names is rather a fatiguing task ; to play them with diagrammatic slavishness is like eating sawdust, neither pleasant nor sustaining. I have not the resolution to abide by such discipline : in a few moments I have lapsed into some easy solitaire.
Am I painting a gloomy picture? There is a silver lining to my cloud. Bad as my bridge game is, I manage to get by. You are incredulous? Ah, but you do not know the set in which I play. Most of them are almost as bad as I am. One or two —
78 The Lantern
would you credit it? — are even worse. You should see us play! The shards of all the conventions lie about us at the end of the evening like discarded decks about the feet of a poker party. Our score cards are always topheavy, loaded with penalties and honors but lacking ballast below the line. We are obstinate bidders, bold doublers and redoublers. None of us but hates to be dummy. How we do glow with fervor when a pianola hand falls to our lot. How we darken with frowns when we survey a Yarborough. With what Gasconading ostentation do we ruff. How loquacious we wax in dogmatic post-mortems. Once upon a time I made six no-trumps doubled. That was the red letter night of my Auction career. I ex- perienced such sensations as Napoleon must have had at Austerlitz, or Castelnau at the Battle of the Mame. It was magnificent though it was not bridge. My set still talks about that achievement with awe. It is true that I usually introduce the subject.
My Auction game shows no progressive improve- ment from month to month, and doubtless I should be discouraged did I not know for certain that I am a better player today than I was a year ago. I sup- pose that in the twelvemonth I have advanced as far as a player with card sense would advance in six weeks.' It is plain that at this rate of develop- ment I shall be a fairly good player some day. At any rate I shall keep on playing. Unless I am pro- nounced tabu by all the players of my set — an un- likely punishment, considering that they would be throwing stones from a house of glass — or unless Auction like strong drink and tobacco, is made a penal offense by our Puritans, I shall never give up this most delightful of all card games. I shall yield it always a fidelity like that which Mrs. Micawber lavished upon her mate. To put it another way, Auction "can't lose me."
If I am not a good bridge player, at least I am an amateur in the study of human nature, and I know of no opportunities for that study superior to
Confessions or a Bridcer 79
those afforded by the bridge table. By playing Auc- tion with the men and women of my particular coterie I have solved problems of personality which baffled me before this scientific diversion became our fad. As a frequent dummy I have plenty of time to examine the temperaments that are clashing around be. We all have our faults, thank Heaven, and they are accentuated at the bridge table. But here I am treading delicate ground. It were base in me to particularize. Suffice it to say generally that at Auction the mask is off, and human beings are utterly human. In the excitement of a close rubber the veneer is stripped away and the coarse grain of our very selves is exposed. I prefer to contemplate the pleasant traits which Auction reveals. Here is one who plays bridge as he practices law, taking masterly advantage of every technicality. Here is another who studies his pasteboards as he studies the bills of mor- tality (he is of Mr. Omer's profession) — sedulously, soberly, with an eye to business but with the utmost good humor. Here is a dear woman who raises the bid as she raises wartime vegetables, trusting her part- ner to do the heavy work. And here is another who raises the bid as she raises her children, with faith in the Lord. Alas! children should be raised that way ; bids should not. And here is a woman dearer than all the rest, who — but I am getting too close to home. After all. Auction is not the whole of life.
In one's own set of bridgers pretense is impos- sible, but outside that set one may pose and play a part as effectively as in other modes of human inter- course. I am weak enough to take hold of such petty compensations. I have a sweet pleasure in tell- ing people who do not play Auction, what a bad player I am. To many people Auction is an esoteric game, bearing (let us say) the same relation to whist that chess does to checkers. It is nice to talk to such people about your game, for no matter of what stupidity you accuse yourself, they do not believe you. They are firm in the delusion that a playing
80 The Lantern
knowledge of Auction presupposes superior intel- ligence. I derive great satisfaction from this atti- tude. It boots nothing that I know it to be quite preposterous. Most flattering unctions are excluded from the pharmacopeia, but they are very soothing just the same. To talk about my game to those whose card knowledge does not extend beyond casino or cribbage is one of the rewards I claim for hours on hours of humiliation. My volubility on such occa- sions is only equalled by my reticence when there are genuine Auction players present.
I am not much inclined to the hurly burly of church socials where cards are played for donated prizes of alleged great value. Occasionally, however, I cannot escape. At these strident affairs the game of the multitude is whist; but there are always a few special tables where Auction is indulged. I take my seat at one of these special tables with considerable self-satisfaction. After all, I am one of the elect; I play Auction. The vulgar may gaze upon me, and wish that they too were initiated into this abstrusity. It matters nothing that I have never borne off a prize. I am happy in my vanity.
There are many who will not persist in Auction or any other game unless they win. I lack sympathy for their viewpoint. Victory is very sweet to me, but it is pleasure's crown of pleasure, and I am not one to wring the ultimate sweet from cards or life. An occasional triumph is the more precious to me on account of my many failures. And the offset to frequent failure is the happiness of just playing the game for the game's sake. A few points scored now and then content me ; a few little honors are much appreciated. I see too clearly that the great bonuses are not for me; I know^ how to be slammed without losing my equanimity. When I lose the rubber and turn a bit resentful, I feel that there is something wrong with my temper and take steps to mend it. I play the cards as they are dealt to me, blaming none but myself for my blunders. In my exultation at
Confessions of a Bridger 81
winning I try not to forget that, like Mr. Spenlow, "I have a partner." And the thought that I have a partner soothes my chagrin when I lose ; but I en- deavor to hide this from my partner. This at least is my Auction game as I see it in the mirror of my vanity — I have said already that there is no modesty in bridge players. I have hinted that I find con- siderable similarity between Auction and life. In both games the highest bidder leads but does not always win. There is chicane in both games. But this is moralizing, and there is no call for me to moralize when a poet has done it so much better. Let me end as I started, with a quotation from Pope. It applies both to Auction and life :
Oh, thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate, Too soon dejected, and too soon elate. Sudden these honors shall be snatch'd away. And cursed forever this victorious day.
SAMSON AND DELILAH
By D. H. Lawrence
A man got down from the motor omnibus that runs from Penzance to St. Just-in-Penwith, and turn- ed northwards, uphill towards the Polestar. It was only half past six, but already the stars were out, a cold little wind was blowing from the sea, and the crystalline, three-pulse flash of the lighthouse below the cliffs beat rhythmically in the first darkness.
He tramped steadily on, always alert with curiosity. He was a tall, well-built man, apparently in the prime of life. His shoulders were square and rather stiff; he leaned forwards a little as he went, from the hips, like a man who must stoop to lower his height. But he did not stoop his shoulders ; he bent his straight back from the hips.
The houses began to close on the road; he was entering the straggling, formless, desolate mining vil- lage that he knew of old. On the left was a little space set back from the highway and cosy lights of an inn. There it was. He peered up at the sign: *'The Tinners' Rest." But he could not make out the name of the proprietor. He listened. There was excited talking and laughing, a woman's voice laughing shrilly among the men's.
Stooping a little he entered the warmly-lit bar. The lamp was burning, a buxom woman rose from the white-scrubbed deal table where the black and white and red cards were scattered, and several men — miners — lifted their faces from the game.
The stranger went to the counter, averting his face. His cap was pulled down over his brow.
"Good evening!" said the landlady in her rather ingratiating voice.
''Good evening. A glass of ale,"
The man lifted his glass straight to his lips and emptied it. He put it down again on the zinc counter with a click.
''Let's have another," he said.
Samson and Delilah S3
The woman drew the beer, and the man went away with his glass to the second table, near the fire. The woman, after a moment's hesitation, took her seat again at the table with the card-players. She had noticed the man : a big fine fellow, well dressed — a stranger.
But he spoke with that Cornish- Yankee accent she accepted as the natural twang among the miners.
The stranger put his foot on the fender and looked into the fire. He was handsome, well colored, with well-drawn Cornish eyebrows and the usual dark, bright, mindless Cornish eyes. He seemed abstracted in thought. Then he watched the card party.
The woman was buxom and healthy, with dark hair and small, quick brown eyes. She was bursting with life and vigor; the energy she threw into the game of cards excited all the men ; they shouted and laughed, and the woman held her breast, shrieking with laughter. She was interrupted by the entrance of four men in khaki — a short, stumpy sergeant of middle age, a young corporal and two young privates. The woman leaned back in her chair.
"Oh my!" she cried. *Tf there isn't the boys back; looking perished, I believe — "
"Perished, ma!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Not yet."
"I'm sure you are, my dears. You'll be wanting your suppers, I'll be bound."
"Let's have a wet first," said the sergeant.
"Have your suppers in here, will you?" she said. "Or in the kitchen?"
"Let's have it here," said the sergeant. "More cozier — if you don't mind."
"You shall have it where you like, boys, where you like."
She disappeared In a minute a girl of about six- teen entered, tall and fresh, with dark young eyes, and well-drawn brows, and the immature softness and mindlessness of the sensuous Celtic type.
84 The Lantern
''Ho, Mabel! Evenin', Mabel! How's Mabel?" came the multiple greeting
She replied to everybody in a soft voice — a strange, soft aplomb that was very attractive. And she moved with rather mechanical, attractive movements, like a stiff young animal. The strange man by the fire watched her curiously. There was an alert, inquisitive, mindless curiosity on his well-colored face.
'Til have a bit of supper with you, if I might," he said.
The stranger sat at the end of the table and ate with the tired, quiet soldiers. Now, the landlady was interested in him. Her brow was knit rather tense, there was a look of panic in her large healthy face, but her small brown eyes were fixed most dan- gerously. She was a big woman, but her eyes were small and tense. She drew near the stranger.
"What will you have to drink with your supper?" she asked; and there was a new, dangerous note in her voice.
"I'll go on with ale."
She drew him another glass. Then she sat down on the bench at the table with him and the soldiers and fixed him wath her attention.
"YouVe come from St. Just, have you?" she said.
"No, from Penzance."
"Penzance ! But you're not thinking of going back there tonight?"
"No— no."
"I thought not — but you're not living in these parts, are you?"
"No — no, I'm not living here." He was always slow in answering, as if something intervened be- tween him and any outside question.
"Oh, I see," she said. "You've got relations down here."
"Yes," he said.
He would say no more. She rose in a pet. The anger was tight on her brow. There was no more laughing and card-playing that evening, though she
Samson and Delilah
kept up her motherly, suave, good-humored way with the men. But they knew her; they were all afraid of her.
The supper was finished, the table cleared, the stranger did not go. Two of the young soldiers went ofT to bed, with their cheery : ''Good night, ma. Good night, Mabel."
The stranger talked a little to the sergeant about the war, which was in its first year, about the New Army, a fragment of which was quartered in this district, about America.
The landlady darted looks at him from her small eyes, minute by minute the electric storms welled in her bosom, as still he did not go. She was quivering with suppressed violent passion, something frighten- ing and abnormal. She could not sit still for a moment. Her heavy form seemed to flash with sud- den, involuntary movements as the minutes passed by, and still he sat there, and the tension on her heart grew unbearable. She watched the hands of the clock move on. Three of the soldiers had gone to bed, only the crop-headed, terrier-like old sergeant re- mained.
The landlady sat behind the bar fidgeting spasmod- ically with the newspaper. She looked again at the clock. At last it was five minutes to ten.
"Gentlemen — the enemy!" she said in her dimin- ished, furious voice. ''Time, please."
The men began to drop out, with a brief good night. It was a minute to ten. The landlady rose.
"Come," she said. "I'm shutting the door."
The last of the miners passed out. She stood, stout and menacing, holding the door. Still the stranger sat on by the fire, his black overcoat opened, smok- ing.
"We're closed now, sir," came the perilous, nar- rowed voice of the landlady.
The little, dog-like, hard-headed sergeant touched the arm of the stranger.
"Closing time," he said.
86 The Lantern
The stranger turned round in his seat, and his quick-moving, dark, meaningless eyes went from the sergeant to the landlady.
*T'm stopping here tonight," he said 'in his laconic Cornish- Yankee accent.
The landlady seemed to tower. Her eyes lifted strangely, frightening.
''Oh, indeed !" she cried. "Oh, indeed ! And whose orders are those, may I ask?"
"My orders," he said
"And what might your orders be, if you please?" she cried. "Who might you be, to give orders in the house?"
"You know who I am," he said. "Anyway, I know you."
"Oh, do you? Oh, do you? And who am / then, if you'll be so good as to tell me?"
He stared at her with his bright dark eyes.
"You're my missis, you are," he said. "And you know it as well as I do."
She started as if something had exploded in her. Her eyes lifted and flared madly.
''Do I know it indeed!" she cried. "I know no such thing! I know no such thing! Do you think a man's going to walk into this bar, and tell me oflf- hand I'm his missis, and I'm going to believe him? I say to you, whoever you may be, you're mistaken. I know myself for no missis of yours, and I'll thank you to go out of this house this minute, before I get those that will put you out."
"What, you don't know me?" he said in his steady voice, emotionless, but rather smothered and pressing; it reminded one of the girl's. "I should know you anywhere."
"So you may say," she replied staccato. "So you may say. That's easy enough. My name's known and respected by most people for ten miles round. But I don't know you/' Her voice ran to sarcasm. "I can't say I know you. You're a perfect stranger to me, and I don't believe I've ever set eyes on you
Samson and Delilah 87
before tonight." Her voice was very nasty and sar- castic.
"Yes, you have," repHed the man in his reasonable way. "Yes, you have. Your name's my name, and that girl Mabel is my girl. You're my missis right enough."
"You villain !" she cried. "You villain, to come to this house and dare to speak to me. You villain, you downright rascal !"
He looked at her. "Aye," he said unmoved. "All that." But he was frightened of her.
"You're going out of this house, aren't you?" She stamped her foot in sudden madness. "This minuter
He watched her. He knew she wanted to strike him.
"No," he barked suddenly. "I've told you I'm stopping here."
He was afraid of her personality, but it did not alter him. She wavered. Her small, tawny-brown eyes concentrated in a point of vivid, sightless fury. like a tiger's. The man was wincing, but he stood his ground Then she bethought herself She would gather her forces.
"We'll see whether you're stopping here," she said. And she turned, with a curious, frightening lifting of her eyes, and surged out of the room.
The man in the bar took off his cap and his black overcoat and threw them on the seat behind him. His black hair was short and touched with gray at the temples. He wore a well-cut, Avell-fitting suit of dark grey, American in style, and a turn-down collar. He looked well-to-do, a fine, solid figure of a man.
The little terrier of a sergeant, in dirty khaki, looked at him furtively.
"She's your missis?" he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the departed woman.
"Yes, she is," barked the man.
"Not seen her for a long time, haven't ye?"
"Sixteen years come March month."
"Hm !"
88 The Lantern
And the sergeant laconically resumed his smoking.
The landlady was coming back, followed by the three young soldiers, who entered rather sheepishly in trousers and shirt and stocking-feet. The woman stood histrionically at the end of the bar and ex- claimed :
"That man refuses to leave the house, claims he's stopping the night here. You know very well I've no bed, don't you? And this house doesn't accom- modate travelers. Yet he's going to stop in spite of all! But not while I've a drop of blood in my body, that I declare with my dying breath. And not if you men are worth the name of men, and will help a woman as has no one to help her."
The young soldiers did not quite know what to do. They looked at the man, they looked at the sergeant, one of them looked down and fastened his braces on the second button.
"What say, sergeant?" asked one whose face twinkl- ed for a little devilment.
"Man says he's husband to Mrs. Nankervis," said the sergeant.
"He's no husband of mine. I declare I never set eyes on him before this night. It's a dirty trick, nothing else — it's a dirty trick."
"Why, you're a liar, to say you never set eyes on me before," barked the man near the hearth. "You're married to me, and that girl Mabel is mine — well enough you know it."
"Yes," sang the landlady, slowly shaking her head in supreme sarcasm, "it sounds very pretty, doesn't it? But, you see, we don't believe a word of it, and how are you going to prove it?" She smiled nastily.
The man watched her in silence for a moment, then he said: "It wants no proof."
"Oh, yes, but it does! Oh, yes, but it does, sir; it wants a lot of proving!" sang the lady's sarcasm.
But he stood unmoved near the fire. She stood with one hand resting on the zinc-covered bar; the
Samson and Delilah 89
sergeant sat with legs crossed, smoking, on the seat half-way between them ; the three young soldiers in their shirts and braces stood wavering in the gloom behind the bar. There was silence.
'*Do you know anything of the whereabouts of your husband, Mrs. Nankervis? Is he still living?" asked the sergeant in his judicious fashion.
''I know nothing of him," she sobbed, feeling for her pocket handkerchief. "He left me when Mabel was a baby, went mining to America, and after about six months never wrote a line nor sent a penny-bit. I can't say whether he's alive or dead, the villain. All I've heard of him's to the bad — and I've heard nothing for years an' all, now." She sobbed violently.
The golden-skinned, handsome man near the fire watched her as she wept. He was frightened, he was troubled, he was bewildered ; but none of his emo- tions altered him underneath.
"Don't you think as you'd better go tonight?" said the sergeant to the man, with sweet reasonableness. "You'd better leave it a bit and arrange something between you. You can't have much claim on a woman if you've been gone like that."
The landlady sobbed heart-broken. The man watch- ed her large breasts shake. They seemed to cast a spell over his mind.
"How I've treated her, that's no matter," he re- plied. "I've come back, and I'm going to stop in my own home — for a bit, anyhow. There, you've got it."
"A dirty action," said the sergeant, his face flush- ing dark. "A dirty action, to come, after desert- ing a woman for that number of years, and want to force yourself on her! A dirty action — as isn't allowed by the law."
"Never you mind about law nor nothing," cried the man in a strange, strong voice. "I'm not going out of this public tonight."
The woman turned to the soldiers behind her and said, in a wheedling, sarcastic tone : "Are we go-
90 The Lantern
ing to stand it, boys? Are we going to be done like this, Sergeant Thomas, by a scoundrel and a bully as has led a life beyond mention in those America mining camps, and then wants to come back and make havoc of a poor woman's life and savings, after having left her with a baby in arms to struggle as best she might? It's a crying shame if nobody will stand up for me — a crying shame — !"
The soldiers and the little sergeant were bristling. The woman stopped and rummaged under the coun- ter for a minute. Then, unseen to the man away near the fire, she threw out a plaited grass rope, such as is used for binding bales, and left it lying near the feet of the young soldiers in the gloom at the back of the bar.
Then she rose and fronted the situation.
"Come now," she said to the man in a reason- able, coldly-coaxing tone, "put your coat on and leave us alone. Be a man, and not worse than a brute. You can get a bed easy enough in St. Just, and if you've nothing to pay for it, sergeant would lend you a couple of shilling, I'm sure he would."
"I've got money of my own," he said. "Don't you be frightened for your money, I've plenty of that, for the time."
"Well, then," she coaxed in a cold, almost sneer- ing propitiation, "put your coat on and go where you're wanted — be a man, not a brute."
"No, I shan't," he said. "I shan't do no such thing. You'll put me up for tonight."
"Shall I?" she cried. And suddenly she flung her arms round him, hung on to him with all her power- ful weight, calling to the soldiers: "Get the rope, boys, and fasten him up."
The man reared, looked round with maddened eyes, and heaved his powerful body. But the woman was powerful also, and very heavy, and was clenched with the determination of death. Her face, with its exult- ing, horribly vindictive look, was turned up to him from his own breast: he reached back his head
Samson and Delilah 91
frantically to get away from it. Meanwhile the young soldiers, after having watched this frightful Laocoon writhing for a moment, stirred, and the malicious one darted swiftly with the rope. It was tangled a little.
"Give the end here," cried the sergeant.
Meanwhile the big man heaved and struggled, swung the woman round against the seat and the table in his convulsive effort to get free. But she pinned down his arms like a cuttle-fish wreathed heavily upon him.
The young soldier had got the rope once round, the brisk sergeant helping him. The woman sank heavily lower; they got the rope round several times. In the struggle the victim fell over against the table. The ropes tightened till they cut his arms. The woman clung to his knees. Another soldier ran in a flash of genius and fastened the strange man's feet with a pair of braces. Seats had crashed over, the table was thrown against the wall, but the man was bound, his arms pinned against his sides, his feet tied. He lay half fallen, sunk against the table, still for a moment.
The woman rose, and sank, faint, on to the seat against the wall. Her breast heaved, she could not speak, she thought she was going to die. The bound man lay against the overturned table, his coat all twisted beneath the ropes, leaving the loins ex- posed. The soldiers stood around, a little dazed.
The man began to struggle again, heaving in- stinctively against the ropes, taking great deep breaths. His face, with its golden skin, flushed dark and surcharged ; he heaved again. The great veins in his neck stood out. But it was no good, he went relaxed. Then again, suddenly, he jerked to his feet.
"Another pair of braces, William," cried the ex- cited soldier. He threw himself on the legs of the bound man and managed to fasten the knees. Then
92 The Lantern
again there was stillness. They could hear the clock tick.
The woman looked at the prostrate figure, the strong straight limbs, the strong back bound in subjection, the wide-eyed face that reminded her of a calf tied in a sack in a cart, only its head stretched dumbly backwards. And she was appeased.
The bound-up body began to struggle again. She watched, fascinated, the muscles working, the shoul- ders, the hips, the large clean thighs. Even now he might break the ropes. She was afraid. But the lively young soldier sat on the shoulders of the bound man, and after a few perilous moments there was stillness again.
"Now," said the judicious sergeant to the bound man, "if we untie you will you promise to go off and make no more trouble?"
"You'll not untie him in here," cried the woman. "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could blow him."
"We might carry him outside and undo him there," said the soldier. "Then we could get the policeman if he made any more bother."
"Yes," said the sergeant, "we could do that." Then again, in an altered, almost severe tone, to the pris- oner: "If we undo you outside will you take your coat and go without creating any more disturbance?"
But the prisoner would not answer ; he only lay with wide, dark, bright eyes, like a bound animal.
"Well, then, do as you say," said the woman ir- ritably. "Carry him out amongst you, and let us shut the house."
They did so. Picking up the bound man the four soldiers staggered clumsily into the silent square in front of the inn, the woman following with the cap and the overcoat. The young soldiers quickly un- fastened the braces from the prisoner's legs, and they hopped indoors. They were in their stockinged feet, and outside the stars flashed cold. They stood in the doorway watching. The man lay quite still on the cold ground.
Samson and Delilah 93
"Now," said the sergeant in a subdued voice, "I'll loosen the knot and he can work himself free, if you go in, missis."
She gave a last look at the dishevelled, bound man as he sat on the ground. Then she went indoors, followed quickly by the sergeant. Then they were heard locking and barring the door.
The man seated on the ground outside worked and strained at the rope. But it was not so easy to undo himself even now. So, with hands bound, making an effort, he got on his feet, and went and worked the cord against the rough edge of an old wall. The rope, being of a kind of plaited grass, soon frayed and broke, and he freed himself. His hands were hurt and bruised from the bonds. He rubbed them slowly. Then he pulled his clothes straight, stooped, put on his cap, struggled into his overcoat, and walked away. The stars were very brilliant. Clear as crystal the beam from the lighthouse under the cliffs struck rhythmically on the night. Dazed, the man walked along the road past the churchyard. Then he stood leaning up against a wall for a long time.
He was roused because his feet were so cold. So he pulled himself together and turned again in the silent night back towards the inn.
The bar was in darkness. But there was a light in the kitchen. He hesitated. Then very quietly he tried the door. He was surprised to find it open. He entered and quietly closed it behind him. Then he went down the step past the bar-counter and through to the lighted doorway of the kitchen. There sat his wife, planted in front of the range, where a furze fire was burning. She sat in a chair full in front of the range, her knees wide apart on the fender. She looked over her shoulder at him as he entered, but she did not speak. Then she stared in the fire again.
It was a small, narrow kitchen. He dropped his cap on the table, that was covered with yellowish American cloth, and took a seat, with his back to the wall, near the oven. His wife still sat with her knees
94 The Lantern
apart, her feet on the steel fender, and stared into the fire motionless. Her skin was smooth and rosy in the firelight. Everything in the house was very clean and bright. The man sat silent too, his head dropped. And thus they remained.
It was a question who would speak first. The woman leaned forward and poked the ends of the sticks in between the bars of the range. He lifted his head and looked at her.
"I should have picked you out among a thousand," he said.
"What do you think of yourself," she said, "coming back on me like this after over fifteen year? You don't think I've not heard of you, neither, in Butte City and elsewhere?"
"Yes," he said. "Chaps comes an' goes — I've heard tell of you from time to time."
"And what lies have you heard about mef* she demanded superbly.
"I dunno as I've heard any lies at all — 'cept as you was getting on very well, like."
His voice ran easy and detached. Her anger stirred again in her violently. But she subdued it, because of the danger there was in him, and more, perhaps, because of the beauty of his head and his level-drawn brows, which she could not bear to forfeit.
"That's more than I can say of you/' she said. "I've heard more harm than good about you."
"Aye, I dessay," he said, looking into the fire.
"Do you call yourself a manf" she said, more in contemptuous reproach than in anger. "Leave a woman, as you've left me, you don't care to what! — and then to turn up in this fashion without a word to say for yourself."
He stirred in his chair, planted his feet apart, and, resting his arms on his knees, looked steadily into the fire without answering. So near to her was his head and the close black hair she could scarcely refrain from touching it.
Samson and Delilah 95
"Do you call that the action of a man?" she re- peated.
"No," he said, reaching- and poking;- the bits of wood into the fire with his fingers. "I didn't call it anything, as I know of."
"I zvonder what you think of yourself?" she ex- claimed with vexed emphasis. "I wonder what sort of fellow you take yourself to be !" She was really perplexed as well as angry.
"Well," he said, lifting- his head to look at her, "I guess it takes my sort to make up all sorts.*'
Her heart beat fiery hot as he lifted his face to her. She breathed heavily, averting her face, almost losing her self-control.
"And what do you take me to be?" she cried in real distress.
His face was lifted, watching her, watching her soft, averted face, and the softly heaving mass of her breasts.
"I take you," he said with that laconic truthfulness which exercised such power over her, "to be a fine woman — as fine a built woman as I've seen, hand- some with it as well."
Her heart beat fiery hot.
"Not handsome to you," she said cryptically.
He made no answer to this, but sat with his bright, quick eyes upon her.
Then he rose. She started involuntarily. But he only said in his soft, measured way: "It's warm in here now." And he pulled ofif his overcoat, throwing it on the table. She sat as if slightly cowed whilst he did so.
"Them ropes has given my arms something, they have," he said abstractedly, feeling his arms with his hands. Still she sat in her chair before him, slightly cowed.
"Wasn't half a bad dodge of yours to hang on to me like that," he said, "and get me tied up — not half a bad dodge. You fixed me up proper — proper, vou did."
96 The Lantern
He went behind her chair and put his hands over her full soft breasts. She shrank as if struck.
"But I don't think no harm of you for it," came his balanced, soft, absent voice, as his strong fingers seemed to move her very heart. "You're a darn sight too fine a woman for me to bear you any grudge, you are that!"
He put his hand under her soft, full chin and lifted her face. Almost a groan of helpless, desirous re- sentment came from her lips as he kissed her.
THE DEATH OF PIERROT
By Paul Marguerite
It is in a lunar garden, where colorless roses sleep amid the shadowy leafage. A cold Moon mirrors herself in a blue pond. A nightingale's song weeps upon the earth. And in a ray of the moon, entwined in one another's arms, Pierrot all white and Colum- bine all pink in her outblown gauze skirt, sit motion- less on a stone bench — amorous couple whose mingled lips palpitate in a long embrace. They love one an- other distractedly. Long looks, vows, raptures, be- neath that nocturnal sky, that moon, those flowers, those songs of birds, they bear witness, they swear to their tenderness. And then they are entwined anew in one another's arms and faint with love.
But a mysterious suffering contracts Columbine's features ; she springs to her feet, and one hand upon her wounded heart, she gasps like a dying bird. She suffers. A sudden damp empearls her pale fore- head. Oh, the terrifying anguish of Pierrot! The nightingale is silent.
A heavy, an awful silence weighs on all things. And the thought of death insinuates itself in the minds of Columbine and Pierrot. Death ! yes. The invisible spectre, the watcher that walks in the shadow of the living. Columbine sees him, and with out-
The Death of Pierrot 97
stretched finger, in unutterable dread, she points to him. Pierrot, armed with a spade that he has picked up in the grass, leaps forward against the enemy that cannot be seized. Columbine smiles, already frozen and cold as marble, and disarms Pierrot, who resigns himself. But indignation seizes him.
**To die ? xA.h ! can that be ? The eyes of Colum- bine,— what ! — will be closed ? Her sweet beauty will fall into horrible dust. The awful worms! But be- fore that! The anguish of burial, of prayers, all the horror of mortuary ceremonies. No !" And he shakes his fist to heaven, curses God, wants to die.
But Columbine dances, and her light shadow dances with her on the blue water. She dances, and her arms repel and banish ; her feet fly from the earth ; she melts little by little, diaphanous and light, like a butterfly of gauze. *'Ah ! return !" cries Pierrot. And he stretches out his hands despairingly. Touched by his appeal, she runs back, she nestles against him. But already he feels that she is no longer living; and she throws herself back, her eyes wide open, her gauze skirt agitated by long spasms, like the wings of a butterfly.
"Columbine !" implores Pierrot ; but she falls dead.
He shakes the poor little listless being, that is no more than a rag. Ah ! where has she gone to ? He calls her. For she is no more in that sad body. Ah ! but where then? In the golden moon, the blue sky, the roses, the pond? Where can he rejoin her, and how ? Die also ? Come, poor inanimate body. Pierrot leans over Columbine, clasps around his neck the dead arms of the child, and stepping on the stone balustrade of the pond — plouf! — he throws himself in the water, after a long shudder of horror.
The nightingale sings their requiem. The roses, in the lunar garden, have not awakened. They sleep amid the shadowy leafage. The cold moon is mir- rored in the blue pond. And the stone bench of the departed lovers glistens, white and empty, in the nocturnal light.
THE LILY POOL
By Harold Horton
Saw you her presence delicately pink
Gleam by the myrtle eyot? Wide blue eyes,
Unlearned of their loveliness, looked o'er
A milky shoulder lifted in surprise,
While tranced fears upon the ruby brink
Of tremulous lips unsyllabled did shrink.
How shone the leafy-tesselated floor
Bright with her quivering imagery !
Saw you her tresses flood the lily-boats? —
No richer freightage floats
On Faery raft or Fancy's glossy shallop
Bound past the glittering sea
For Arcady.
See where her bracelet slipped a purple star:
Ah, luminous arms! Such limbs the morning's are,
That radiantly rein the steeds that gallop
Thro' rosy dawn-gates to the pools of eve —
So did they rise aglow
And droop and quench into the cool below.
What shining did that jewelled moment leave! An emerald ripple trembled at her heart, The river-portals shook and slipped apart With soft melodious plashing, A meteor-wake of watery atoms grew Beneath the tide, and opalescent flashing, Trailed diamonds down a weedy avenue. And failed in dusky-pillared caves afar.
Ah! brightly did that jewelled moment pass! A summer's tale of hours could nowise mar That glowing image on a moment's glass!
// is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for July, 1917
THE DANGEROUS WIDOW
By EDWARD F. O'DAY EUTHANASY (A Poem)
By R. H. LAW MAN AND BRUTE (A Story)
|By GRANT WATSON TO MY PET AVERSION (A Poem)
By BRENDA DRAPER
POPE
By ROBERT LYND THE WINDS OF ANARCHY
By VINCENT McNABB
THE DANCING OF COLUMBINE
By N. C. HERMON-HEDGE
Single Copies, IS Cents
1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Fipres Count
ij^^ Miles of Southern PaciHc railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is 95 per pent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipi^ received the first Gold Medal azvarded by the American Museum of Safety for the "Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention,'* and at the San Francisco Exposition, 1913, received the Grand Prize, the highest award, for Safety First Appliances, as well as for Railway Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Poiver.
Travel via Southern Pacific
5043 Phones Douglas 5C44-
"In a Class by Itself
r/jeGRANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the V/orld
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 July, 1917 No. 4
The Dangerous Widow
By Edward F. O'Day
"Take example by your father, my boy, and be wery careful o' widders."
When Tony Weller, a poor victim of connubiality, tendered this bit of advice to his son Samuel he immortalized himself. It is one of those sentiments which thousands have felt without putting into words ; "what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."
But it is not so much the epigrammatic force of the elder Weller's words which should excite our admiration ; it is the bravery, the moral courage he evidenced in taking his son, and all the world with him, into his confidence on so delicate a point. Writ- ers of all kinds from the earliest dawn of literature have aimed their weapons at the woman whose only fault would seem to be that she outlived her husband. They have denounced her, ridiculed her, slandered her and affected to despise her, but not one of these marksmen whose missiles are the paper bullets of the brain has had the hardihood or the honesty to confess that he feared her. And yet fear is at the bottom of all the persecutions to which the widow has been subjected.
It would be no easy matter to analyze the general attitude of a man toward a widow. She has been married; that is to say, she has studied man at close range. She has seen him when the mask he wears before the world is off. She has compared the prom- ise of the suitor with the fulfillment of the husband. Now that he is dead, she looks at other men with a dangerous serenity of feature which seems to say :
"I understand you."
She has sailed forth on the sea of matrimony under
100 The Lantern
convoy and has returned to port alone. Whether her voyage has been calm or stormy no one knows. There is a mystery about it all which repels and fascinates in about equal degrees. _
Widows have a distinct literary value. They have their uses in art, too, but the author finds in them unlimited possibilities of wit and satire. We have only to turn over the pages of Petronius, the clever and wicked Roman who graced Nero's reign, to understand how widows were regarded in his day. His story of the Ephesian matron made the Roman world laugh, and it has not lost its piquancy even today.
There was in Ephesus a beautiful married woman who loved, honored and obeyed her husband in the most exemplary fashion ; in fact, she was the pattern of what a good wife should be. After several years of happiness, her husband fell ill and died. The widow was so overcome with grief that she seemed likely to follow him. Her beautiful eyes were red- dened with continual tears; her whole body wasted with sorrow.
The cemetery at Ephesus was outside the city walls, and the body of the dead husband was car- ried there with solemn rites and interred in the family vault. The bereft widow threw herself on the coffin in an agony of grief, and refused to move. Her friends remonstrated without avail, and at last had to leave her at the tomb.
For five days she remained there, weeping and praying and lamenting her husband's death. All Ephesus knew of her devotion, and came out to see this marvelous fidelity, this miracle of constant af- fection.
It seems to have been the custom in Ephesus, when a malefactor was hanged, to expose his body on the gallows for a number of days as a warning to other criminals. Now it happened that the scaffold stood near the cemetery, and a soldier who had been set to guard the body of a murderer thus exhibited,
The Dangerous Widow 101
soon discovered that one of the tombs had a living occupant.
So at nightfall when there was no one to observe him, he deserted his post and went to investigate. He peered into the vault and found the widow at her customary devotions. His heart was touched to see one so beautiful in such evident distress, and he went in to console her. He listened to the sad story of her bereavement and tried to soothe her melancholy with words of comfort, but without avail.
The next evening the soldier repeated his visit and his expressions of sympathy. He fancied that the widow listened more attentively than at first, and grew more eloquent. He was a tall, comely young man, and no doubt his uniform became him.
The third night he was still more successful. The widow dried her tears and took a more lively in- terest in his conversation. But when he returned to his post, consternation seized him — the body had been stolen from the gallows ! He hastened back to the tomb and told the widow his misfortune. He had deserted his post, the punishment was death. His fair friend was much concerned ; she was willing to do anything she could for one who had been so kind to her in her afifliction.
That was the psychological moment, and the soldier knew it. He seized her hand and told her of his love in burning words. If she would only go with him, they might fly far from Ephesus ; if she refused, he would stay and sufifer death.
The widow could not resist the appeal. She looked at the dead body of her husband and then at the handsome face of her lover, and made whatever answer is usual in these cases. They were about to leave the vault when a thought crossed the widow's mind. The empty gallows would soon be discovered, and the discovery would mean pursuit and appre- hension. She suggested a remedy. They took the body from the tomb and hung it, still wet with her
102 The Lantern
tears, on the gallows tree! Then the widow and her soldier lover hastened away together.
As if this story were not bad enough in itself, commentators, dead to every sense of gallantry, have traced its origin from Latin to Greek and thence to eastern languages until they prove to their own satisfaction that this fair relict dwelt on the banks of the Nile in the reign of Pharaoh.
This same trait of widowhood which Petronius satirizes seems to have impressed Shakespeare very strongly. He is full of allusions, sportive and other- wise, to the fickle brevity of the widow's grief and her yearning for masculine consolation. Benedick, the gayest and most superficial of youthful cynics, remarks :
'Tf a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps."
And when Beatrice asked how long that might be, he replied, impudently enough:
"An hour and a quarter."
We may question the authority of this young Italian spark, but Richard III has history to back him. From the time he stopped the widowed Lady Anne on her way to the graveyard to the moment when he won the promise of her hand was certainly less than Benedick's close calculation. Hamlet's mother hurried from weeds to orange blossoms in the same indecorous fashion. It was less than a month after her husband's death that
The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage table.
Certainly Shakespeare had a poor opinion of widows.
''A daughter of Eve, such was the widow Wadman, and 'tis all the character I intend to give of her."
So says Sterne in Tristram Shandy, and then pro- ceeds in his sly, equivocal way to give her the char- acter of a curious, prying, calculating woman who
The Dangerous Widow 103
laid regular siege to Uncle Toby's heart, and only lost it by overreaching herself.
Sterne was a clerg>'man. Not a very good one, certainly, but still a churchman, and as the widows, together with the orphans, are specially commended to the church's care, he should have known whereof he spoke. Yet the widow Wadman represents his ideas on the subject.
When we come to Walter Scott we find a worse state of affairs. In his novels he is careful not to ofifend, but in the privacy of his daily journal, where he wrote down his thoughts for no eyes but his own, what does he say?
''Today I answered two modest requests from widow ladies. One requested me to write to Mr. Peel, say- ing, on her authority, that her son was fit for a public situation, and that I requested he might be provided accordingly. Another widowed dame, whose claim on me is having read Marmion and The Lady of the Lake besides a promise to read all my other works — gad, it's a rash engagement — demands that I shall either pay £200 to get her cub into some place or other, or settle him in a seminary of education. I do believe your destitute widow, especially if she hath a charge of children, is one of the most impudent animals living."
At this rate, the widows have a good case against the authors. But that the outlook may not be too gloomy, we must quote Tom Moore, who never forgot his manners even when writing poetry —
Why is a garden's wildered maze
Like a young widow, fresh and fair?
Because it wants some hand to raze
The weeds which have no business there!
Irish widows are not different from any others. It is true that the Widow Machree was faithful to her husband's memory. The poet says so. But the Widow ]\Ialone might have been a native of Ephesus
104 The Lantern
just as well as of Athlone, if we are to believe Charles O'Malley. When "Mister O'Brien from Clare
Put hii arm round her waist And gave her ten kisses, at laste,
she was completely won, whereupon the poet advises us —
If for widows you die
Larn to kiss, not to sigh;
For they're all like sweet Mistress Malone.
Despite the many harsh things which writers say on the subject, the widows flourish as of yore. Hus- bands are still dying and leaving their spouses be- hind as they did in the days of Pharaoh and Petronius. And what is far more important from the feminine viewpoint, these widows still have a way of wiping the tears from their rosy cheeks and putting aside the black chiffon of mourning for the white tulle of a new matrimonial alliance. For the poets and the satirists and the novelists cannot dis- pute one point — the widow is nearly always fascinat- ing. She has the charms of mature womanhood, and knows how to set them off to most advantage. Also she knows the weak points of the male animal and can humor him to the top of his bent if she desires to make a conquest. This is why a woman will widow two or three men and win a fourth husband with ease, while many a bright girl must spinster it to the end of her days.
How do we explain the animosity of writers in view of the widow's fascinating arts? It's a hard question. Probably it is pure selfishness. Your man of books is a self-centered dog and timorous withal. He is afraid, for one thing, to surrender his freedom to any woman, be she maid or widow, and besides, the prospect of having a widow of his own, which involves the unpleasant necessity of dying first, does not appeal to him. The widow may flash her tempt- ing smile upon him, but he stands aloof and takes a cold revenge by converting her into literary material.
EUTHANASY
By R. H. Law
Prince Azrael, wan Azrael,
The ghastly Cavalier, To view this battlefield of earth
On his pale horse drew near. Ah ! never since our world had birth
More terrible his spear!
Amid the dying and the dead
His path has alway lain ; Then wherefore doth he vail his head
Before these newly slain? It cannot be that Angel dread
Is touched by human pain !
"Naught ever saw I like to this," The bloodless horseman cried,
"No hero death-bed like to this In all my age-long ride ; Oh ! never men so died, I wis,
Since men have lived and died.
"All shrank from me, all fled from me,
Save wretches in despair; I followed with a hunter's glee
Or slew them unaware ; But these! They smile and run to me,
As though my face were fair."
He turned him to a new-born ghost,
"What miracle is here, That I, whom men have feared the most,
From thee should have no fear? For youth was thine, and well thou know'st
How life in youth is dear."
"Yea! dear was life, thou bitter king," The proud glad ghost replied,
"We perished in our morn of spring. Youth's garland cast aside; But there was yet a dearer thing, 'Twas that for which we died."
MAN AND BRUTE
By Grant Watson
On either side stretched the Hmitless scrub of slender saplings. The green and pink leaves of the trees blended to a delicate mauve in the evening light. Overhead the sky flushed from crimson to orange- yellow as the sun sank behind the bleak and rugged contour of an upstanding hill.
Dr. Laurence was a man unused to the wild life of bush country. He had only lately come from Sydney, and he was always a little nervous of driv- ing across open scrub after dark. To his unaccus- tomed eyes bush-tracks were difficult to follow at the best of times and now, when he turned off the road, he had to keep all his wits about him and not let his horse stray into the open spaces of the bush, which stretched out in gray glades and avenues on either side. Finally he had to climb down from his seat and make sure of the track by the light of one of his side-lanterns. It was necessary here to go at a slow pace, for the ground was uneven and the way was often blocked by dead timber that lay rotting where it had fallen. At one time he was even minded to turn back, but being a kind-hearted and generous man, he pushed on in spite of difficulties. The thought of the disabled shepherd, solitary and suffer- ing, kept him to his resolution.
For some distance he walked on, keeping always in sight of the line of trees on the left. Then he stood still and shouted. His voice sounded for a moment very resonant and strong in the night air. The sound died abruptly as if lost in the silence. He listened for an answering shout, but heard nothing. Perhaps he had kept too far out in the open. He struck in towards the trees, and walked a mile fur- ther; again he shouted, but got no answer.
Again he walked on a short distance, then sud- denly he saw the shepherd's hut quite close to him. He was surprised at finding it so close, and was
Man and Brute 107
alarmed that there should have been no answer to his call. He hurried forward, and as he approached saw that the door was standing ajar. He could see that inside the hut a light was burning. The silence, which at first had awed him but which later had seemed invigorating and refreshing, was again touched with fear.
The small building, surrounded, as it was, by low bushes and the flat expanse of desolate plain, looked strangely insignificant. So small an evidence of man's energy in the face of Nature's greatness was, in the all-enfolding silence of the night, disheartening and almost pathetic. The doctor wondered what had happened in the last few hours in that tiny space — why had he received no answer to his call, which at that distance must have been clearly audible? Had he perhaps come too late? He hurried anxiously forward and laid his hand upon the door.
* * Hf * * *
Five hours previously the horseman who was to fetch relief to the sick man had galloped away, and the old shepherd and his dog had looked at one an- other as they listened to the sound of his depart- ing horse-hoofs. As their eyes met they were both conscious of their loneliness. The dog shifted his gaze uneasily and looked round the hut; it was a small protection indeed, a tiny island of man's foot- hold in the midst of the wide expanse of bush that stretched in all directions. On the ceiling of the hut numberless flies were crawling; others made a monotonous buzzing in the hot air. The shepherd lay still upon his bed, crippled by his sudden illness. After a while he stretched out his left hand, which he could still use, and rested it awkwardly upon the dog's head. "Rover," he muttered, ''you'll stay with me. You'll stay with me till help comes. I'm ill, boy. Maybe I'm dying. I can't be left alone."
The dog thrust his nose into the man's hand and whined. Then he jumped up, putting his fore-paws on the bed, and licked at his master's face.
108 The Lantern
The man moved with difficulty to hold him off; then groaned at a stab of pain. "Get down! get down !" he said gently.
For more than an hour the old shepherd lay still, and the dog rested his shaggy head against his hand. The light slowly died out of the sky, and the silence became complete as the flies gathered upon the walls and ceiling of the hut and ceased to buzz. The sick man lay awkwardly upon one side as if twisted by pain. Half his body was paralyzed, and the features on the right side of his face were drawn and mo- tionless. From time to time he would give a low groan, and the dog, as if understanding his master's distress, would thrust his nose forward and give a whine of sympathy.
When it became dark the shepherd, with some difficulty, managed to light the lantern that the horse- man had placed by his bed. Then he reached for water, drank a little and offered some to the dog, who licked intelligently and gently at the rim of the tumbler. Then, exhausted by this effort, the man lay back with a sigh. For a while he watched the flick- ering shadows that the lantern cast on wall and ceil- ing, and all the while he spoke incessantly to the dog. He repeated himself, saying over the same thing again and again. "You must stay with me, Rover. You must stay with me." He spoke quickly and incoherently and, as he spoke, the muscles of the left side of his face moved nervously. To go on speaking had now become a necessity. The idea obsessed him that he must not be silent, for a new-awakened fear was pressing upon his heart. He felt one side of his tongue and mouth becoming stiff, and he found it difficult to articulate. What if he should lose the art of speech? That thought was terrible, and he babbled on, glad to assure himself that he still had the power of forming words. The dog beside him whined in response, and seemed to understand the fear which engendered that mean- ingless stream of sound. He jumped up and licked
Man and Brute 109
the man's face. The shepherd muttered incessantly, and watched the dog with eyes overflowing with tears. The dog, as if in an ecstasy of sympathy, raised himself and put his great paws on his master's chest. Then he howled, a long, sustained howl, expressive of all that sorrow which can witness the suffering of" another, but does not know how to lessen or alleviate that suffering.
After that there was silence in the hut, and the hours crept slowly by.
The man lay helpless, watching the great beast that loved him and suffered for him. Often their eyes met, but never for more than an instant, and then as if embarrassed and ashamed at his master's weakness the dog would look away, gaze uneasily into the corners of the hut, and then hurriedly glance back again. Then, as the shepherd watched his old friend and companion of many years, he saw a strange change come over him. He saw him stiffen his paws, saw the hair on his back rise up and bristle and saw his lips twitch and the whites of his eyes roll and shine. He remembered how he had once before seen him like that. It was years ago, when the dog was young. They had been together on a hillside, and there was mist rising from the valley. He had been sitting by his sheep, when the dog had suddenly bayed, and had stood in just such an attitude gazing out over the valley and growling. Step by step he had come back to his master, and then crouched against his legs, shivering with terror. That was the coming of fear. The two occasions were similar. Fear like a gust had struck the dog's heart, fear of the ab- normal, fear perhaps of the hidden and inexorable cruelty of life. And the man, as he lay there help- less, understood and remembered, as he also became afraid. To both man and dog something malevolent had been revealed. Inside that small hut life had suddenly shown itself naked and ruthless. Outside, where the gray salt-bushes afforded cover to wallabies and night birds ; there, existence was still, no doubt,
110 The Lantern
sane, was still covered by that opaque veil that blinds and deceives; but within those walls was madness, the madness of sudden understanding, the madness of fear.
The dog was now very still, he crouched close to his master, occasionally giving low growls. As the old shepherd watched him, he felt the presence of something uncanny and distasteful. Now that his body was powerless, his mind swarmed with dis- quieting recollections of his earlier life, and par- ticularly he remembered an incident that had hap- pened in the hot months of a dry season. The bush was parched with thirst, and dead animals were a common sight. He had come one day upon a round mouse's nest which lay exposed among the withered grass. On opening it he had found two starved mice. They were alive but horribly thin; they moved their limbs slowly and senselessly, and on their feet were patches of the yellow eggs of flies. He remembered how he had killed them, and was horrified at his task. Now his dog reminded him of those mice. He remembered the pathetic savagery of their exposed yellow teeth.
Suddenly a cry sounded not very distant.
To the man it was a message of hope. Help was coming. This nightmare of terror and isolation might pass ! He tried hard to articulate, to shout ; but the cry that came from his lips was hardly audible. He tried to raise himself, but failed and fell back, his muscles twitching uncontrollably.
In one leap the dog was on his feet. And now he was rigid, each foot seemed stiffly rooted to the ground. His back was arched, the hairs bristling and upright. His teeth were bared. All his savagery and fear showed in his eyes. If in the close confines of the hut there had been engendered madness and fear, savagery now came to join them. The ugliness of brute ferocity stood hunched upon four legs, rooted to the earth, bristling with terror.
Another shout sounded, this time nearer; then light
Man and Brute 111
footsteps were to be heard approaching. The dog quivered through his whole body. His lips drawn back exposed the long canine teeth. The door creaked on its hinges and was pushed slightly open. The doctor, fresh from all the mysterious beauty of a summer's night, stepped into the hut.
With stiff movements, like those of the starving mice, the dog arched himself, lowered his head and tail, and took short, cringing steps sideways and for- ward. Then, with a snarl of fear and rage, he leapt at the man's throat.
Dr. Laurence, who was for the moment slightly blinded by the lantern light, threw up his arm to guard his face and throat. The dog's jaws fastened above his wrist, and strong teeth pressed their way through his coat and pierced the flesh. The first impact of the attack knocked him backwards, and he was pinned against the wall of the hut. The sudden shock scattered for a moment all his thoughts, and for just a small fraction of time he was be- wildered and almost helpless beneath the weight of the dog. The action of throwing up his arm to guard his throat had been instinctive rather than purposed. In the next instant, however, all his senses rallied to his support, and his mind was quick to take in the situation. The dog was of course guarding his sick master, and his attack was not one of ignoble savagery but merely an over-zealous loyalty. The man's reason was able, even in the shock of those first few seconds, to take in the facts of the case. He could see that the shepherd was lying powerless on his bed, he could hear his hoarse and inarticulate whispers, and realized that the sick man could give no help, and that he must cope with the dog single- handed. He must struggle with him and throttle him off; and he would do so as humanely as possible, understanding as he did the loyal nature that prompted that mistaken savagery.
Steadying himself against the wall, he forced his adversary further from him and gripped at his shaggy
112 The Lantern
throat with his left hand. He had to set his teeth hard against the pain which shot up his arm as the dog savagely shook his head from side to side. With great difficulty he struggled and fought his way across the room. His purpose was to get the dog against the wall and there throttle him from his hold. This was difficult to accomplish, as the great beast struck out with fore-feet at the doctor's face. The man had to bend his head forward and duck it to one side, to avoid these swift, savage strokes. It was thus that his face came close to his enemy's. He saw the rolling whites of the dog's eyes, the bare pink gums and the writhing lips. The intense savagery of that expression was in some way strangely familiar, and the Hght in the dog's eyes kindled the man's excite- ment, made his heart beat faster and roused him to the highest animation of nervous force.
The doctor was by this time taking deep, short breaths through his nostrils, his lips were tight shut and his teeth locked. He was beginning to get angry at the sharp wrenches of pain that shot up his arm, as the dog flung his weight from side to side. At length the man won his way to the opposite wall, and had his fingers strongly gripped about the beast's throat. In spite of the pain in his arm, he held it high, and thrust with all his force against the wall. He watched the eyes of the dog open and shut in quick succession, and heard his breath come in long, irregular gasps. He felt the grip on his arm re- laxing, but just when he thought he had the beast powerless there was a sudden, spasmodic movement ; the dog struck upwards with his hind legs, and with a quick jerk shook himself free. The doctor turned quickly to face him, and at the same time looked round for a weapon. He saw the shepherd's staff in a far corner. The dog at once anticipated his thought and leapt between. They faced each other wary and alert. The man's former attitude of calm deliberation had left him. His activities were now all involved in the fierce struggle for mastery. The
Man and Brute 113
eyes of both man and brute shone with anger, and the muscles of the man's face twitched. Behind him, he was vaguely conscious of the crippled shepherd blinking and inarticulate ; round about him were the narrow walls of the hut which shut him in with that snarling gray devil. He stepped back to- wards the bed, hoping to lure the dog from his po- sition, and thus be able to reach the shepherd's staff. In an instant the dog was upon him, this time leaping for his thigh. Again they locked, but the dog's hold was not so tenacious. He hit and leapt free. The man cursed at the pain and ran in, fiercely striking with his fists.
The shepherd, who lay helpless on his bed, watched with horror the progress of the fight. When at first he had seen the dog spring and the doctor ward of^ the attack, he had been filled with a pathetic and helpless distress. He was horrified that the man who had come those many miles to his aid should be thus outraged, and yet, though one word from him was all that was needed, he was helpless. He had strug- gled with all his failing powers to speak the necessary words, but all that he could do was to form an in- articulate and choking sound that seemed to urge the dog to keener fury. That the doctor had so calmly withstood the first attack had given him some assurance ; but now as they faced each other, angry man and angry brute in that small space, his spirit was touched with a new fear, a fear that was even stronger than the dread of his growing helplessness. He felt despair at this sudden revelation of the un- tamed fierceness of life, a fierceness that could even stretch out and envelop man himself, could strip from him his reason, and could even turn to frenzied cruelty the calm glance of his eye, and reveal the brute from which he was evolved.
The two creatures, that in the small, dimly-lighted room fought with such ferocity and cruelty, were strangely similar in their movements and expression. Savagery, an intense interest and even a delight in
114 The Lantern
the struggle, showed in every pose of the body, in every nervous contraction of the face. In the numb- ing terror of his own infirmity, the shepherd saw that they gloried in, and enjoyed, the naked fierce- ness of the fight. While he had lain there helplessly watching, he had seen how the doctor's expression had changed from calm and manly determination to aroused though controlled anger, from anger to exasperation and rage; and then he had seen how rage had grown into the whining, hysterical joy of conflict.
Two brutes fought in that room beside the crippled man. Motives of loyalty, generosity and mercy had prepared the way for the contest. Hidden and un- suspected forces, blind and cruel, had stripped first one, then the other of reason; and the mind, that had the knowledge and power to avert that loosing of the bestial, which lurks in all natures, was held iron- ically dumb. Man and dog, each in the grip of the mad excitement of killing, bit and struck at one an- other. Both were cunning at attack and parry. The dog, after the first furious onslaught, contented him- self with sudden rushes, snapping bites and quick re- treats— the man tried always to drive his adversary to some corner where gripping at his throat he would be able to strangle him, crushing him with his greater weight. For what seemed an interminable time the dog was able to escape the swift, downward strokes of the man's fists or the sudden lift of his boots, and on each occasion that he sprang free he snapped fiercely at hands or legs, leaving the doctor bloody and torn but in no way checked in that deliberate and relentless pursuit.
The shepherd's eyes, filled with his speechless fear, followed always the quick dash of onslaught and recovery. He had seen the human reason of the man's face shrink and become replaced by the passion of a brute. He was strangely aflfected by the sight; af- fected, too, by the knowledge that both of the com- batants were now oblivious to his existence. He was
Man and Brute 115
cut off and alone ; and all that was left of human dignity and restraint had found refuge in his power- less body, and there hid in fear unable to show themselves.
With an effort of mind he could imagine the hushed stillness of the bush that he knew so well, which stretched, gray and tranquil, in all directions. He could picture the outside view of his own hut. How often had he seen it as a small, dark speck in the evening light? It had been full of pleasant as- sociations and surrounded by recollections of com- fortable evenings and hungry meals. But now within those walls raged a pandemonium of savagery and hate. They were filled by the abnormal, by such a ferocity that even beasts feared. For what beast of prey even does not look up full of shame after a savage act? It looks fearfully around and hurries away with its kill.
The sick man as he watched saw that a sudden change came over the fight, and instead of the quick movements from side to side, he could see that the doctor had caught the dog in a corner, had his hands at its throat and was crushing it under his weight. The shepherd watched with horror the look on the man's face. Exuberant, triumphant beast was there written large. There was cruel joy, the joy of mas- tery, the joy of killing. He looked at the dog's face, and saw fear gleam in those fierce eyes. The eyes rolled from side to side, blinked horribly and then, with a despairing glance, looked at him. In them there was an appeal for help; and in that despairing look he recognized his friend and companion of many days and nights. His dog, his friend, was there, helpless and dying. If he could speak he might wake the doctor from that horrid seizure of atrocious joy. If that were once broken, the man would see there was no need to kill — the dog was done, played out.
With all his ebbing strength the shepherd lifted himself on his left elbow, and with a desperate effort
116 The Lantern
tried to shout. His heart seemed to be beating in his throat, so that no breath could come, his tongue cHcked helplessly, his eyes rolled, and exhausted he fell back.
As the doctor's fingers tightened in that final grip, he understood for the first time in his life the joy of killing, the frank and shameless joy of the stronger which throttles what is weaker and less able to live — a sensation compelling and primitive, that civiliza- tion has done much to modify and disguise, but which now and then breaks forth and shows itself in all its crudity. It was with supreme elation that he saw fear and defeat creep into the dog's eyes, and not till long after the breath had ceased to be drawn through the expanded nostrils did he relinquish his hold on the shaggy throat. That passion of killing as it died down gave place to a sudden knowledge of the surrounding quietness. In spite of the hammer- ing of his own blood in his ears and the short gasps of his own breath, he became conscious of a great stillness. And as the hammering became less in- sistent, the surrounding quiet seemed to creep in from the untamed, peaceful expanse of the bush. It in- vaded the small dimensions of the hut and even seemed to force its way into his own brain. He loosed his grip and raised his hands to his face. The body of the dog fell back with a thud. The man muttered something under his breath about hav- ing done for the brute, and was surprised at the sound of his own voice. He looked round, again listening to the stillness. On the ground near the door he saw his bag of doctor's instruments. On the bed the shepherd lay very still. He shakily rose to his feet. His arms and body were much bitten, and he became conscious of pain. He sucked at his torn hands, then for a time was motionless, as if enchanted by the quiet of the night. He felt he must break that spell. Deliberately and with conscious effort, he walked across to the bed where the sick man lay. The shepherd's eyes, filled with horror and despair, stared
Man and Brute 117
glassily into his own. The doctor, as if to protect himself from that g-lance, covered them quickly with his hand. They did not flinch at his sudden move- ment. Mechanically, as if compelled by long habit, he bent his head to the man's chest, listening for the heart beats. He could hear no sound. The silence of that desolate land was all-pervading.
TO MY PET AVERSION
(With Apologies to Admirers) By Brenda Draper
Intruding by the hedgerow that encloses
My fair, green garden from the world without, From a far corner stealing, near the roses,
Instinctively I know thou art about. I may not hear thee, stealthy, velvet-footed;
I may not see the cunning in thine eye; But with a strange aversion, deeply-rooted,
I know when, furtively, thou pass me by. With friendly overtures, so sleek, obtrusive.
Fain would'st thou move the barriers of my hate; I have no liking for thine art elusive.
For well thou knowest to dissimulate. What sorcery in thy green, luminous glances !
What exquisite disdainment in thy gaze ! I do distrust thy purring, soft advances,
I see a devil in thy sinuous ways. Untamed, untamable, yet still permitting
Caresses from the all-pervading — Man ! Art thou an evil spirit that, unwitting,
We have allured, where, spurning, we should ban? Ah ! Treacherous feline, in thy midnight revel,
I wot that — by some incantation vile Preserving thine identity as devil —
Thou spittest out thy scorn of man the while!
POPE
By Robert Lynd
Pope is a poet whose very admirers damn him. Mr. Saintsbury, who has recently been recommending him to modern readers, observes that "it would be scarcely rash to say that there is not an original thought, sentiment, image, or example of any of the other categories of poetic substance to be found in the half a hundred thousand verses of Pope." And his indictment of Pope as a man is still more thor- ough. He denounces him for ''rascality" and goes on rather gratuitously to suggest that ''perhaps .... there is a natural connection between the two kinds of this dexterity of fingering — that of the artist in words, and that of the pickpocket or the forger."
If Pope had been a contemporary, Mr. Saintsbury, I imagine, would have stunned him with a huge roll of adjectives. Even as it is he seems to be in two minds whether to belabor or to praise him. Luckily, he has tempered his moral sense with his sense of humor and so has been able to realize that as a matter of fact, when we consider Pope, "some of the proofs which are most damning morally, positively increase one's esthetic delight."
One is interested in Pope's virtues as a poet and his vices as a man almost equally. It is his virtues as a man and his vices as a poet that are by com- parison depressing. He is usually at his worst artistically when he is at his best morally. He achieves wit through malice : he achieves only rhetoric through virtue. It is not that one wishes he had been a bad son or a Uriah Heep in his friendships. One likes to remember how he pleased his mother by allowing her to copy out parts of his translation of the Iliad, and one respects him for refusing a pension of £300 a year out of the secret service money from his friend Craggs, the Secretary of State. But one wishes that he had put neither his filial piety nor his friendship into writing. Mr.
Pope 119
Saintsbury, it is true, admires "the masterly and de- lightful craftsmanship in words" of the tribute to Crag-gs ; but then Mr. Saintsbury is, apparently, an enthusiast for the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady — a mere attitude in verse, as chill as a weeping angel in a graveyard.
Pope's attraction is less that of a real man than of an inhabitant of Lilliput, where it is a matter of no importance whether one lives according to the Ten Commandments or not. One regards him with amusement as a liar, a forger, a glutton and a slanderer of his kind. His letters are the dullest letters ever written by a wit, simply because he re- veals in them not his real vices but his imaginary virtues. They only become interesting when we know the secrets of his life and read them as the moral blether of a diminutive Pecksniff. Historians of literature often assert — mistakenly, I think — that Pliny's letters are dull, because they are merely the literary exercises of a man overconscious of his virtues. But Pliny's virtues, however lofty-nosed, were at least real. Pope's letters are the literary exercises of a man platitudinising about virtues he did not possess. They have an impersonality like that of the leading articles in the London Times. They have all the qualities of the essay except that they practically never lapse into intimate confession. They are irrelevant things which might as readily have been addressed to one correspondent as another. So much is this so that, when Pope published them, he often altered the name of the recipient so as to make it appear that they were written to famous persons when, as a matter of fact, many of them were written to private and little-known friends. The story of the way in which Pope tampered with his letters and arranged for their "unauthorized" pub- lication by some pirate publisher is one of the most amazing in the history of forgery. It was in speak- ing of this that Whitwell Elwin declared that Pope "displayed a complication of imposture, degradation
120 - The Lantern
and effrontery which can only be paralleled in the lives of professional forgers and swindlers." When he published his correspondence with Wycherly, his friends were astonished that the boyish Pope should have written with such an air of patronage to the aged Wycherly and that Wycherly should have suf- fered it. W^e know now, however, that the corre- spondence is only in part genuine — that Pope, for instance, used portions of his correspondence with Caryll and published them as though they had been written to W^ycherly. Wycherly had remonstrated with Pope on the extravagant compliments he paid him: Pope had remonstrated with Caryll on similar grounds. In the Wycherly correspondence, Pope omits Wycherly's remonstrance to him and publishes his own remonstrance to Caryll as a letter from him- self to Wycherly. From that time onwards Pope spared no effort in getting his correspondence "sur- reptitiously" published. He engaged a go-between, a disreputable actor disguised as a clergyman, to approach Curll, the publisher, with an offer of a stolen collection of his letters and, when the book was announced, he attacked Curll as a villain, and pro- cured a friend in the House of Lords to move a resolution that Curll should be brought before the House on a charge of breach of privilege, one of the letters (it was stated) having been written to Pope by a peer. Curll took a number of copies of the book with him to the Lords, and it was dis- covered that no such letter was included. But the advertisement was a noble one. Unfortunately, even a man of genius could not devise elaborate schemes of this kind without ultimately falling under sus- picion, and Curll wrote a narrative of the events which resulted in badly discrediting Pope.
Pope was surely one of the least enviable authors who ever lived. He had fame and fortune and friends. But he had not the constitution to enjoy his fortune, and he was treacherous to more than one of his friends, secretly, publishing his correspond-
Pope U
ence with Swift and then setting up a pretense that Swift had been the culprit, and even earning from BoHngbroke a hatred that pursued him in the grave. He was always begging Swift to go and live with him at Twickenham. But Swift found even a short visit trying. "Two sick friends never did well to- gether," he declared in 1727, and he wrote verses descriptive of the miseries of great wits in each other's company:
Pope has the talent well to speak,
But not to reach the ear; His loudest voice is low and weak,
The Dean too deaf to hear.
Awhile they on each other look,
Then different studies choose; The Dean sits plodding o'er a book,
Pope walks and courts the muse.
"Mr. Pope," he grumbled some years later, "can neither eat nor drink, loves to be alone, and has al- ways some poetical scheme in his head." Swift, however, stayed in Dublin and remained Pope's friend. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu went to Twickenham and became Pope's enemy. The reason seems to have been that he was more eager for a life of com- pliments than of friendship. He took on the airs of a man in love^ when Lady Mary saw in him only a monkey in love. He is even said to have thrown his spindle little makeshift of a body, in its canvas bodice and its three pairs of stockings, at her feet, with the result that she burst into unforgivable laughter. Pope took his revenge in the Epistle to Martha Blount, where he described Lady Mary as Sappho, and declared of another w^oman that her different aspects agreed as ill with each other —
As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask; So morning insects, that in muck begun. Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the evening sun.
122 The Lantern
Pope's relations with his contemporaries were too often begun in comphments and ended in abuse of this kind. Even while he was on good terms with them, he was frequently doing them ill turns. Thus, he persuaded a publisher to get Dennis to write abusively of Addison's Cato in order that he might have an excuse in his turn for writing abusively of Dennis, apparently vindicating Addison but secretly avenging himself. Addison was more embarrassed than pleased by so savage a defense, and hastened to assure Dennis that he had had nothing to do with it. And the end of it all was Pope's suspicion of Addison, nurtured by his judicious praise of The Rape of the Lock and the translation of the Iliad, and expressed with the genius of venom in the Epistle to Dr. Arhuthnot. There was, one is sure, never a poet whose finest work needed such a run- ning commentary of discredit as Pope's. He may be said, indeed, to be the only great poet in reading whom the commentary is as important as the text. One can enjoy Shakespeare or Shelley without a note : one is even inclined to resent the intrusion of the commentator into the upper regions of poetry. But Pope's verse is a guide to his own age and the incidents of his own waspish existence, lacking a key to which one misses three-fourths of the entertain- ment. The Dunciad without footnotes is one of the obscurest poems in existence: with footnotes it be- comes a literary entomology. And constantly through- out his verses the names need an explanation in order to mean anything. Thus, in the Imitations of Horace, a reference to Russell tells us little till we read in a footnote:
There was a Lord Russell who, by living too lux- uriously, had quite spoiled his constitution. He did not love sport, but used to go out with his dogs every day only to hunt for an appetite. If he felt anything of that, he would cry out, "Oh, I have found it!" turn short round and ride home again, though they were in the midst of the finest chase. It was this lord who,
Pope 123
when he met a beggar, and was entreated by him to give him something because he was almost famished with hunger, called him a "happy dog."
There may have been a case for neglecting Pope before Mr. Elwin and Mr. Courthope edited and annotated him — though he had been edited before — but their omnium-gatherum edition has made him of all English poets one of the most constantly enter- taining.
Pope, however, is a charmer in himself. His venom has graces. He is a stinging insect, but of how brilliant a hue! There are few satires in liter- ature fuller of the very daintiness of malice than the Epistle to Martha Blount and the Epistle to Dr. Arhuthnot. The ''characters" of women in the former are among the most precious of those railleries of sex in which mankind has always loved to indulge. The summing-up of the perfect woman:
And mistress of herself, though China fall,
is itself perfect in its wit. And the variable Narcissa is portrayed in porcelain:
Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,
To make a wash, would hardly stew a child;
Has even been proved to grant a lover's prayer.
And paid a tradesman once, to make him stare;
Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres;
Now conscience chills her and now passion burns;
And atheism and religion take their turns;
A very heathen in the carnal part,
Yet still a sad, good Christian at the heart.
The portrait of Chloe, who "wants a heart," is equally delicate and witty:
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavoi. Content to dwell in decencies for ever — So very reasonable, so unmoved, As never yet to love, or to be loved. She, while her lover pants upon her breast, Can mark the figures on an Indian chest;
124 The Lantern
And when she sees her friend in deep despair, Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair! Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead? She bids her footman put it in her head. Chloe is prudent — would you too be wise? Then never break your heart when Chloe die>.
The wit in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is still more dazzling. The venom is passionate without ceasing to be witty. Pope has in it made a masterpiece of his vanities and hatreds. The characterizations of Ad- dison as Atticus and of Lord Hervey as Sporus :
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk —
Sporus, "the bug with gilded wings" — are portraits almost beautiful in their bitter phrasing. There is nothing make-believe here as there is in the virtue of the letters. This is Pope's confession, the image of his soul. Elsewhere in Pope the accomplishment is too often rhetorical, though The Rape of the Lock is as delicate in artifice as a French fairy tale, and the Dunciad is an amusing assault of a master Lilliputian on minor Lilliputians, and the Essay on Criticism — what a rout of witty lines to be written by a youth of twenty or twenty-one! — is much nearer being a great essay in verse than is generally admitted nowadays. As for the Essay on Man, one can read it more than once only out of a sense of duty. Pope has nothing to tell us that we want to know about man except insofar as he dislikes him. We praise him as the poet who makes remarks — as the poet, one might almost say, who makes faces. It is when he sits in the scorner's chair, whether in good humor or in bad, that he is the little lord of versifiers.
THE WINDS OF ANARCHY
By Vincent McNabb
I have now been some six days on the Atlantic, in a great steamship ; and I have witnessed without much fear most of the things my soul dreaded.
My mind is confused, as a waste of waters. I have been cooped up with the most polyglot com- munity I have ever met. The notices in my cabin are written in English, French, German, Yiddish, and another Teutonic language I take to be Swedish. The various nationalities make their point of view felt even in the steerage food. Today at dinner we had salt ling for the Catholics ; and all the voyage there has been a brown unleavened bread, herb- seasoned, for the Swedes.
I have always felt acute mental anguish in a con- fusion of objects which I could not analyze or express. Whilst in Rome, where I had the joy of staying for a month, I never visited an art gallery. I believe I am the only person from abroad who ever spent a month in Rome without visiting the Vatican Mu- seum. When this is analyzed it will show my extra- ordinary reverence for Art. I take Art seriously as a cult; and refuse to take it casually as an entertain- ment.
The community with me in the steerage beggars description. Its variety of people and age and manners, its noise, its cheerfulness, its childlikeness, its buoyancy, its patience, form in my mind a blur like the gray February sky overhead, or the dark storm-tangled waters of the Atlantic; a storm has been raging in the sea, and still more in my mind, for the past six days.
A great liner in a storm is a study in the dis- organizing power of wind. The campaign was opened by disorganizing the sun. That splendid em- peror was dethroned and throned at the bidding of the wind. Sometimes it swept away the cloud-foes, and lo! the sun held native sway over sky and sea.
126 The Lantern
Then in a trice it sent back the gray-suited clouds and the sun was a prisoner in his own palace. Kven the clouds themselves seemed disorganized. They were not the splendid palaces which in summer or winter, when the air is calm, make a city of the sky. They were debris of clouds — gray cloud dust — spray of clouds — clouds beaten and whisked into a gray yeast — anarchy in cloudland. When the wind hounds break yelping from the northwest the sea also is dis- organized ; and rushes and darts like a wounded Spanish toro. Throughout the year the deep sea is a level open landscape. It has its gentle hills and dimpled valleys, where lurk only a grayer light than rests upon its hillocks. Herds of living things browse within its depths, or float or swim upon its bosom. Even more than the steady earth the deep sea can be an image of the peace that the world cannot give nor take away. But a storm-wind breaks up the kingdom of this peace. The gently lapping waters are teased and taunted into an anarchy of rage. All is dis- organized by the assault of the wind. No longer is the sea a steady restful lowland; but a mountain- land of swirling waters. Never until I saw the Atlantic in a storm did I understand that the sea, like the land, has its high light-clad hills, and its deep gloomy valleys. But I cannot express with what awe I realized that the wind had disorganized all the waters. Every moment the highlands of the sea were passing into some swift fantastic transformation. Every seething hill was laid low, every dark eddying valley was filled. There was no time for the highest hill to take pride at being above his fellow hills. Hardly had he been blown on high by the wind enraged, than the same angered sprite leveled him with his fellows.
Who shall describe the disorganization of the color? The "dark-wine" of the sea, so dear to the eye of Homer and his fellow-singers, has been degraded almost into drab. A spew of foam litters the waves. The shrieking winds freckle the drab, bespitted waters
The WixNds of Anarchy 127
under their invisible hoofs as they gallop past. Here and there a thousand broad-crested hills leap up to sting the trampling hoofs of the wind. In their angry effort they become for a moment the green sea. They leap in a crest of green like clear deep ice. But in the next moment the wind is at their throats ; and their crested pride is blown whistling into a smoke of foam. What is the human mind to think when it sees these hillocks of the sea leap up into a thousand mountain peaks and crown themselves like the Alps or Himalayas in a garland of glistening snow, and then yield without a blow to the unseen enemy at their throats? What else can a man do but reel in thought when over the surging, shrieking, snow-crested hill- country the sea, there rises up, as from Etna, a smoke of foam; and the waters seem, like fire, to burn?
The wind finds its way everywhere and disorganizes everything. The great liner that could easily house the mightiest minster of Rome or Paris, is blown aslant until it seems like a giant who has been maimed and halts. Everywhere there is a hammering as of enemies that would force the gates. The canvas on the 'tween deck hatchways is being blown by the mighty draughts within the ship. Wave after wave takes hold of the great monster and shakes it as a hawk might shake its quarry. Men and women who have sufficient strength and courage to leave their cabins walk along the disorganized and slanting alley- ways in search of the comfort of other human beings, as secretly timid as themselves. Few care for food. The meals are disorganized. Women, instead of taking their food, sit downcast on the floor, or lean their heads against the companion hand-rail, or lie on their mattress at the threshold of their cabin door. Men put their heads in their hands as they sit and v.-eep. Even the flower of the children's merriment droops, though here and there in sheltered, deserted corners groups of these best of God's philosophers are playing at "school" or "trains."
Even a man's emotions are disorganized for a
128 The Lantern
time by the storm. He finds awakened within him a yawning abyss of dread. Death rides up to him on the back of the storm, to remind him of the in- evitable last, and by that challenge to chill him to the bones. Yet in the hour of great dread men do not so much cover as express their fear under a mask of merriment. There is ever a deepest depth of fear which takes refuge in a little laughter. The feeble efforts after wit which enkindle laughter in an hour of fear are not a work of genius ; yet they are often deeds of heroism, for less than which many a fire- eater has won distinction. Again, just as nature will not be denied, and just as wearied soldiers have been known to sleep in the trenches during the height of the battle, so in the very crest of the storm men who lie affrighted at each gust and buffet will fall asleep and be heroes at least in dream.
It is the wind itself that is most disorganized. There is anarchy in the skies. Winds winging their way homeward meet each other in the great spaces of the sky, and jostle each other with some unreasoned hate. The Shepherd of the Winds is asleep, perhaps, and his "silly" sheep trample each other in some narrow plot whilst the whole kingdom of the skies is untrod of their feet.
THE DANCING OF COLUMBINE
By N. C. Hermon-Hedge
It was upon Midsummer Night, when the nightin- gales were singing, that I saw Columbine dancing in the moonlight upon the lawn.
I know not how I came to see her, nor whether I was dreaming ; I only know that I lay concealed in the shadow of a great tree and watched her dance, marvelling greatly.
She seemed to drift into the garden with the star-shine, and I know not whence she came ; but I saw her standing there in the moonlight, gay in her dress of black and orange, and her delicate, high- heeled shoes. Upon each arched foot a great opal shone with mysterious fire, and in one careless hand she held a jewelled fan. And while I watched she looked up at the moon and curtseyed low as she threw it an eager kiss ; and then she flung away her fan, and caught her dress in the tips of her white fingers and began to dance.
Now the dancing of Columbine was more wonder- ful than anything w^hich I have ever beheld ; and I lay among the shadows, spell-bound, watching her. I saw her sway and leap and pirouette ; sometimes she seemed like some wondrous swallow bird skim- ming across the lawn. I could discern no part of her dress — only a flash of flying skirts. I could hear the constant click of her little high heels ; and the opals in her shoes gleamed and shimmered,
I looked for Harleqin, but he was not with her, and Columbine danced on alone.
My heart beat so that I caught my breath ; and I saw that her face was flushed as with wine, and her dark eyes sparkled strangely.
So fast did she dance that her feet twinkled like stars ; more than once she reminded me of some shooting-star, streaking with orange flame across an
130 The Lantern
ebon sky. Yet now and then I saw her pause to throw a kiss to the cold white moon.
And suddenly it was over and I found myself alone. And the manner of her going I cannot tell, for to me it seemed that she leaped into the arms of a moonbeam and was gone.
Then the nightingales stopped singing, and the garden seemed all lonely; and the moonlight and the shadows frightened me, so I went quickly away and lay down in my bed, and slept.
But at dawn, when I went into the garden, I found no trace of what I had seen save that wherever the gleaming feet of Columbine had been the little spiders had woven patterns of wondrous thread; and thereon hung many dewdrops, all glistening with the rainbow lights of dawn — the unseen tears of Columbine.
Hieodore B 3msd and Mmd K OD^
It is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for August, 1917
THE INN OF A THOUSAND DREAMS
(A Poem) By GILBERT FRANKAU
EYES AND TRESSES
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
AMERICAN HUMOR
By AN ENGLISHMAN
THE MAN WHO WAS NINETY-NINE
By JOHN HIGGINS
WHY THE MILKMAN SHUDDERS WHEN HE PERCEIVES THE DAWN
By LORD DUNSANY
Single Copies, IS Cents
$1.50 a Year
1 1 I.I J 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I ■■■■ ;^ I
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
77P5 Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is 95 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipi^ received the Urst Gold Medal azvarded by the American Museum of Safety for the ''Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention/* and at the San Francisco Exposition, ipi3, received the Grand Prize, the highest award, for Safety First Appliances, as well as for Railway Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Power.
Travel via Southern Pacific
5043 Phones Douglas S044
''In a Class hy Itself
The GR ANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol.3 August, 1917 No. 5
■
The Inn of a Thousand Dreams
By Gilbert Frankau
Where the road climbs free from the marsh and the sea
To the last rose sunset- gleaw.s, Twixt a fold and a fold of the Kentish wold
Stands the Inn of a Thousand Dreams.
No man may ride with map for guide
And win that tavern-door ; As none shall come by rule of thumb
To our blue-bells' dancing floor : For no path leads through Churchyards Meads
And the fringes of Daffodil wood. To the heart of the glade where the flower-folk played
In the days when the gods were good.
Who hastes our wold with naught but gold,
Who seeks but food and wine. The wood-folk wise shall blind his eyes
To the creaking tavern-sign ; He shall know the goad of the folk of the road
And his led wheels shall not find The gabled beams that sheltered our dreams
In the nights when the gods were kind.
We had never a chart save our own sure heart
And the summoning sunset-gleams When you rode with me from the marsh and the sea
To the Inn of a Thousand Dreams.
No sign-post showed the curved hill-road
Our purring engines clomb, From where dead forts of dying ports
Loomed gray against gray foam ;
132 The Lantern
We had never a book for the way we took,
But the oast-house chimney-vanes Stretched beckoning hands o'er the lambing-lands
To point us their Kentish lanes.
As certain-true our track we flew,
As nesting swiftsures flit, By stream and down and county-town,
And orchards blossom-Ht : For Pan's own heels were guiding our wheels,
And Pan's self checked our speed In the spire-crowned street where the by-ways meet
For a sign of the place decreed. Rose-impearlcd o'er a wonder-ivorld
Glowed the last of the sunset-gleams; And zue knew that fate had led to the gate
Of the Inn of our Thousand Dreams. Who needs must pique with kitchen-freak
His jaded appetite, He shall not know our set cloth's snow,
Our primrose candle-light ; We had never a need of the waiter breed
Or an alien bandsman's blare, When we pledged a toast to our landlord host
As he served us his goodwife's fare.
As right of guest they gave their best:
No hireling hands outspread White bridal-dress from linen-press,
To drape our marriage bed: They had never a thought for the price we brought.
The simple folk and the fine, Who made us free of their hostelry
In the night when all dreams were mine.
When the trench-lights rise to the storm-dark skies Where the gnn-flash flickers and gleams,
My soul flies free o'er an English sea To the Inn of a Thousand Dreams.
Once more we flit, hands passion-knit, By marsh and murmuring shore.
The Inn of a Thousand Dreams 133
By Tenterden and Bennenden,
To our own tavern-door: As again we go, where the sunsets glow
On the beach-tree's silvern plinth, Down wood-paths set with violet
And Spring's wild hyacinth.
Once more w^e pass, by roads of grass,
To find for our delight Trim garden-plots, and shepherds' cots —
Half-timbered, black-and-white
There is never one gash of a shrapnel-splash
On the walls of the street we roam. Where the forge-irons ring for our welcoming
As the twilight calls us home.
Till the trench-lights pale on the gray daivn-veil
Of the first wan sunrise- gleams. My soul zvould hide ivith its spirit-bride
At the Inn of a Thousand Dreams.
Once more I press, in tenderness,
(Dear God, that dreams were true!) Your finger-tips against these lips
Your own red-rose lips knew, In the middle night when your throat gleamed white
On your dark hair's pillowed sheen, And your eyes were the pools that a moonbeam cools
For the feet of a faery queen.
Woman o' mine, heart's anodyne
Against unkindly fate, Love's aureole about my soul,
Wife, mistress, comrade, mate! I stretch ghost-hands from the stricken lands
Where my earth-bound body lies, To touch your fair smooth brow, your hair,
Your lips, your sleeping eyes :
You are living warm in the crook of my arm, You are pearl in the Hrelight- gleams
Till the blind night rocks with the cannon-shocks That shatter a thousand dreams.
EYES AND TRESSES
By Edward F. O'Day
Eyes have always played an important part in books. Their literary value was understood long before the glittering- orb of the Ancient Mariner held the wedding guest in its uncanny spell, and will still be recognized in that distant day when the hypnotic gaze of Svengali has lost its power.
The novelist, perhaps, estimates their importance a little too highly. Whenever he proceeds (usually after the fashion of an auctioneer compiling a cata- logue) to detail the charms of his heroine he gives us an inventory that is exhaustive on the subject of hair, very, very scanty in the article of nose, and sublimely impossible in the matter of eyes. The amount of rhetoric he wastes on them is enormous. He plunges down to Pluto's realm for epithets to express the fire that is in them, or mounts to the skies for adjectives descriptive of their tranquillity. He is blinded by their beams or loses himself in their depths. He becomes a crystal-gazer and reads in them stories of innocence or guilt. You would sup- pose eyes were given women for no other purpose than that the novelist might find there what the palmist traces in the lines of the hand and the phren- ologist deduces from cranial bumps.
When the heroine's eyes are not occupied in ren- dering up the secrets of her life and character, they are more dangerously employed. Their every look darts misfortune to man (in a novel). One bright flash from those limpid orbs (in a novel) and the hero languishes with love. Alas, poor hero ! For when love captures the masculine heart (in a novel) happiness deserts it and doesn't return till the last chapter.
If the heroine would obligingly close her eyes now and then it would be a great relief. How about, a blind heroine? The idea has a certain fascination,
Eyes and Tresses 135
but it would hardly do. Think of the heaped-up sorrow and the heart-wrenching misery of the Two Orphans spread through four hundred pages! Be- sides, Fielding tried a similar experiment when he tumbled Amelia down stairs and gave her a broken nose ; the novel readers never forgave him.
So, after all, we must be content to put up with a little nonsense on this subject. There is always one consolation: Charming heroines are so plentiful that we can always choose them according to our in- dividual taste. The writers have been careful to supply us with an infinite variety of fair women whose eyes reflect every light and shade of which the visual organ is capable. We have only to take a turn up and down the novelists' seraglio and cast our kerchief to her that pleases us. She will not refuse our invitation to intellectual dalliance.
Would you have black eyes? Rebecca, Isaac of York's handsome daughter, is ever ready to flash hers upon you. Sometimes they will beam softly as they did on gallant Ivanhoe ; anon they dart scorn and defiance, as when they held the Templar at bay on the battlements of Front de Boeuf's castle.
Or do you prefer blue? Here is Beatrix, whom Henry Esmond loved in vain. Her hair is of waving bronze and her eyes "are like stars shining out of azure." Here, too, is Milady, she whom d'Artagnan pursued with a hatred that had turned to love and Athos hunted down with a love that had turned to hatred. You can no more forget her large blue languishing eyes than the fleur de lis on her alabaster shoulder.
If hazel eyes delight you. Amy Robsart had them. If you like gray, there is light-haired Jeanie Deans. Hers are as gray as the mist on a Midlothian hill.
Perhaps you would rather have a heroine with eyes of unspecified color. Go to Thackeray, then, or Dickens. They are wont to be provokingly silent on this important matter. Give what color you please to Becky Sharp's shrewd orbs ; the author furnishes
136 The Lantern
no clew. Laura Pendennis had eyebrows of brown — that is definite enough — and ''large bright eyes," which is altogether too vague. What color flashed under Ethel Newcome's long lashes is another mystery. We have no hint of the color of those calm eyes that looked into the soul of David Copper- field, or of those that enthralled the heart of poor simple Toots. As we are abandoned to speculation on these weighty matters, I venture to say that Agnes' were dark blue, and Florence Dombey's a gentle black.
Those who are given to riddle might spend a tantalizing hour or so puzzling out the secret of Juliet's eyes.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What does Romeo mean by that? Maybe they were blue, or perhaps his rapt poetic gaze saw a silver light in them. I am afraid the lovelorn scion of the house of Montague was no connoisseur of eyes. His first inamorata was black-eyed, and a swain who can veer from black to blue with the suddenness that Romeo displayed is foredoomed to unhappiness.
But Shakespeare is not always consistent in this important matter. In Venus and Adonis he quotes the queen of love as saying, in one place:
My eyes are gray, and bright, and quick in turning.
And later on, in speaking of her, he has this line :
Her two blue windows faintly she upheaveth.
This confusion of gray and blue eyes is really unpardonable. He clouds the matter still more by telling us, further on :
But hers which through the crystal tears gave light, Shone like the moon in water seen by night.
Eyes and Tresses 137
Now if that were a harvest moon we should im- mediately understand that Venus had eyes like one of Swinburne's women — "Gold hair she had, and golden-colored eyes" — but a moon that could be likened to a blue or a gray eye never shone anywhere but in the heaven of a poet's imagination.
Old Richard Burton, who is always quotable, lays great stress on the eyes as a cause of love. He calls them the lightning of love, the sluice gates through which the soul is flooded with beauty. Here is his doctrine of eyes, set down without hesitation : "Of all eyes black are the most amiable, enticing and fairer. Homer useth that epithet of ox-eyed, in describing Juno, because a round black eye is the best and farthest from black the worse. We have gray eyes for the most part, which are childish eyes, dull and heavy. Seutonius describes Julius Caesar to have been of a black, quick, sparkling eye, and although such persons are considered timorous, yet without question they are most amorous."
If black eyes possess this latter property, I suppose it explains why Byron's women are always endowed
With eyes that look into the very soul — Bright, and as black and burning as a coal.
No doubt it also throws Hght on Moore's assertion that
A Persian's heaven is easily made, 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade.
And yet "eyes of unholy blue" can likewise burn with passion. Witness Milady and Madame Bovary, whom Flaubert made to thread all the mazes of illicit emotion.
There are certain niceties in the matter of beautiful eyes which no author can afford to overlook. Though an eye be fair in itself, it is nothing without the setting of long graceful lashes. It is true that Lady Mary Wortley Montague retained the reputation of
138 The Lantern
great beauty even when the smallpox had destroyed the lashes that shaded her wondrous eyes, but that is a historical mystery too old for adequate solution. And though the eyes are
Like the deep, blue, boundless heaven Contracted to two circles underneath Their long, fine lashes,
it avails naught if the brows be open to criticism. "I have sometimes seen," says shrewd Montaigne, "between two lovely eyes, certain menaces of a dan- gerous and malignant nature." That is his graceful French way of hinting that when brows meet above pretty eyes beauty is marred with bad temper.
Scientists with nothing better to occupy their minds have made the important discovery that the blonde type of beauty is rapidly disappearing. Their learned conclusions, when reduced to terms that the lay mind can understand, point to the startling fact that in a few thousand years a woman with blue eyes and flaxen hair will be as obsolete as the dodo.
Personal preference will determine the manner in which readers will receive this bit of scientific de- duction. Those who prefer brunettes will have their liking confirmed, while the lovers of blonde beauty will not be much exercised over conditions that will only afifect their distant posterity. However there is one sensitive soul who may be shocked at the news, and that is the poet, the dreamer who lives forever. For him the past is but yesterday, the future is tomorrow, and any disturbance of his ideals, no matter how or when, is a serious matter.
This threatened extinction of blondes is a grave danger to poetry. Take away yellow hair from the poets and you leave a breach in their airy castles that can never be repaired. What there is in yellow hair that commends it especially to the poet's fancy is hard to say. Black hair has its beauty, brown is not to be despised, and Titian tresses have a certain
Eyes and Tresses 139
popularity. But give the poet his choice and he will adorn the head of his love with locks of yellow. It is not a literary fashion of one country or one age, but a tendency as old as song itself. Homer tells us that Helen, the most beautiful of mortal women, was yellow-haired. So was
Hero the fair, Whom young Apollo courted for her hair.
Virgil praises Dido's yellow tresses. Every poet has his own ideal of Venus, but the bards of Greece and Rome always represented her with fair hair. Shakespeare follows their example.
Shakespeare, by the way, was very fond of fair hair. Lady Macbeth always wears a tawny braid, and Ophelia's disheveled locks are of amber hue. Julia, comparing herself with her rival, Silvia, in The Tivo Gentlemen of Verona, proudly remarks:
Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow.
When Cleopatra hears that her Anthony is married to Octavia, womanlike she questions the messenger as to the charms of this Roman woman. To soothe the jealous rage of his mistress he sketches a very unflattering picture, and when she eagerly demands — ''Her hair — what color?" The answer is, "Brown, madam."
''His very hair," says Rosalind, "is of the dis- sembling color — something browner than Judas'."
Evidently Shakespeare disliked brown hair. Fas- tidious Benedick, the bachelor, thus describes the charms his wife must possess :
"Rich she shall be, that's certain ; wise, or I'll none ; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her ; fair, or I'll never look on her ; mild, or come not near me ; noble, or not I for an angel ; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it pleases God."
140 The Lantern
But Benedick, the married man, led the fair-haired Beatrice from the altar.
Milton, who was noted for beautiful auburn locks which he wore long, in defiance of Puritan custom, gave Eve golden hair.
She, at a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore.
In another passage, as if to emphasize it, he speaks of
Her swelling breast, under the flowing gold Of her loose tresses hid.
In Comus he shows us
Sabrina fair,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of her amber-dropping hair.
In the eighteenth century, when men wore wigs and women powdered their hair, the poets were too artificial to appreciate beauty unadorned. Pope al- most succeeded in writing The Rape of the Lock without revealing the color of the precious tress that caused so much trouble. However, as he tells us that
This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind In equal curls, and well conspired to deck With shining ringlets the smooth ivory neck,
and remarks, further on, that
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare And beauty draws us with a single hair,
we may hazard the conjecture that the nymph was of the doomed blonde type.
One of Shelley's shadowy creations has
A countenance with beckoning smiles; there burns An azure fire within her golden locks.
Eyes and Tresses 141
What color results from an azure fire burning in golden hair, perhaps the beauty doctors can tell. The description conjures a kind of Bunsen-flame vision. Shelley's poetry is full of "strings of yellow hair" and "braided webs of gold," but there is always something forbidding about them. He shows us the dead Guinevra, "and the worms are alive in her golden hair." He warns us of Lilith, the first wife of Adam :
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young man's neck,
She will not ever set him free again.
Tennyson's "Sweet girl graduates in their golden hair" are familiar to every one. So is his Cleopatra:
A queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, Brow-bound with burning gold.
This is a shade darker than yellow, but then we have
Faintly smiling Adeline With thy floating flaxen hair.
One of the most beautiful pictures in Tennyson is that of the barge bearing the body of Elaine:
The dead Steered by the dumb went upward with the flood — In her right hand the lily, in her left The letter — all her bright hair streaming down.
Who can ever forget that pallid face and stream- ing hair as depicted by Toby Rosenthal? "A golden hair, with which I used to play" exclaims King Arthur to guilty Guinevere, and well he might, for it was that hair which ensnared Launcelot.
Swinburne is a connoisseur of hair. Here is one of his pictures:
142 The Lantern
Such long locks had she, that with knee to chin She might have wrapped and warmed her feet therein. Right seldom fell her face on weeping wise; Gold hair she had, and golden-colored eyes.
It would be unfair to overlook our own ''Miles O'Reilly" singing the praises of Janet's hair:
It was fair, with a golden gloss, Janet, It was finer than silk of the floss, my pet; 'Twas a beautiful mist, falling down to your wrist; 'Twas a thing to be braided and jeweled and kissed; 'Twas the loveliest hair in the world, my pet.
Why this universal fondness of poets for Hght hair? It is one of the mysteries of verse. Yet a study of paintings will reveal a similar predilection among artists. One reason may be that black hair is merely black while fair hair, in the Hght of the poet's fancy, takes on ever varying hues. It has one tint by sunlight and another when the moonbeams play upon it. In the alembic of imagination it is transmuted from amber to gold and from gold to flame.
No doubt this preference for blondes followed the poets into private life. If we could prove that their wives were generally fair-haired, two modern facts would be explained. The scarcity of good poets and the decline of blondes would be as cause and effect.
AMERICAN HUMOR
By An Englishman
There are a great many books about Wit and Humor. Hobbes thought one laughed because one felt superior ; Bergson thinks that the comic is always the animate imitating the mechanical ; and Kant thought something else, I forget what. The last treatise I read was by the German Professor Freud, who appeared anxious to prove that wit and humor are a kind of sexual perversions. But I still do not understand what they are, and I have something better to do than make my head ache by attempting to invent satisfactory, or even unsatisfactory, de- finitions of them. If it is difficult to define wit and humor, it is equally difficult to discriminate precisely between the humor of one nation and the humor of another. There certainly are differences. But prob- ably there is no special form of joke that can be ap- preciated by every American and by no Englishman, or vice versa. And there is a great deal of American humorous writing which might have been done by Englishmen. We are accustomed to think of our humor, at its best, as a quieter and wiser thing, urbane and sympathetic. But Washington Irving and Holmes are (subject matter apart) as English as Lamb, if those are our qualities ; and many other Americans, in some ways very Transatlantic (O. Henry and Twain), are masters of the richer and deeper humor as well as of the other sort. Bret Harte's Condensed Novels^ again, might have been written by a very restrained European parodist. And when Thoreau said that "the profession of doing good is full," and Ambrose Bierce defined a bottle-nose as **A nose fashioned in the image of its Maker," their mots were in the traditional European mould. There are, however, kinds of humor in which the Americans have specialized ; the body of American humorous literature is as peculiar as it is extensive.
144 The Lantern
We have had practitioners in dialect and humorous bad spelHng; but there is a difference between them and Josh BiUings, Artemus Ward who invented the '•goak," and Mr. Dooley. We have had humorous travelers, but they are not like Mark Twain. Where
lies the difference?
* * *
American humor, of the distinctively American sort, gains something from the peculiar flavor of the American dialect. There was a man who traveled in a sleeping car on a railway. During the night he was annoyed by vermin, and he wrote to the head- quarters of the company to complain. He received back from the administrative head a letter of im- mense effusiveness. Never before had such a com- plaint been lodged against this scrupulously careful line, and the management would have suffered any loss rather than cause annoyance to so distinguished a citizen as, etc., etc. He was very much delighted w^ith this abject apology. But as he was throwing away the envelope there fell out a slip of paper, which had, apparently, been enclosed by mistake. On it was a memorandum: "Send this guy the bug letter." One need not explain how this joke gains from the peculiarity of the language. (It has in- cidentally another feature which is traditionally a characteristic of much American humor — namely, laconicism. All nations have their laconics ; but brevity has always been a popular cult in the U. S. A. A typical example both of this and of an equally common habit of allusiveness is the remark of the Yankee at the Zoo, who, for the first time in his life, saw a giraffe. He looked at it long and hard, and then observed: "I don't believe it.") The language does give a tinge to American jests: and, naturally, an even more important element is the sum of Amer- ican social conditions and history. The unique cir- cumstances of American life are directly responsible for some of the striking things about American humor.
American Humor 145
A noticeable thing about American humor — one doesn't mean merely the efforts of a few prominent humorists — is the range it covers. Few things are sacred, and few are too serious to be jested about. Cutting loose from Europe and all its traditions (the breach here is rather closing up than widening), and living in a new country, where the normal life was adventurous and changeful, and anything might turn up at any moment, the American developed a curious detachment. With this came a philosophic whim- sicality, which treated everything lightly and saw everything on the comic plane. We in Europe have all sorts of taboos. We are serious about many things ; and if we are serious about a thing we do not (unless we are exceptional people) jest about it. The normal American humorist jests about every- thing (however strongly he may feel about it) from his wife downwards. He will even make jests about millionaires, a thing which to most Englishmen seems shocking. If you detach yourself sufficiently from things, everything on earth will appear a little comic, as indeed it is. This habit of standing outside things has been general in America. W^hen Artemus Ward wTote his letter to the Prince of Wales : "Friend Wales — You remember me. I saw you in Canady a few years ago. I remember you too. I seldom forgit a person .... Of course, now you're married you can eat onions," he was not merely the Repub- lican being familiar with the royal prince: he was doing what he would have done to the head of his own state. Even a Republican Englishman would probably have been slightly shocked by such ir- reverence. It was an American, again, who dis- covered that "the cow is an animal with four legs, one at each corner." As a scientific fact this, I need scarcely say, had been long known : but it took a new pair of eyes to see it precisely in this way.
A European of Mark Twain's abilities and position would scarcely have written his book about the Court
146 The Lantern
of King Arthur. We have too many inhibitions. They are great and small. But the American habit of putting remarks in a whimsical, humorous form, whatever they are and whatever the occasion, is so widespread that one often finds Americans of the most sober and humorless kind putting things humor- ously out of sheer force of national habit. An Eng- lish employe, giving his employer notice, will either
say that he cannot stand this place any longer
or else apologize in an eqibarrassed way for causing inconvenience. The American is more likely to come up with a normal expression and observe, "Say, Doc, if you know anybody who wants my job, he can have it." Everything is susceptible of humor ; and the more extravagant the humor, the better. Amer- ican humor is, strictly speaking, pervasive. The lec- turer who announced on his programme that he was "compelled to charge one dollar for reserved seats because oats, which two years ago cost 30 cents a bushel, now cost one dollar ; hay is also one dollar 75 cents per cwt., formerly 50 cents," was carrying his systematic high spirits into a place where few British entertainers would have thought of being funny. It all springs from the state of mind which led, some years ago, to the formation of Smile Clubs, institutions that no other people would have dreamed of. Jocosity is the best policy.
There is an American story about a man who invented a pneumatic life-saving device, to be at- tached to the body when jumping from a window during a fire. He announced an exhibition test. He sprang from the top of a skyscraper, and then "he bounced and bounced and bounced until we had to shoot him to save him from death by starvation." There is another about a dispute between two fisher- men as to the relative size of fish in their respective waters. Smaller fry having been catalogued, one man said that he once, when after very large tarpon, got a whale: to be met by the blase repartee, "In my
American Humor 147
State, sir, we bait with whales." And there is an- other (where it comes from, I forget), about two brothers who went out hunting- with two rifles and a single bullet, and brought the bullet home after kill- ing a hundred head of buffalo. Their method was this. They were very crack shots ; and they used to stand one on each side of the doomed beast. The bullet was fired by one brother, went through the victim, and was received by the muzzle of the other brother's rifle. An Englishman, hearing these stories, would know where they had come from. W^e can appreciate them, but we do not as a rule make them. We illustrate the qualities of men and things by tell- ing lies about them, but we do not tell such thumping big ones. Our fishing stories are only slightly over the borders of the credible ; a foolish person might be taken in by them: the American ones are such lies that narrators have no hope that even the most innocent will believe them. This obvious difference between the usual American and the usual English method of treating a thing humorously may be il- lustrated by examples. Ten years ago or so the Lon- don, Chatham and Dover Railway reached its nadir, and all British humorists were making jokes about the slowness of the trains. Some of these jokes were, for us, fairly drastic : the summit of achievement was reached, I think, by a report that a cow had met its death by charging an L. C. D. express from behind, and that the directors, at an emergency meeting, had decided to place cow-catchers at the rear end of all trains. But try to imagine what would have been said had the London, Chatham and Dover Railway been in America. The most luxuriant of our con- ceptions would have been feeble compared with the miracles of metaphor that would have been coined to show the extraordinary slowness of those trains. In American descriptions they would not have gone at a walking pace, they would not even have crawled at a snail's : at their fastest the snails would have over- taken them, and mostly they would positively have
148 The Lantern
gone backwards so that passengers would be com- pelled, aiming at a certain destination, to board trains ostensibly proceeding in the opposite direction. Now I think of it, I do seem to remember something about a cow boarding a train and biting the passengers. This delight in giving the extra turn of the screw that destroys the last shred of verisimiHtude for the sake of a fantastic effect is to be seen everywhere in American humorous writing, and one may take an illustration from the other side at random. Mr. Stephen Leacock's description of how he tried to borrow a match from a man in the street will do. The account throws light on a common experience, and the various stages of the man's struggle with his pockets and production of toothpicks and other articles from his coat-tails whilst his parcels fall all round, might have been done by an Englishman. But in the end he cannot help rounding it off by a piece of sheer gusto that would scarcely have occurred to anyone but an American. Full of compassion at the would- be match-lender's state of desperation, the author puts an end to his suffering by throzving him tinder a tram — that is to say, a ''trolley car." Mr. Leacock happens to be a Canadian and not a citizen of the United States. But in this regard they share the same
tastes and the same habits.
* * ♦
In fact, as has been said ten thousand times be- fore, they love Exaggeration. All little American communities in the old days had Characters of whom they were proud: and the Character was almost al- ways an abnormal Exaggerator or Vituperator — which comes to the same thing. He was a man with a fine flow of the extravagant or the grotesque ; in other words, a Champion Liar. The pleasure that such artists take in their work is the pleasure of the fantastic embroiderer or the mediaeval carver of gargoyles. American essays in the Preposterous are of various sorts. Continually one gets the mon- strously absurd simile, or the mild overstatement of
American Humor 149
a single fact. All American funny men make a practice of this. It usually becomes a habit with them ; they state everything in this form. Mark Twain's ordinary level is typified by "Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there isn't any real dif- ference between triplets and an insurrection" — which is rather tired and mechanical.
O. Henry, a writer who is far more than a jester, was very good in this way. One may quote from his account of the mayor who was lying ill in bed, with what seemed a grave stomachic complaint : "He was making internal noises that would have had everybody in San Francisco hiking for the parks." I suppose one is forced to explain, for the benefit of the forgetful British reader, that the population of San Francisco lives in dread of earthquakes. But the more admirable kind of invention is the Impos- sibility upon a larger scale ; the calculated and nicely- worked out mendacity which, in proportion to its gross incredibility, is worked out with the highest attainable degree of simplicity and gravity, the frank- ly absurd story which is told you as the state of the weather or your grandmother's health might be told you. In the perfection of this species we have,
I think, the finest achievement of American humor. * * *
Max Adder's famous account of the poet who was engaged to write In Memoriam verses to go in the obituary column of the local paper and brought the mob of infuriated parents down upon the editor's head is an early approach to this style. It is mon- strously impossible : but it is conducted with a con- siderable amount of restraint. Later authors have gone further in the self-suppression which eschews the incidental auctorial intervention or flamboyance of phrase for the sake of the whole story. Mark Twain frequently did this sort of thing with great circumspection. For instance, the dialogue with the chief of detectives in The Stolen White Elephant.
150 The Lantern
The detective wants to know what the missing animal usually eats :
"Now, what does this elephant eat, and how much?"
"Well, as to what he eats — he will eat anything. He will eat a man, he will eat a Bible — he will eat any- thing between a man and a Bible."
"Good — very good indeed, but too general. Details are necessary — details are the only valuable things in our trade. Very well — as to men. At one meal — or, if you prefer, during one dav — how many men will he eat, if fresh?"
"He would not care whether they were fresh or not; at a single meal he would eat five ordinary men."
"Very good; five men; we will put that down. What nationalities would he prefer?"
"He is indifferent about nationalities. He prefers ac- quaintances, but is not prejudiced against strangers."
"Very good. Now as to Bibles. How many Bibles would he eat at a meal?"
"He would eat an entire edition."
"It is hardly succinct enough. Do you mean the ordinary octavo, or the family illustrated?"
"I think he would be indifferent to illustrations; that is, I think, he would not value illustrations above simple letter-press."
"No, you do not get my idea. I refer to bulk. The ordinary octavo Bible weighs about two pounds and a half, while the great quarto with the illustrations weighs ten or twelve. How many Dore Bibles would he eat at a meal?"
"If you knew this elephant, you could not ask. He would take what they had."
"Well, put it in dollars and cents, then. We must get at it somehow. The Dore costs a hundred dollars a copy, Russian leather, bevelled."
"He would require about fifty thousand dollars worth — say an edition of five hundred copies."
"Now that is more exact. I will put that down. Very well; he likes men and Bibles; so far, so good."
That is businesslike ; that is sober realism. Given the leading idea everything is related with complete propriety. The elaboration of it was clearly a labor of love to its author.
He sj; ^
A more modern instance is Mr. Ellis Parker
American Humor 151
Butler's Pigs is Pigs, a short story which may or may not have been published in our country. A pair of guinea pigs are transported from one town to an- other by an express delivery company. An obstinate official insists in charging thirty cents a head on them, the rate for pigs ; an equally obstinate consignee re- fuses to pay more than the twenty-five cents due on pets. Pending agreement the guinea pigs are left in the office. The man-in-charge writes to head- quarters about it, and causes great bewilderment by mentioning two animals in his first letter, eight in his second and thirty-two in his third. The struggle con- tinues (an enormous bill for cabbage leaves being run up) until the office is one large ranch of hutches and the guinea pigs number very many thousands. The man has only to step (or rather creep, for there is little space) into the street for five minutes, and on his return he finds that there are a hundred more. This story is told with perfect composure : there is only one joke in it, and that is the w^hole story. The efifect of this kind of thing is the effect of parody. It is parody of life and close to the humor of Butler's Erezuhon. No one can equal the American humorist at it. The Americans — I use the word in the most complimentary sense — are the Greatest Liars in Cre- ation.
* * *
Professor Leacock, in his essay upon American Humor says : ''Essays upon American Humor, after an initial effort towards the dignity and serenity of literary criticism, generally resolve themselves into the mere narration of American jokes and stories. The fun of these runs thinly towards its impotent conclusion, till the disillusioned reader detects be- hind the mask of the literary theorist the anxious grin of the secondhand story-teller." How untrue that is ; and how unfair.
* * *
In order to get back on him for his gratuitous
152 The Lantern
malice, I shall steal from his Literary Lapses, a final example of his great gift of making an idiot of him- self. He sets himself to consider whether or not the bicycle is a nobler animal than the horse.
I find that the difference between the horse and the bicycle is greater than I had supposed.
The horse is entirely covered with hair; the bicycle is not entirely covered with hair, except the '89 model they are using in Idaho.
In riding a horse the performer finds that the pedals in which he puts his feet will not allow of a good cir- cular stroke. He will observe, however, that there is a saddle in which — especially while the horse is trotting — he is expected to seat himself from time to time. But it is simpler to ride standing up with the feet in the pedals.
There are no handles to a horse, but the 1910 model has a string to each side of its face for turning its head when there is anything you want it to see.
Coasting on a good horse is superb, but should be under control.
I should like to hear Professor Freud's views on the hidden implications of this.
THE MAN WHO WAS NINETY- NINE
By John Higgins
Into the little room where Mehaul Rnadh lay dead for all the world to see, the sunlight poured like a spray revealing its dusty dinginess. The four wax candles, tormented by a steady beam, threw up a languid, forlorn flame as if ashamed of their ar- tificiality. Occasionally, with an effect of abandoned restraint, they shot up yellow and smoky, throwing momentary shadows across the impassive pallor of Mehaul Ruadh with his haggard fingers entwined across a brown habit and his crazy halo of hair. Mehaul Ruadh, brushed and combed, looking far cleaner in death than he was wont to do in life ! Mehaul Ruadh, who for the prestige of his daughter and his own memory might have had **Aged 100 years" inscribed on his breastplate if he had not been ungracious enough to die with only one month to go. There was no sense in upsetting calculations like that. A century of life gives a sense of dis- tinction, a smooth round-ofif completeness. Ninety- nine is a fine praiseworthy age, but ninety-nine years and eleven-twelfths of a year is neither fish, flesh nor fowl.
As if under penalty each woman as she came to gaze on his cadaverous senility, with a fine air of finding nothing fearful in the dead, commented with a sympathetic simper on his peacefulness. Prolonged practice in the etiquette of wakes produces an ap- propriate sort of self-deception and ascribes to rigid- ity, toothlessness and decay an attribute of attrac- tion. A few words of condolence with Mehaul Ruadh's daughter, a stony middle-aged matron with black lines of weariness under her expressionless eyes, and the good-natured women subsided into committee to discuss the hardness of the times, their domestic worries, their neighbors in respectful under- tones.
154 The Lantern
But the expressionless woman moving among them Hke her own ghost, sharing out cake or wine or snuff, responding mechanically to their queries with a limp used-up languor that passed for sorrow, was not deceived. In her tired brain there was com- mingled a mixture of remorse and ecstasy, strained dutifulness and relief so real and engrossing as to dwarf the realities into a confusion of shadowy figures and impersonal voices — one should be sorry for one's own father. Heaven and earth, yes ! What was the meaning of grief at all if it did not exist with the spectacle of a lifeless parent? How did one betray grief? Swimming eyes, tears, sniffling, be- ing carried away with swollen livid features. A king's ransom would not have purchased a tear from her. Crazed apostrophes, hysterics? — no. She wasn't mad. She felt a sense of abasement, of abandon- ment, of being beyond a pale, as it were, in the face of her filial defects. Why was she not like other women before the clay of their fathers, honestly and genuinely overcome? For the fortieth time she re- cited the sordid details of how Mehaul Ruadh in one of his rare recurrences of sanity called querulously for a cup of tea, and unexpectedly died before the cup could be raised to his lips. From the subdued little mob of voices odd fragments of gossip en- croached on her introspection like tiny jetsam beached from a flood.
*'A great age! The people now are different." "Four-and-sixpence a yard, I thank you." "A chumour or something the doctor called it." *' — and not a sinner to ask him if he had a mouth on him."
"Miss him! Yes! — but isn't it a relief to her?" Ah ! there was a sensible woman now. Mehaul Ruadh's daughter looked with a gleam of in- terest at the venerable crony nibbling a biscuit on the understanding that it was out of question to stretch over for another. She would miss him — the bony, dishevelled spectre crouched in the corner with
The Man Who Was Xinety-nine 155
his febrile ravings, his helplessness, the mummy-skin setting for his little eyes. Miss him surely — but with relief. All the virtues become strained and placid under the pressure of ugly monotonous domesticity — love, respect, honor. Why, Mehaul Ruadh was only part of the day's work. She — but a superstitious stab of terror strangled down the pagan discovery that she hated her father. A Christian to hate a father! She did not hate Mehaul Ruadh, that is to say — but —
And the dark nights when she lay awake listen- ing to his crazy maundering with folk long in their legitimate clay, and his falsetto cackle that always brought on a tumult of coughing — she would miss all that. An expansive yawn caught deftly in the palm of her hand testified to an instant's luxurious an- ticipation of undisturbed nights without end. No more uneasy slumbering, no more tortured wakeful- ness and lying in the dark with Mehaul Ruadh's incessant gibberish to raise up fancies of ghosts and wandering souls ! No more clumsy cooking before dawn, no more struggling with his wayward wits, no more rough-and-ready ministering, no more shift- ing and stirring, no more cruel burning flashes of anger arising from her bodily stresses and overborne cajolery when in the black loneliness she could have choked the whimpering whine in his throat, when the fact of a father seemed like the curse of pos- session ! Henceforth her nights would be great tranquil gifts of forgetfulness. The very illusion of that thin mumbling would only intensify the delicious contrast. How she would lie back drowsily in com- plete abandonment to the exquisite numbness of her senses — oh ! what was she thinking about ? Pull her- self together! What would these people say if they knew what was passing in her mind? Were they so unlike her after all? All their placid benevolence was only a sham, perhaps. Under cover of their monot- onous primness and unruffled outlook might there not be a lurking place for the forbidden impishness that
156 The Lantern
proclaimed things ugly that were ugly, that knew the devil when he appeared? She had a blurred vision of life as a living lie, as a freakish reversal, as a mantle of years worn wrong side out. Her mouth drooped with eloquent impressiveness at the forty-first recital of the tea incident.
In the small overcrowded kitchen with its un- necessary fire, there was an atmosphere of sweatiness and discomfort. The smoke of a dozen pipes hung like a rank omen about the rafters until pinioned by a chance draught it dived doorwards, and was rent by the breeze. Sprawling on the table, huddled into corners or sitting precariously two to a chair, the men sustained a haphazard conversation, but ever with a consciousness of the respect due to a dead man and a dead man's daughter. One only enjoyed the privilege of an entire chair, a busy man with a ponderous watch chain and a steaming forehead. He had a sonorous, reassuring voice, a comfortable dog- matic sort of personality, and a way of answering questions suggestive of a judge summing up strongly against a murderer. Even if his overflov/ing plump- ness did not entitle him to a whole seat, anything falling one iota short of the exact definition of a chair would be almost lese majeste to a man who read the papers, knew the Scriptures and was never beaten for a homely recipe. The masterful boom of his voice that had the faculty of compelling silence and at- tracting attention expanded into the room in the single word — "nonsense."
The passionless woman blinked herself into taking interest with a pitying afterthought for the bushy owner of the voice. Just as big a fool as the rest of them ! His bulky complacency would never im- pose on her again as wisdom. He was healthy, well- to-do, he had an obedient wife and children. His philosophy had never known the test of endless vigils at the bedside of an unreasonable, ghoulish old man. She figured him on the kitchen floor ostentatiously
The Max Who Was Nixktv-nine 157
wise and gesticulating, rolling out unequivocal scraps of information.
''Nonsense! Cohumrilles' prophecy — a humbug, a myth !"
How much of his mellifluous wisdom was a myth? How many lies went to the making of an orderly, respectable life — how many deceits and self-de- ceptions, stamped down inquiries, how much capable pretense ? Eh ! Mustn't think like that, no. Of course, the man was right and she was wrong. They were all right. And yet —
The passionless eyes dilated under the shock of a sudden discovery. They were like the eyes of a startled rabbit. She was dead, too. Dead — only not in the way Mehaul Ruadh was dead.
''Dear, dear!" said a meek woman softly, noting the eyes, "Oh, the sorra!"
A momentary shadow traversed the room as a little group passed by the window outside, bearing the coffin. Just in time. The forty-second recital of how Mehaul Ruadh's pupils whirled aloft under his eye- lids would be spared her. Four of the name to carry the coffin to the hearse — that was right. A Chris- tian desire that everything should go off well agitated her. With the rest of the women she was bundled out of the room. She had to begin the forty-second recital after all.
"He asked for the tea just as ever — Oh! here they come."
"Don't now — don't," said her companion. But there were no tears.
Slowly the procession moved up the laneway and turned to climb the hill. As it reached the summit it would be possible to count the vehicles. One, two, three — she didn't expect that car to be at her father's funeral. There was bound to be an ap- propriate reference to the size of the procession in the local paper, she thought, tabling off the units in her mind.
158 The Lantern
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
"Don't torment yourself at that door," said the old woman allotted to remain with her. "Away now."
Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five.
At her father's funeral — twenty-five cars. Fancy ! One by one the spectral candles were snuffed out. Twenty-five cars. The white bed had an eloquent emptiness and the pillow curved to the shape of Mehaul Ruadh's head recalled her fancies. She yawned freely, luxuriously.
"It's a queer thing," she whispered to the silence, "for a woman not to shed a tear for her father."
WHY THE MILKMAN SHUDDERS WHEN HE PERCEIVES THE DAWN
By Lord Dunsany
In the Hall of the Ancient Company of Milkmen, round the great fireplace at the end, when the winter logs are burning and all the craft are assembled, they tell today, as their grandfathers told before them, why milkmen shudder when they perceive the dawn.
When dawn comes creeping over the edges of hills, peers through the tree trunks, making wonderful shadows, touches the tops of tall columns of smoke going up from awakening cottages in the valleys and breaks all golden over Kentish fields, when go- ing on tip-toe thence it comes to the walls of London and slips all shyly up those gloomy streets, the milk- man perceives it and shudders.
A man may be a milkman's apprentice, may know what borax is, and how to mix it, yet not for that is the story told to him. There are five men alone that tell the story, five men appointed by the Master of the Company, by whom each place is filled as it falls vacant, and if you do not hear it from one of them you hear the story from none, and so can never know why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.
It is the way of one of these five men. graybeards all and milkmen from infancy, to rub his hands by the fire when the great logs burn, and to settle himself more easily in his chair, perhaps to sip some drink far other than milk, then to look round to see that none are there to whom it would not be fitting the tale should be told, and looking from face to face and seeing none but the men of the Ancient Com- pany, and questioning mutely the rest of the five with his eyes, if some of the five be there, and receiving their permission, to cough and tell the tale. And a .2:reat hush falls in the Hall of the Ancient Com-
160 The Lantern
pany, and something" about the shape of the roof and the rafters makes the tale resonant all down the hall so that the youngest hears it far away from the fire, and knows, and dreams of the day when perhaps he will tell himself why the milkman shud- ders when he perceives the dawn.
Not as one tells some casual fact is it told, nor is it commented on from man to man, but is told by that great fire only and when the occasion and the stillness of the room and the merit of the wine and the profit of all seem to warrant it in the opinion of the five deputed men : then does one of them tell it, as I have said, not heralded by any master of ceremonies but as though it arose out of the warmth of the fire before which his knotted hands would chance to be; not a thing learned by rote, but told differently by each teller, and differently according to his mood ; yet never has one of them dared to alter its salient points, there is none so base among the Company of Milkmen. The Company of Powderers for the Face know of this story and have envied it, the worthy Company of Chin-Barbers, and the Com- pany of Whiskerers ; but none have heard it in the Milkmen's Hall, through whose walls no rumor of the secret goes ; and, though they have invented tales of their own. Antiquity mocks them.
This mellow story was ripe with honorable years when milkmen wore beaver hats, its origin was still mysterious when white smocks were the vogue, men asked one another when Stuarts were on the throne (and only the Ancient Company knew the answer) why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn. It is all for envy of this tale's reputation that the Company of Powderers for the Face have invented the tale that they too tell of an evening, "Why the Dog Barks when he hears the step of the Baker;" and because probably all men know that tale the Company of Powderers for the Face have dared to consider it famous. Yet it lacks mystery and is not ancient, is not fortified with classical al-
Why the Milkman Shudders 161
liision, does not teach wisdom, has no secret lore, is common to all who care for an idle tale, and shares with 'The Wars of the Elves," the calf-butchers' tale, and 'The Story of the Unicorn and the Rose," which is the tale of the Company of Horsedrivers, their obvious inferiority.
But unlike all these tales so new to time, and many another that the last two centuries tell, the tale that the milkmen tell ripples wisely on, so full of quotation from the profoundest writers, so full of recondite allusion, so deeply tinged with all the wisdom of man and instructive with the experience of all times, that they that hear it in the Milkmen's Hall, as they interpret allusion after allusion and trace obscure quotation, lose idle curiosity and forget to question why the milkman shudders when he per- ceives the dawn.
You also, O my reader, give not yourself up to curiosity. Consider of how many it is the bane. Would you to gratify this tear away the mystery from the Milkmen's Hall and wrong the Ancient Company of Milkmen? Would they if all the world knew it and it became a common thing tell that tale any more that they have told for the last four hun- dred years? Rather a silence would settle upon their hall and a universal regret for the ancient tale and the ancient winter evenings. And though curiosity were a proper consideration yet even then this is not the proper place nor this the proper occasion for the tale. For the proper place is only the Milk- men's Hall and the proper occasion only when the logs burn well and when wine has been deeply drunken; then, when the candles were burning well in long rows down to the dimness, down to the dark- ness and mystery that lie at the end of the hall ; then, were you one of the Company and were I one of the five, would I rise from my seat by the fire- side and tell you, with all the embellishments that it has gleaned from the ages, that story that is the heirloom of the milkmen. And the Ions: candles
162 The Lantern
would burn lower and lower and gutter and gutter away till they liquefied in their sockets, and draughts would blow from the shadowy end of the hall strong- er and stronger till the shadows came after them, and still I would hold you with that treasured story, not by any wit of mine, but all for the sake of its glamor and the times out of which it came ; one by one the candles would flare and die, and when all were gone, by the light of ominous sparks, when each milkman's face looks fearful to his fellow, you would know, as now you cannot, why the milkman shudders when he perceives the dawn.
TlieodorelBMffietadBdwarti ''^^
■-• - —
// is better to search for the truth of what concertos us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for September, 1917
REFLECTIONS ON TEUTON CULTURE
By THEODORE F. BONNET
THE POETRY OF SAN FRANCISCO
By EDWARD F. ODAY
DR. FABER-S LAST EXPERIMENT
(A Story) By CONTAMINE DE LATOUR
ON SPENDING TIME
By NORMAN KEITH BOOK ENDINGS
By THE BOOKWORM HOST (A Poem)
By A. WICKHAM
Single Copies, 15 Cents
$1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
i/p^ Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is p5 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipi^ received the first Gold Medal awarded by the American Museum of Safety for the ''Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention/* and at the San Francisco Exposition, 191 5^ received the Grand Prize, the highest azuard, for Safety First Appliances, as well as for Raihvay Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Power.
Travel via Southern Pacific
5043 Phones Douglas 5044-
''In a Class by Itself
The GR ANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 September, 1917 No. 6
Reflections on Teuton Culture
By Theodore F. Bonnet
The jar of war has shaken many a smug philo- sopher out of his fat-headed self-esteem and not a few of the plain people into a clearer sense of the Philistinism of learning and the magnificence and mystery of life. The war with all its devastation will probably be found to have been worth while, especially in the self-satisfied Central Empires where there was a little too much reverence for a pseudo- science concerned with academic problems and the modes of the day, where also there was lack of per- spective among scholars and artists and consequently a fatal excess of seriousness. Hence the stage in Germany and Austria was seen to be largely oc- cupied with social problems and current ideas, or at least more given to their discussion than to any other subject. It was there Ibsen's mantle was commonly believed to have descended.
The impression of universal culture must have been unavoidable in a country where subsidized theatres abounded in the vestibule of which one might study the portraits of Ibsen, Tolstoi, Strind- berg, Hauptmann, D'Annunzio and Shaw. These names, learned critics told us, were household words. Germany had no writers like Meredith or Chesterton or Anatole France to distract attention from the main business of playgoing. In literature the dialogue was the thing. Even Hofmannsthal, a poet, threw all his work at random into theatrical form. In Germany before the war the theatre was the ultimate shrine of national art. And the theatre
164 The Lantern
had little genuine comedy — mainly farce. Only in Bavaria with its Catholic impatience of pseudo- intellectualism was there found a saving- sense of humor — the humor of Ludwig Thoma, chief pillar of the journal Simplicissimus, a representative of the Bavarian spirit. With all the defects of his qualities he was at least sensitive to the legitimate objects of ridicule — the police, the bureaucracy, the Court.
It was in this atmosphere of pedantry peculiar to Germany, where a passion for the theatrical made banality of sentiment seem profound, that the scholarship of a Freud was much admired. It is of Freud that I would speak, one of his books having arrested my attention, one of more than ordinary significance. This book — Freud's study of Leonardo Da Vinci — is hardly a volume for bachelors and maids; in the majority of its pages, indeed, is not a book even for sophisticated men of sensitive nature. To be quite frank it is a book that plumbs the depths of nastiness. It is revolting, disgusting.
"Why review it then?" perhaps you will ask. Be not alarmed, I'm not reviewing it. I'm not competent to review it, having but read paragraphs here and there.
Do not misunderstand me, dear reader; I am not trying to intrigue anybody's interest in the book; and that nobody's curiosity may be edged I will give this solemn assurance that the book cannot possibly have any interest for any but a diseased mind or a mind made curious, as mine has been, by certain phenomena of the times. It is not an obscene book in the sense that it appeals to the prurient, which it does not. It would not appeal to the students of the erotic in literature ; neither to lovers of Boccaccio nor lovers of droll stories of any kind, whether the more piquant ones from the oriental tales that Burton translated or the yarns of Petronius who wrote the Satyricon. It is a book
Reflections on Teuton Culture 165
apart that only a novelist like Edgar Saltus might read in sober search of salacious book material but hardly without the possibilty of being turned aside and bored or worse, as was the case with one scien- tist I know, one schooled in the very science that Freud exploits. Hence the book's significance as a study of the times in Central Europe, according to my way of thinking notwithstanding the fact that it was translated by an American — A. A. Brill, Ph. B., M. D., lecturer in psychoanalysis and abnormal psychology, New York University. It is to be in- ferred that Brill was deeply impressed by Freud, but we know that American professors who studied in Germany were impressed by Kraft-Ebbing, and took it for granted that his best known work was a very serious, scientific study. Now this may in- deed be the truth respecting Freud's Leonardo Da Vinci. For Freud is the great Dr. Sigmund Freud, L. L. D., of the University of Vienna who, rather than his book is herein a subject of discussion, the intention being to direct attention through him to a school of thought which had its origin among the dry-as-dust pedants of Central Europe long before the war, the disciples of which have been propagat- ing their neurotic philosophy all over the world.
Freud is Bernhardi in another guise. He is typical of the egotistic seriousness of German writers and philosophers. The reasoning that supports the argument of the work on Leonardo is of precisely the quality that marks the Machiavellian philosophy of German diplomacy. It has something of the repellant naivete of an unmoral woman who preens herself on the superiority of her unconventionality.
As none but a person steeped in Teuton philo- sophy could seriously advance the arguments of Bernhardi, so only a scientist of the school that begat Freud would take it for granted that the raw inclinations of his lopsided individuality might be accepted as a test of normal human instincts. Hence A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence.
166 The Lantern
Such is the sub-title of Freud's work on Leonardo. Here may be found science in its most dogmatic and unscientific mood, the science from which the intel- ligentia of diverse peoples have derived their views on the importance of revolt against routine and unconventionality in the management of marital af- fairs. Here is science made in Austria busying itself with an analysis of the psychology of an "infant's reminiscence," and drawing therefrom the most extraordinary conclusions as to the child's in- herent sexual tendencies. The whole object of this profound study made by a scholar eminent among scholars in Austria is to prove that the infant in question was a congenital pervert.
It happens in this case that the infant became the greatest genius of the Renaissance. His was a genius so extraordinary that his powers might seem to mark the superman. So far above the genius of the world's intellectual giants was Leonardo that to essay an analysis of his emotions would seem to be only less presumptuous than to expound cocksurely God's way His wonders in performing. But Professor Freud in a fine burst of egoism tackles the job with supreme self-confidence, ac- cepting all his own premises with the bland assurance that explains the geometrical problems of the Mar- tians. And the result is an arresting revelation of the Viennese mind under high cultivation.
A little ashamed of his convictions as to the sexual abnormality of Da Vinci the distinguished psychologist introduces his study with a plea in extenuation or rather in exculpation. "When psycho- analytic investigation," he says, "which usually con- tents itself with frail material, approaches the great- est personages of humanity, it is not impelled to it by motives which are often attributed to it by lay- men." He adds: "It does not strive 'to blacken the radiant and to drag the sublime into the mire ;' it finds no satisfaction in diminishing the distance between the perfection of the great and the in-
Reflections ox Teuton Culture 167
adequacy of ordinary objects." In short the psy- chologist's motive in psychoanalytic investigation is always sweetly scientific, never induced by a per- sonal curiosity in the vagaries and appetites of sex. Yet we find Professor Freud striving to support a theory of Leonardo's innate taste for abnormal practices in sexual intercourse.
Now the point we would make is that Freud's study of Leonardo is of less importance than the study Freud afifords of himself. Professor Freud is one of the intellectual personalities peculiar to his day and generation. He is in a sense peculiar to the intellectual atmosphere of certain academic circles whence Kultur is disseminated throughout the Teutonic communities of Central Europe. To that Kultur may be attributed a state of mind char- acteristic of a philosophy which has led to an in- comprehensible attitude toward the business of life and the relations of men generally. We know the logical consequence of this philosophy in the affairs of nations. Let us see what might be the logical result in the affairs of men were the mental opera- tions of a Freud to be universally accepted as quite rational and normal. There is certainly a hint as to this result in the book under discussion, and this book it should be remarked is not exceptional in a country where pedants have been spending much time for a score of years in expounding the mys- teries of sexual passion.
Dr. Freud's thesis, it appears, was in a large measure inspired by what Leonardo once wrote of what Freud calls an infantile reminiscence. Leonardo told of an experience in his cradle of which he had a very early memory. Freud says it was but a phantasy which Leonardo "transferred to his child- hood ;" a phantasy about a visit from a vulture. Now a phantasy as it was, Freud the great scientist must give forth much heavy vaporing on the sub- ject. He tells us that what a man does not under- stand of his "memory remnants" conceals "invaluable
168 The Lantern
evidences of the most important features of his psychic development" and that "psychoanalytic tech- nic affords excellent means for bringing to light this concealed material."
And so "we shall venture to fill the gaps," says Freud. And he does, giving us a long dissertation on the vulture as viewed in fable by the ancients, at the same time appealing to the reader to restrain his indignation and to lend an unprejudiced ear "to psychoanalytic work," which, he proudly assures us, has not yet uttered the last word.
Here is science analyzing an ancient fable that Leonardo may never have heard of in order to bear out what Freud himself, inadvertently perhaps, al- lows us the privilege of designating as his "pre- conception" of what he describes as Leonardo's "sexual activity." What we actually know of this activity Freud confesses is very little. However, says Freud, it is "full of significance;" quite as full perhaps as the cradle phantasy. What we really know of Leonardo is that he was chaste to a degree, that he was a man of ascetic temperament given to arduous and successful scientific and mechanical investigation when not engaged on his paintings and sculptures. Freud himself says that Leonardo's investigations extended over all realms of science, in every one of which he was a discoverer or at least a prophet or forerunner, but the great scientist adds : "observation of daily life shows us that most persons have the capacity to direct a very tangible part of their sexual motive powers to their pro- fessional or business activities."
Thus you see it is not easy to escape the science of a psychoanalyist. A dangerous thing to combat is the preconception of the Viennese mind, especially when it does not scruple at pursuing a theory with- out regard to the most tender considerations and in utter disregard of the holiest and most sacred re- lations of life.
One may not even hint at the unspeakable con-
Reflections on Teuton Culture 169
victions of this famous scientist who has been trans- lated in an American university and applauded by our magazine writers. Doubtless I will be told (so important is the printed word in the opinion of zealous purveyors of knowledge) that convictions are the most sacred things in the world and the diffusion of them in their variety essential at all times to the welfare of the world, and therefore that it is absurd to gag at Freud or to deprecate the publication and translation of his views. Well, at least one may hint at the character of his science and the basis of his convictions, which, appropriately enough, was the vulture-headed goddess Mut of the Egyptians, a figure of altogether impersonal char- acter— half male and half female.
It is to the Egyptian pantheon that the great Freud leads us that we may study the origin of the smile of Mona Lisa del Gioconda, the smile that has haunted four centuries and in which wise men like Walter Pater have seen lurking all the subtle wonder of the ages. "She is older than the rocks among which she sits," says Pater; "like the vam- pire she has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave." One of her secrets the scien- tist of Vienna has learned. The smile of La Gioconda no longer bewilders him. It suddenly dawned upon him "that only Leonardo could have painted this picture, as only he could have formed the vulture phantasy." How lucid! I wonder if the suggestion came from Pater's mention of the vampire. "This picture," says Freud, "contains the synthesis of the history of Leonardo's childhood," and the scientist returns to Pater, the word-artist, to bear out his theory. According to Freud, Pater saw in the picture "the entire erotic experience of modern man, but as a matter of fact Pater says that "but for express historical testimony we might fancy that this was but his ideal lady, embodied and beheld at last." The triumph of art was achieved, according to Freud, because of a "kindlv nature which bestowed
170 The Lantern
on the artist the capacity to express in artistic productions his most secret psychic feehngs hidden even to himself." He expressed these feehngs in many paintings, Freud would have us believe. Freud has read the smile before, a fixed smile in pictures that have perplexed many spectators but not Freud, pictures that "breathe a mysticism into the secret of which one dares not penetrate."
In Freud's peculiar eyes the pictures are androgynous, the figures "gaze mysteriously trium- phant, as if they knew of a great happy issue con- cerning which one must remain quiet; the familiar fascinating smile leads us to infer that it is a love secret."
Surely Freud has not been quiet. He has inter- preted a smile for us along scientific lines, in har- mony with the general spirit of the science, philo- sophy and literature prevalent of late years among the people who gave us Nietzsche and the wonderful Strauss.
THE POETRY OF SAN FRANCISCO
By Edward F. O'Day
It is remarkable how many poems have been written about San Francisco. A San Franciscan who makes a collection of them has two hundred and sixteen separate pieces, gathered without much difficulty, and is confident that labor will turn up many more. In making his collection he excluded rigidly all poems which were not concerned directly with San Fran- cisco and San Francisco Bay ; in his anthology there are poems of place only, no f>oems of persons : poems dealing with San Franciscans are numerous, but they are outside his scope. Another condition which set limits to his collection was this : he accepted only those pieces which, in his opinion, deserved to be called poems. There are tons of doggerel dealing with San Francisco, but he would have none of it. He ignored the trashy songs which have been written about his city both before and after the vogue of ragtime. He overlooked nine-tenths of the fugitive poems about San Francisco which have appeared in San Francisco newspapers from '49 to the present day. Neverthe- less, he has collected two hundred and sixteen poems, and is sure he can collect many more. Is not this a remarkable showing for a city which has a history of only sixty-eight years?
I do not know of any collection of poems about New York or Boston or Philadelphia or Baltimore. Certainly, splendid collections could be made of the poetry celebrating these historic cities. The great American poets whose names are known the world over would be represented in such collections. Yet it may be said without boasting that the poetry written about San Francisco is worthy of comparison with the poetry written about these famous old cities of the Atlantic Coast. The poetry of San Francisco, taken in the mass, might have to yield precedence to the poetry written about these four cities ; yet the
172 The Lantern
comparison would be a respectable one just the same. And when it came to comparing individual poems, it would be found that several celebrating San Fran- cisco had no superiors in American poetry of urban inspiration.
Excluding New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, I think investigation would show that com- pared to other big American cities which have been sung by poets San Francisco is first and the rest far behind. Chicago is a city more than four times as large as San Francisco and at least eighteen years older; she has inspired a multitude of money-makers, a scant handful of poets. A collection of poems about Chicago would not be large, and the tone of the poems would not be pleasant to Chicago ears. The American cities which, on account of their size, are usually mentioned with San Francisco, also show a dearth of poetical celebrators. St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo — what sort of poetical anthology could be compiled for any of these? Let local pride answer as best it may.
The flashing names on the roll of San Francisco's singers are Robert Louis Stevenson, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, Charles Warren Stoddard, Edward Rowland Sill, Ambrose Bierce, Ina Coolbrith and George Sterling. After these come poets of whose tributes any city would be proud: Edward Pollock, Louis Robertson, Bliss Carman, Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Witter Bynner, John Vance Cheney and Edwin Markham. In the next rank are found Daniel O'Connell, Herman Scheffauer, Clarence Urmy, Sam- uel J. Alexander, Lionel Josephare, Charles Keeler, Nora May French, Ella Higginson, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, Clinton Scollard, Gelett Burgess and Wal- lace Irwin. Bringing up the rear is a throng of sweet singers some of whose names and poems are not as well known as they deserve to be.
I have placed Stevenson first on the list because his is the best known name of all. A year ago nobody
The Poetry of San Francisco 173
knew that R. L. S. had celebrated San Francisco in verse. There is no poem about San Francisco in his collected works ; as far as I know, there is no poem about any resident of San Francisco in his collected poems, although a San Francisco doctor is specially and honorably mentioned in the dedication of Underivoods. Within the last twelvemonth, how- ever, the Bibliophile Society of the United States printed for its members two sumptuous volumes of poetry by R. L. S. which came as a complete sur- prise to Stevensonians. To San Franciscans the gem of this new collection was the poem "Beside the Gates of Gold" written in 1880 when Robert Louis was in California, poor and ill. That poem contains a tribute to the San Francisco friends who made his dark days light.
But in the anthology of San Francisco poems (when it comes to be compiled), Bret HarteV famous "San Francisco: From the Sea" must have the place of honor. The first two lines:
Serene, indifferent of Fate, Thou sittest at the Western Gate
drop glibly (usually in misquotation) from the lips of hundreds of San Franciscans. Yet one finds few who are familiar with the entire poem. This is too bad, because Bret Harte in this poem expressed cer- tain bitter truths which it is not salutary for San Francisco to forget. It is an antidote for the sugared poison purveyed by poetastical promoters in their dithyrambs about "the city loved around the world." We may accept the truth from our poets, and when he penned "San Francisco: From the Sea" Bret Harte was doubly a poet, for he was poet and seer. In only two other cases that I remember have the singers of San Francisco been severely critical : Ambrose Bierce in his "Vision of Doom," and Nicholas Vachel Lindsay in his "City That Will Not Repent." In "Vision of Doom" Ambrose Bierce in- dulged his most pessimistic vein; the poem is a
174 The Lantern
great poem, but it touches San Francisco on the raw. It is one of the things for which Bierce will not be forgiven by the people of San Francisco when the world finally acclaims his genius and his townsmen rediscover his Shapes of Clay. Lindsay's poem is an indictment disguised as a compliment. To Lindsay 'Frisco (as he is not afraid to call her, being happily ignorant of one of her provincial weaknesses), is a Phryne, or rather, a Thais for whom there is no Paphnutius. This poem does not displease San Fran- cisco : she knows that Eastern investors do not read poetry.
One may almost hazard the statement that the best poems about San Francisco have been written; that the poets to come will not celebrate her as splendidly as did the poets of the past. It will be noticed that all the poets of San Francisco whom I have placed in the first rank are dead, with the exception of Ina Coolbrith and George Sterling. (I assume, and not unreasonably, that the voice of Ambrose Bierce has been stilled forever.) Stevenson, Bret Harte, Miller, Stoddard, Sill and Bierce have had their glorious say about the city they loved; what Ina Coolbrith and Sterling may write hereafter may enhance their reputation, but will not surprise their admirers. Great new poets will undoubtedly arise in San Francisco, but the city is growing so fast, is taking on so rapidly the conventional ways of the ordinary American metropolis, that perhaps it will be as little celebrated in their poetry as the New York of the twentieth century or the Chicago of any time.
Did we not know that the enthusiasm of the young poet renews the interest of themes seemingly ex- hausted, we might conceive that the future poets of San Francisco would decline to sing her glories for the reason that nothing remained to be said, that the ground had been traversed till all its freshness was gone. And certainly, the poets have been very thorough in their treatment of the city. Take only the best known San Francisco poems of Bret Harte,
The Poetry of San Francisco 175
Miller, Ina Coolbrith and Sterling. Besides his "San Francisco: From the Sea," Bret Barte wrote "The Angeliis" in celebration of the bells at the Mission Dolores; he wrote of Lone Mountain and North Beach ; he told once and forever the beautiful love story of the San Francisco heroine Concepcion de Arguello. Joaquin Miller sang of the Seal Rocks and the loves of the seals, he sang of San Francisco Bay, he chanted of dawn at the Golden Gate and of sunset at the beach ; years ago he stood "beside the mobile sea" and prophesied of the glorious future of San Francisco, and more recently (in a poem whose title testifies to his lack of Latin — "Resurgo San Fran- cisco") he acclaimed the grandeur-to-be of a city just rising from the desolation of April, 1906. Ina Coolbrith has put into imperishable numbers the beauty of San Francisco at morning and at evening: she has celebrated Telegraph Hill and her beloved Russian Hill and Alcatraz : she too uttered her paeans for the old and the new San Francisco. George Sterling has enriched the annals of San Francisco by singing "The Homing of Drake" and the coming of Portola : he has celebrated Market street by night ("the Path of Gold") and in two poems of perfect beauty, "The Evanescent City" and the "Exposition Ode" he has perpetuated San Fran- cisco's greatest achievement, her matchless World's Fair.
San Francisco has had two expositions of im- portance : her Midwinter Fair was of local import- ance only; her Panama-Pacific Exposition was a world event. Strangely enough, the holding of a World's Fair in San Francisco was foreseen by one of San Francisco's poets long before even the little Midwinter Fair was thought of. The poet-seer who had a dream which he did not live to see realized was an eccentric genius named Robert Duncan Milne. His "Dream of the Golden Gate," a beautiful poem which would have claimed attention from the lovers of poetry even though its forecast had not come
176 The Lantern
true, was published about 1890. The Midwinter Fair, several years later, prompted a San Fran- cisco youth of seventeen to try his 'prentice hand at verse. His lucubration was published in a San Francisco newspaper under the pseudonym of Jonathan Stone. It was of sufficient interest to challenge the attention of that discerning critic Ambrose Bierce; Bierce summoned the youthful singer and persuaded him to sign his proper name to all future efforts. And so Herman Scheffauer (for he was Jonathan Stone) started author. The great World's Fair of San Francisco impelled many sing- ers to utter themselves. A bulky book of World's Fair poems might be compiled ; it would be for the most part a volume of intolerable dreariness. But in the midst of the paste diamonds George Sterling's two gems of purest ray serene would shine out in blinding splendor.
To run through a collection of poems about San Francisco and note their titles is to realize how much material for authentic poetry has been dis- covered in one small peninsula and its surrounding waters. The Bay of San Francisco with its chang- ing colors, its cloud effects, its fishing craft, its sea gulls and its islands has commanded the en- thusiasm of singers from Edward Pollock, San Francisco's first poet, to the youngest minstrel just breaking into the local magazines. To poets as to painters the hills of San Francisco have made ir- resistible appeal. Not alone such historic landmarks as Lone Mountain, Telegraph and Russian Hills and Twin Peaks and Sutro Heights have been celebrated but also those humbler eminences that to city-dwellers are no longer hills but merely "grades." The streets of the city — Market and Powell particularly — have had their bards. Chinatown has been interpreted by the poet's as well as the water-colorist's and the photographer's art. The far-famed restaurants — Coppa's, Luna's and others — have been sung with gusto. Bret Harte celebrated the opening of the old
The Poetry of San Francisco 177
California Theatre in verses worthy of that British poetical tradition associated with Drury Lane and Covent Garden; a later singer mourned the passing of the Tivoli. The beloved fog of San Francisco has been defended by poets as well as by real estate boomers. Lotta's Fountain lives in verse. And the memorial to Stevenson in Portsmouth Square has an anthology all its own. Bliss Carman journeyed from afar to sing of the Stevenson Memorial ; but most appealing of all the poems inspired by this monument so dear to all San Franciscans is "The Little Bronze Ship" by W. O. McGeehan who doesn't set up as a poet at all, but is a true one for all that. It goes without saying that one of the most popular subjects with the poets of San Francisco is the Golden Gate; on the other hand, it will surprise most people to learn that Golden Gate Park has been avoided or overlooked by most San Francisco poets. So let the young poet who would be num- bered among the singers of his city seek his theme in that wonderful garden.
Poets all over the United States sought to express the meaning of San Francisco's tremendous disaster of 1906. It is not to be wondered that the dis- tinctively San Francisco poets succeeded best of all. The poetical honors of 1906 belong to Louis Robert- son, Edwin Markham, John Vance Cheney, Herman Scheffauer and Nora May French. Fully a score of vaticinating poets rebuilt a grander city before the ashes of the old were cold ; Joaquin Miller and Ina Coolbrith wrought without the aid of the poor over- worked phoenix, but that is not the only reason why their poems on this subject will live.
In San Francisco the most unlikely person may turn poet. There is Lorenzo Sosso. Once upon a time he was a waiter in the dead and gone Good Fellows Grotto, and could serve a planked steak as well as another man, if not better. But Lorenzo had a soul above steaks. While he cried "Draw one !" his thoughts were with the Muse. Many of his
178 The Lantern
best poems were written on the back of yesterday's menu while the cook was French-frying potatoes or dropping the infrequent oyster into the pepper roast. After a while the waiter-poet began to attract at- tention, and awed customers of the Grotto were afraid to insult him with tips. He published several volumes wherein close-packed verses marched in double column through hundreds of pages. And some of them are very good poems. When the air of San Francisco makes a knight of the napkin sing, who shall wonder that this remarkable city should intrigue the Muse of an Ella Wheeler Wil- cox? Yes, Ella too has written of San Francisco. Because her subject was so good, her San Francisco poem is just a little above her average. Obviously, a San Francisco anthology would contain some unexpected names. However, three that might be looked for will not be found: Bayard Taylor, Helen Hunt Jackson and Richard Realf.
When the San Franciscan who loves poetry is asked about the poems about San Francisco he loves best, it is not always a volume by one of the major singers he plucks from the book shelf. It may be that he turns to Samuel J. Alexander, most passionate of San Francisco's devotees ; it may be that he quotes you Lawrence W. Harris's "Damndest Finest Ruins ;" it may be that he opens a little leather book and recites the "Ballad of the Hyde-street Grip" by Gelett Burgess ; it may be that he rollicks through Wallace Irwin's one and only "Telygraft Hill ;" or it may be that he calls your attention to the too little known "Low Brown Hills" of Ella Higginson. There are so many of these poems about San Fran- cisco, and so many of them have a way of singing themselves into the inmost heart !
DR. FABER'S LAST EXPERIMENT
By CONTAMINE DE LatOUR
When Doctor Faber had convinced himself that his young wife Graziella was really dead, he turned to his two disciples, Jan Felds and Sven Grobbe, who had followed all the phases of the last agony.
"You have witnessed my efforts to save her," he said, "you know that I have used every means pos- sible to human science. I can do no more at present ; every effort must be bent upon arresting the normal change, the change inevitable to physical matter. But later, when decay has been prevented, I shall make a supreme experiment. If that succeeds man will have triumphed over death. If it fails I shall have given one more proof of the vanity of human pre- sumption.
"Go your way; forget that I am on earth. Re- turn to this laboratory one year from tonight. The door may be shut. In that case force it. Enter, and judge my results by what you find."
The two young doctors vanished, and in the last hour of the dying year Faber was left alone with his dead in the silence and the shrouding shadows.
Junius Faber was in his forty-fifth year. He had acquired fame by the boldness of his doctrines and by the audacity of his works. The prodigious re- sults of his experiments had opened new horizons to science.
Starting from the transformist principle, he denied the reality of death, and, recognizing in the final dis- integration nothing but a new series of the evolutions of material life, he had applied himself to discern the infinite and multiple elements, and to isolate and study their causes and effects, in view of forcing them to follow his treatment and to obey his will.
Fiber by fiber, and atom by atom, he held the formula of the flesh. He could destroy and recon- stitute the most delicate tissues, recompose the divers
180 The Lantern
organs, and give artificial life to the remnants of the dead. He had awakened brains separated from their cranial cases. He had caused to beat hearts drawn from their thoracic depths. He had given circulation to arteries tied off from the venous sys- tem. The scientific world owed him for operations reputedly impossible and for experiments of un- speakable temerity.
Some of his work was as inexplicable as miracles. His success was the enigma of the Academy of Sciences.
But all his science had failed to save Graziella; although for her, a girl eighteen years old, he had won fame from the unknown and wrested marvels from the grave.
It was known that Faber's wife was dead ; but there had been no funeral and no coffin had been carried from the house.
In the first weeks that followed the death, Faber's efforts had been bent to the task of averting de- composition. By reactions and by means of power- ful antiseptics he had kept the flesh of his beloved lifelike; and by aid of electric currents he had estab- lished a faint semblance to circulation of the con- gealed blood and to the flutter of the pulse in the alabaster wrists.
By means of the respectful admiration of the work- ers in the clinic he had secured the first choice of the subjects of the dissecting rooms; and more than once since the passing of his wife the dead had come to his laboratory in canvas bags.
Graziella had died of slow consumption. Faber had extracted the lungs, mined by tuberculosis, and in their place he had grafted the lungs of a woman dead from accident. He had cleansed the organism of his wife of all its noxious germs, and had eHm- inated all its ills.
And now, as the alchemists leaned over their crucibles watching for symptoms of transmutation, so he waited and watched. That a slow, an almost im-
Dr. Fader's Last Experiment 181
perceptible, change was in progress, he knew ; and, tortured by mingled terror and assurance, he noted the slow growth of his unnatural grafts, and with quickened pulses watched the laborious affirmation of solidity, hesitant, still uncertain, in the undeniably precise adaptation of the transferred organs, and in their progressive incorporation into the general action of the survival.
All the incisions had closed. The skin was acquir- ing its naturally delicate color. The girlish breast was beginning to obey obscure respiratory impulses. Faber felt that suppleness and warmth were return- ing to the inert members. The little nostrils of the childish nose exhaled a hardly perceptible moisture.
Faber passed his hands over his eyes as if to clear his vision. He stiffened his lithe body and looked closer, to prove to himself that he was not deceived.
Talking to himself slowly and distinctly, making carefully ordered gestures to assure himself that he had not lost his reason, he made sure that he was in full possession of his senses. He told himself that it was true; that the superhuman work that he had undertaken was in normal reasonable progress ; that the body of Graziella was returning to the sources of life.
Faber opened his note book. He had reached the last page — the minutes of the last lesson to be given to the world. The work begun when Graziella died was about to carry his bold doctrines to their apogee.
He locked his laboratory and, going out into the black air of the Paris winter, presented his haggard face to the assembled doctors of his school. Months had passed since he had come among them. All knew the secret of his absence. The two men, Felds and Grobbe, had warned the world of science that the master was at work upon one final supreme effort to annihilate the power of death.
His face was bloodless, the fire of determination burned in his deep eyes, and his voice rang with assured triumph. "What is life, gentlemen?" he
182 The Lantern
asked, fixing his intent gaze upon the eager students. "Nothing but the external, material manifestation of the movements and faculties of the thing we call the soul! .... And what is the soul? It is im- ponderable fluid which penetrates all bodies and fills all space.
"By means of that fluid the heat waves, and the light waves, which serve as intermediaries between spirit and matter, are transmitted. That fluid is the universal force, or power; the same cosmogonic in- telligence that ancient science recognized in the in- visible order of nature.
"It is the god Cneph of the Egyptian priests. Paracelsus called it 'the brain of God.' It is Reichen- bach's 'astral light.' The soul of man is nothing but that part and parcel of the force that is in all that lives !
"To capture that force, to assign it to an aim, to reintegrate it in the physical body from which it has evaporated, is to do the appointed work of science.
"Can that appointed work be done?
"I answer: Yes, it can be done; it shall be!
"We have an example in that other vehicle, the vase, which is the type and symbol of the physical body. The air which fills the vase is a portion of the ambient atmosphere. If we break the vase, the air escapes and joins the atmospheric mass. If we reconstitute the vase, the air again fills it and con- tinues its participation in the general evolution. In the same way the association of the divers elements composing the electric pile causes the spark to show itself, and the spark, canalized by the transmitting wires, forces action in the apparatus directed by it. When the elements of the pile are disassociated the spark is abolished; when they are reassociated the spark jets out anew.
"So it is with the thing that we call the soul. When matter ceases to be fit to hold the soul, the soul abandons it. If the same material envelope that held the soul is rendered fit for habitation, a soul — the
Dr. Farer's Last Expi-::ument 183
first one that dwelt in it, or another — may be com- municated to it. The communication of a soul to a physical body may be obtained by means of an in- tensification of magnetic power. In point of fact magnetic power is an emanation or reflection of the soul — force. The phenomena of hypnotic suggestion and of spiritism, the rule of minds by other minds, the displacement of inanimate objects under the in- fluence of psychic radio-action, and the transmission or transference of thought, are nothing but proofs of the faculty which is under the impulsion of the individual while, at the same time, it is outside of him. Understood aright this is a simple fact. It is the only secret of the Thaumaturgus of the Middle Ages."
His lecture ended, Faber returned to his laboratory. He sat for an hour in the dim light, deep in thought.
It was the closing night of the old year. The place w^as silent : not a sound penetrated the thick walls. Suddenly he remembered the day and the hour. The time appointed for the return of Felds and Grobbe was at hand!
Faber arose, lighted all the lusters, side and center, and approached the slab where Graziella lay as if asleep.
Fiercely authoritative, he stood before her; his desperate will in the shadows, wrestling with her soul. On him alone, on the power of his determina- tion, hung the issue into life. With the bells tolling the requiem of the departing year, with the chimes announcing the coming of the New Year, they would enter, Felds and Grobbe, to find her dead, — or to find him master of the mystery !
He concentrated his will in the projection of his magnetic fluid.
"Grazia, arise! Come forth!"
He fixed the forces of his tortured brain on the execution of his order, and again issued his com- mand:
"Grazia, come forth!"
184 The Lantern
During the twelve months of his unfaltering effort there had been hours together when he had lost the sense of his individuality, when all around him had whirled, when he had been conscious of dull crack- lings in his brain ; when the surrounding space had been stirred by the displacement of invisible but solid forms. And now, in the hour of approaching triumph, it seemed to him that the corpse of Graziella swirled as if entering the maelstrom of Infinity.
For the first time he had a perception of the mean- ing of his results. By his own will he had separated the vital principle of his being from that being; and, as a result, his life was drifting onward to the gulf of death.
He had expended all his vitality in his struggle with the inertia of dead matter!
A cry burst from his lips ; he staggered and fell.
When Felds and Grobbe entered the laboratory they found a dead man, Faber, and an idiot, Graziella, gibbering, shivering and showing her white teeth.
ON SPENDING TIME
By Norman Keith
Those only who have little time to spend, can to the full enjoy the luxury of dissipating it. Your leisured person is encumbered with the weary hours, and deliberates how he shall shed them. Like the millionaire he is surfeited with his wealth and cannot know the delight of living at the rate of ten days of the week — with an ''end" in the middle.
Your connoisseur tastes the moments as they leave the hour glass with a special joy. Each tick of the clock lessens the chance of meeting the man whom destiny has marked out to make your fortune, each tick increases the pleasure — and the pace.
Maybe, you overstep the limit, — the capitalist with that churlish regard for punctuality that marks the man without temperament, closes his doors on the inspiration of your genius, also his check book and leaves you "in the discard."
What matter, there are other capitalists! Monied persons are plentiful as gooseberry bushes. But the man who, having to catch the last train or face the wrath to come, — dallies with his drink, discourses on the many brilliant things that we remember so perfectly at night, and forget so completely in the morning — where shall we find his like, if in the stress of competition his joy of life goes out?
Not only has the spendthrift of the moments the joy extravagance invariably brings, but allied with the satisfaction of an hour mis-spent is the license the pastime aflfords to the imagination.
"Home late, my dear?" said a leading light of financial circles, holding tightly to the hat rack in the hall, under the mistaken impression that it was the bed rail. "Late! I've been working hours and hours, my dear, and when at length I thought I had got free of the eternal grind, I met MacWirtle on the very threshold of the office. He wouldn't listen
186 The Lantern
to my going, but thrust me back into the cold, bare board room, where I sat until my blood ran chill."
The contrast between the glittering halls of the gilded saloon where the financier had watched the possibility of his last train recede into the distance and the cold board room that he conjured up was an inspiration of genius that he could never have attained in the ordered atmosphere of a well-regulated day and neatly apportioned night.
Think of the ecstasy that comes to him who, hav- ing worked for years on the completion of an elaborate invention, learns at last that the man and the hour have arrived who will finance and appreciate him! Your ordinary unemotional individual turns up at the nick of time. Your spendthrift knows better how to manipulate himself. He issues mani- festos by special messenger, telephone or wire ex- plaining the impossibility of turning up at the mag- nate's premises within an hour, two hours, three hours of the appointment, thereby sending his value up fifty per cent. I knew a man who earned an income by the extravagant expenditure of his time. His invention consisted of a silent typewriter, which though evolved in the recesses of his genius, never took shape or form. The idea fascinated business men and capitalists alike. Krinkong had appoint- ments innumerable, with greedy millionaires eager to pick his brains and try his typewriter. What happened? The inventor outwitted them all. They simply could not get him to their offices, and were finally impelled to send to his lodgings in a remote street an opulent motor car charged to convey him then and there to an interview! Even there the astute Krinkong was not done. He stopped at all his creditors — the grocer who had ''groced" for him for years, accumulating rights of patents never pro- mulgated— half a right for a pound of butter, a tenth for a quarter of tea ; the tailor who had chalked up a suit of tweeds under the spell of Krinkong's eloquence concerning an aeroplane fashioned after
On Spending Time 187
the figure of a man and designed to advertise the triumph of the tailor's sartorial skill. At the finish, the inventor fixed up a retainer of three pounds a week, during such time as he was completing the typewriter ; he is completing it still !
Your true artist never hurries when arriving late, never apologizes, inevitably makes no reference to the object of his call, and after a due and proper interval gives an oblique reference to some untoward happening that detained him en route. He never explains or indulges in detail.
"Business of the most pressing, the most vital nature alone would have kept me," is the opening phrase of one of the most persuasive and eloquent of time spenders.
''Such, my dear sir, is the condition of nerves to which my arduous life reduces me, that I assure you, my dear sir, I positively assure you, I tremble at a street car."
The trembler in question has a constitution of sheet copper, is never hurried, and always has his hands full.
For, and this point is one to be insisted on, the man who spends time with a free hand has little of it to spare. He is continually up against it, and (dmbarks each morning on a race in which he in- variably wins. He spends all the time in this week and the week after, and will continue to overdraw his account to the end.
'There is no real necessity" — can you hear the awful voice that summons you from the tavern — "to wait until the last moment. You know when your train goes; surely it is quite simple to catch it."
Not nearly so simple, if the lady only knew it, as to lose it. Man's gambling instinct is roused by the keenness of the chase. A quarter to twelve — that means you will just do it, if you jump on a street car you'll get to the station in good time. Fatal v/ords, the zest for the sporting chance in- duces a last five minutes. The clock ticks, the glasses
188 The Lantern
circle round, and it's a taxi to the train and heavy odds against your catching it.
"Lost the train, my dear?" asks an aggrieved voice. "Not much. Got held up in the fog, and had to wait for hours and hours. Thought you heard a taxi stop? I do like that. Why look at me, I'm all over mud, wading through this beastly road. A dry night? Oh, nonsense, it's been raining lots since you turned in,"
One has the keenest appetite for spending time, when, as at the present moment, one should be writing "copy." Why not, why not buck up and get it done? The sooner your work is over the sooner you can go home with plenty of time to spare. The very words strike chill. What a desolate life, what a dull world with plenty of time to spare. One talks best, thinks most clearly under the whip of time.
Your regular routine man never lights up at the chime of the clock, never rushes off on a "joy ride" or climbs to the heights of heaven seeking the bright- est star.
And then the sense of power and plenty, the magnificence of spirit that descends upon you like a mantle when you spend the time you owe to some base capitalist who never filched a moment from his scheduled day, or spent a glorious luncheon when he should have been addressing a meeting of up- roarious shareholders.
Augustus Ledevain was perhaps the most prodigal of any man I ever knew in spending time. Him have I seen hold up the traffic while he discoursed on men and things, and while he talked six feverish financiers hungered for him. He never hurried, he never flurried, the stream of his conversation flowed like a limpid river. So lavish was he of his days and nights that he refused to spend the energy neces- sary to the proper arrangement of his papers. In- evitably he never turned up at his office, but having the capacity and talent inseparable from a generous
On Spending Time 189
temperament, men of business ran him to earth in his flat, bearing important documents, specifications of patents, particulars of properties for his consider- ation. These papers Ledevain could never find. There would ensue a spirited scene on the morning of the day when an important option expired. Augustus seated in a box-like arrangement termed a vapor bath, would blandly smile upon an infuriated company promoter. "You will find the option under the leg of the table in the dining room. Not the table? My dear friends, I mean the dinner wagon." It was no use to protest, grumble or revile. Lede- vain was content to smile upon the outraged option monger, patent agent or promoter and give his views upon the social revolution. He was always arrang- ing a week-end in the country, and never got farther than the railway station, but he derived so much satisfaction and delight over the spending of time en route that, as a witty Irishman rem.arked, 'Tt is better to have lost the train than never to have gone at all."
Spending time is an art that some are born to, others acquire ; but having formed the habit never can it be broken. It is the final heritage of the dispossessed of which even capitalism cannot rob us. We may be penniless, and without shoes, denied the solace of drink and of tobacco, but the poorest of us possesses all the time there is, and, thank the Lord, have the spending of it !
BOOK ENDINGS
By The Bookworm
We are reminded by preachers and moralists that all things come to an end. This is as true of books as of life — even the longest ends at last — and in the chastened mood to which the reflection leads I have been looking up the concluding sentences of some famous books. Gibbon, of course, supplies the classic passage about the ending of books. 'Tt was among the ruins of the Capitol," so runs the last sentence of The Decline and Fall, "that I first conceived the idea of a v/ork which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which, however in- adequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the curiosity of the public." The passage describing his own emotions when he wrote that sentence has been often quoted, but, familiar as it is, few readers will object to seeing it once more:
It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last fines of the last page, in a summer- house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
In contrast with Gibbon, Milman ends his History of Latin Christianity with the rather tepid sentence: ''Christianity may yet have to exercise a far wider, even if more silent and untraceable influence, through its primary, all-pervading principles, on the civiliza- tion of mankind." Hallam, on the other hand, seems to have had Gibbon in mind when he wrote
Book Endings 191
the closing words of his Introduction to the Literature of Europe:
I here terminate a work, which, it is hardly necessary to say, has furnished the occupation of not very few
years The errors and deficiencies of which I
am not specially aware may be numerous; yet I cannot afifect to doubt that I have contributed something to the general literature of my country, something to the honorable estimation of my own name, and to the in- heritance of those, if it is for me still to cherish that hope, to whom I have to bequeath it.
Carlyle ended the address to the reader which closes his History of the French Revolution, with the words : *'Man, by nature of him, is definable as 'an incarnated Word.' Ill stands it with me if I have spoken falsely: thine also it was to hear truly. Farewell." In a letter to Emerson, he re- cords his emotion in taking leave of the book, in a manner that is a Carlylean echo of Gibbon:
You, I hope, can have little conception of the feeling with which I wrote the last word of it, one night in early January, when the clock was striking ten, and our frugal Scotch supper coming in! I did not cry; nor did
I pray: but could have done both A beggarly
Distortion; that will please no mortal, not even myself; of which I know not whether the fire were not after All the due place! And yet I ought not to say so: there is a great blessing in a man's doing what he utterly can, in the case he is in.
It is interesting to compare the conclusions of three famous French histories of the French Revolution. "The conclusion of this book is itself a book," says Michelet, and he promises his readers another volume which will allow him "through the past to anticipate the future." Thiers ends his history of the Revolu- tion with a statement of his own impartiality and good faith:
I have described the first crisis which prepared the elements of this liberty in Europe. I have done so without animosity, lamenting error, revering virtue, ad- rniring greatness, seeking to discern the profound de- signs of Providence in these wondrous events, and reverencing them when, as I have deemed, revealed.
192 The Lantern
And Lamartine characteristically concludes his History of the Girondins with a touch of rhetoric:
The history of the Revolution is glorious and sad, like the morrow of a victory and the eve of another combat. But if this history is full of mourning, it is full, above all else, of faith. It resembles an antique drama in which while the narrator gives his recital, the chorus of the people sings of its fame, bewails its victims, and raises to God a hymn of consolation and hope.
Before leaving the historians, I will quote the last sentence of Buckle's History of Civilization in Eng- land as an excellent summary of the thesis which the whole work maintains :
The handwriting is on the wall; the fiat has gone forth; the ancient empire shall be subverted; the do- minion of superstition, already decaying, shall break away, and crumble into dust; and new life being breathed into the confused and chaotic mass, it shall be clearly seen, that, from the beginning there has been no dis- crepancy, no incongruity, no disorder, no interruption, no interference; but that all the events which surround us, even to the furthest limits of material creation, are but different parts of a single scheme, which is per- meated by one glorious principle of universal and un- deviating regularity.
Examples of perfect endings are rare, though I have heard them claimed for writers as far apart as Plato and Laurence Sterne. Plato's Symposium ends with a fine passage too long to quote, and Sterne's Sentimental Journey with an equivocal situation. Swift closes A Tale of a Tub with the ponderous "Project for the Universal Benefit of Mankind," and he concludes The Battle of the Books with three row of asterisks, in this anticipating a use of that typographical device employed by modern novelists for another purpose. I have heard the last sentence of George Eliot's Middlemarch quoted as one of the finest passages in English literature:
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Book Endings 193
Had I to pronounce upon the best ending of a work, I should spHt my vote between two. One is the description of the situation of Adam and Eve in the concluding lines of Paradise Lost:
The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.
The other is the condensation of Voltaire's philo- sophy, which ends Candide — " 'Cela est bien dit,' re- pondit Candide, 'mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.' " Thackeray, who discussed the endmgs of books in an essay called De Finibus, is guilty of one of the worst in the whole range of fiction :
Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? — come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.
This is the ending of Vanity Fair, and could there be anything more deplorable, except, perhaps, the tiresome chapter that begins The Newcomesf Scott ends the first of the Waverley Novels with a dedica- tion, and the last of them, Castle Dangerous, with an intimation to "the gentle reader" that no more tales are to be expected from the same source. Dickens is fond of ending on the sentimental note, as witness Dombey and Son, Oliver Twist and David Copper- field. His postscript to Our Mutual Friend explains how he and the manuscript of that book were to- gether in a railway accident:
I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book:— The End.
To end with a writer not given to pathos, who ever read without regret the closing sentence in Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, where Dumas takes leave of his famous four musketeers?
HOST
By A. WiCKHAM
When I was host to my enemy
I set him a chair of state, I summoned a solemn company
And served him quails on gold plate. I pledged him courteous all the night, And this I did for spite.
There was little enough of my pride to see
When I was host to my friend. I set him a dish of hominy;
The feast came quick to an end. I said: 'Tt is here I have lost my skin,
Since I was a hardy fool. Then open your counsel, and let me come in
And school myself at your school."
With the blood of my wounds I pledged my friend,
And fitly I had proved, Before that grim carousal's end.
How courteous I had loved.
-^
Mted
r>
Theodore 1 3mmt and MvmA E OI^k
•A
I
// is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for October, 1917
A MAID TAKES SANCTUARY (A Poem)
By R. A. FOSTER-MELLIAR
RILEY'S CHILD-RHYMES
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
FUSELINE (A Story)
By LOUIS PERGAUD
THE WALL-PAPER (A Poem)
By EDMUND GOSSE
TRIVIA
By L. PEARSALL SMITH
SENTIMENTAL CONVERSATION (A Poem)
By VIRGINIA BRASTOW BABIES PASTELS
By LOUIS BERTRAND
Single Copies, 15 Cents
1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
iji^^ Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is 95 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipi^ received the first Gold Medal azvarded by the American Museum of Safety for the "Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention/* and at the San Francisco Exposition, /p/5, received the Grand Prize, the highest aivard, for Safety First Appliances, as well as for Raihvay Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Poiver.
Travel via Southern Pacific
5043 Phones Douglas 5044
''In a Class by Itself
TheGRANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
ppointed Billiard Room in the World
^'
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 October, 1917 No. 7
A MAID TAKES SANCTUARY
By R. A. Foster-Melliar
I.
Yon ask me if I love you as you love
Me ? No, not that ! Not as you love, love. What maid
Can tell man how much and how she loves
Him? I will try! For memory is fain
To see once more that strong, stern face of yours
Transformed to tenderness, fain, too, to feel
Encircling- arms that draw me to yourself
Until they hurt, and closer till their hurt
Is ecstasy, and breathless I would stay
For ever, shrinking- from the sundering
Of lips, for fear they tear, so fast they seem!
Thus first, it would appear, I loved you, sir !
11.
Next, too, I love — and here I love you best, When you shall hold me at arm's length oflF And look me full between the eyes, and break My will — the butterfly of sunny hours — Before the unyielding purpose of your own, Speaking reproachfully the words that cut Into my heart — I pray you never know How deep — yet gaze the while with loving eyes That heal the wounds your lips have made. So, Lord, I love you, so would have you crush me limb By limb, and tread me writhing 'neath the feet I kiss — alas ! how can you understand I
196 The Lantern
III.
Add this! Don't look, but listen! There's a time When in the gracious night — the night's at least My own, and kinder than the long-drawn day — I sleep, and dream, and wake, and waking, dream Your kiss has wakened me — you'd laugh to know How often thus I wake — and then, like some Blind girl who first beholds the light, and knows Not what it is, beyond the open gates Of that dear Paradise my heart would have Me enter, half afraid I stand, hearing The heavenly music of your soul. Oh ! tell Me, if you can, if this be love ; if so. So sacredly, with humbled heart, and high, Sweet notes that thrill the overwhelming bass, I share the magic melody that makes Your mastership of me — a thing divine.
RILEY'S CHILD-RHYMES
By Edward F. O'Day
Perhaps, g-entle reader, you saw this item of news in your paper:
Cleveland (O.), August 30. — "Some day I'll come back to you, little boy," said Lionel Thorogood, a naval militiaman, as he gravely returned the smiling salute of his three-year-old son, Donald, and said good-by to the boy and his mother here one day last April, before returning to his ship. Several hundred miles out in the Atlantic last Monday Thorogood was taking his turn at the watch on a United States battleship when the wireless brought him the follow- ing message:
"Your son, Donald, dead. Funeral Wednesday afternoon. Can you come?"
The captain of the battleship was appealed to. The battleship sent several wireless messages lo her sister ships in the vicinity. Soon a gray form ap- peared and the bereaved father was transferred to another ship. After a few hours a torpedo-boat was sighted and Thorogood transferred to his third ship. A port was reached and a taxicab rushed the father to a train bound for Cleveland. Another taxicab rushed him from the train to his home yesterday, one hour before the funeral took place.
Did your eyes grow misty when you read that? Did your heart give a quick warm throb?
Here is another item ; perhaps you saw this one also in your paper:
To find a missing grandfather was the task given the lost children department of the Park playground yesterday by a very excited juvenile, aged four, who said his name was Alfred and that he lived on "Our street." On being questioned, he said that grandpa's full name was Grandfather, that he lived at grand- ma's house "way ofiF," that he was very old, had long whiskers and funny teeth that he could take out of his mouth and that he had an overcoat and a big cane. He had left his naughty grandpa on a bench while he went to swing in the big swing and told him to stay there until he came back. When he returned
198 The Lantern
the bench was empty and grandpa had run away. A policeman brought the young man to the candy stand. Alfred instructed the attendant that if his grandfather should be found he should keep him. "Just give him a stick of candy and he will stay," said the boy. In spite of protests from the attend- ant and scorning the candy bribe himself, he was about to go and hunt for the lost grandfather when from the direction of the bowling green came a man with an overcoat and a big cane. "Here comes grandpa," cried Alfred.
It seems that the lost one had gone to see the other children bowl and had forgotten time and place and grandson. He was properly scolded and was in a chastened mood as he was led away.
With what sort of smile did you read that? Was it the careless smile of mere amusement? Or was it a sympathetic smile betokening an interest deeply intrigued ?
Let us not analyze too much. I can make my point without that. The point is, gentle reader, that the person to whom these two items of news make strong appeal; the person who does not forget them as soon as he has finished reading them, but makes a place for them in the treasury of his sympathies and takes them out from time to time to catch their inspiration of gentleness and kindliness, to memorize their lesson of the all-pervading sorrow and the universal sweetness of the world — this person is he to whom the child-rhymes of James Whitcomb Riley are a testament and a covenant.
There is a photograph of Riley taken in his de- clining years on the lawn in front of the famous home in Lockerbie street, Indianapolis. The poet is seated in the midst of children. There is a curly white puppy on his knees. He is reciting his child- rhymes to the children, and it is evident that he has an appreciative audience. Perhaps he is reciting ''Little Orphant Annie," perhaps 'The Raggedy Man," perhaps "The Happy Little Cripple." The true lover of Riley is a lover of all great literature.
Riley's Child-Rhymes 199
He knows that Virgil read the Aoieid at the court of Augustus Caesar, that Tasso read his Jerusalem De- livered to Lucrezia and Leonora d'Este, princesses of Ferrara, and that Shakespeare declaimed Hamlet at the court of Elizabeth. He has seen pictures of these great scenes. They do not impress him as does the photograph of the Hoosier laureate speak- ing to the heart of childhood. For the lover of Riley is more than a lover of literature : he is a lover of children, the poetry of God.
Like those other laureates of childhood, Francis Thompson and Stevenson, James Whitcomb Riley was childless. The high privilege of understanding child nature, of reading the undeveloped mind's con- struction in the tender face — a privilege withheld from no parents, but sometimes abused by thought- less parents and rejected by unworthy ones — this high privilege was Riley's, as it was Thompson's and Stevenson's, and he exercised it so assiduously and at the same time so reverently that it became a part of his second nature. Had not that vague phrase siihliminal consciousness lost its vogue, one might apply it to an incident in Riley's life which should not escape the attention of those serious folk who study telepathy. It is an incident which would sur- prise us had it happened to an ordinary person, but which fails to amaze when it is told of a poet, par- ticularly of a poet who loved children so much that surely he must have shared their preternatural sen- sitiveness.
One night Riley awoke with verses singing in his head. He got up and wrote them down. ''The best thing I ever did," he told Reginald Wright Kauit- man afterwards. The gentle reader may judge :
BEREAVED
Let me come in where you sit weeping, — ay, Let me, who have not any child to die, Weep with you for the little one whose love I have known nothing of.
200 The Lantern
The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used To kiss. Such arms — such hands I never knew. May I not weep with you?
Fain would I be of service — say something, Between the tears, that would be comforting, — But ah! so sadder than yourselves am I, Who have no child to die.
Riley was unmarried. He knew of no relative re- cently bereaved, no friend with a child seriously ill. The poem had sprung from a mind unworried ; there had been no brooding on this theme. Whence came the inspiration? Riley could not tell. But the next day he received a letter from his lifelong friend, his associate of the lecture platform, Bill Nye, announc- ing the death of his child. The youngster had died the night that the music of Bereaved sang Riley from his sleep.
Don Marquis who is himself a poet, has called Riley "this man with the childlike sweetness in his soul," and it is a true phrase. It is the clean of heart who know children best — that is why mothers are closer to their children than fathers are — and Riley shames too many poets by the cleanness of his heart as re- flected in the purity of his verse. "He believed firmly," says Bliss Carman who knew him well, "in the old-fashioned idea that there should be nothing in literature — in 'polite letters' — that could not be read in a drawing room." Undoubtedly that was one reason why children loved him: they knew him to be good and true. Children have natural theology, in- stinctive ethics. They are surprisingly quick to de- tect the accent of insincerity or hypocrisy — words which they do not understand. Because of, not in spite of their innocence, children can discriminate goodness from badness. If the reader would judge how it pains a child to learn that a loved one is not "good," let him review his own childish experiences and see if there be not there some instance of sorrow- ful, nay shocking disillusionment.
Riley's Child-Rhymes 201
In order to enjoy Riley's child-rhymes, one must surrender the doubtful advantages of age and be a child again. It is a wholesome harking-back. It is not always easily done: by the difficulty you have in returning to childhood you may estimate the distance you have traveled away from it. Some have gone so far that they cannot get back. This is a tragedy in their lives, but it is very likely that they do not realize it. But those who are able to hark back to the days of childhood enjoy many rare blessings, and among them is the privilege of enjoying these simple little poems of Riley's.
And what enjoyment they do yield! Does one ever outgrow the appeal of that solemn statement: "The gobble-uns '11 git you ef you don't watch out?" Does one ever tire of the Raggedy Man who knows " 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, and Elves, an' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers therselves?" And the Whing- Whang who whites his name in the sand with his tail, and the Gungs and the Keeks and all the rest of those harmless monsters who flourished in the "goo-goo days of the goblin-tongue."
The beauties of family affection which some novel- ists need whole books to portray, Riley illustrates once and forever in half a dozen simple, apparently artless stanzas. Take, for instance, that wonder- fully deep love which aunts and grandmothers have for little boys and girls. This love takes root when its object is in the cradle, grows with the years, and can never be destroyed. It is, of course, different from the love which parents have for their children. Sometimes it seems more beautiful than that mother or father love, but this must be an illusion. Read Riley's little poem "Old Aunt Mary's," and you will find this particular kind of affection not portrayed but suggested, and the suggestion is so strong that you will be touched, while wondering just what there is there to touch you.
You can retrace your steps over all the ground of childhood in Riley's poems. He puts into his verses
202 The Lantern
all the joys and all the sorrows, all the "niceness" and all the waywardness of little boys and little girls, but especially of little boys. At times he can be very poignant. Some people do not like the poem about the little fellow with "curv'ture of the spine." There is pain in it, but chastening pain. Riley faced the sad facts of life, and he helps us to face them. I think that many a mother must have found an outlet for her deepest sorrow by reading "The Little Coat.'* When Riley died all our poets did honor to his immortal fame. Among the tributes there is one by John Finley called 'The Last of the Hoosiers." The writer imagines Riley knocking at the gate of heaven. "The gate was opened by the Lord," and the angels spoke their welcome to him. And then there is this beautiful compliment which seems to leave a lover of Riley's child-rhymes nothing more to say:
Then spoke the Lord when they had ceased: "For inasmuch as you," said He, "Have sung your poems to the least. You've sung them also unto Me."
FUSELINE
By Louis Pergaud
Deep gloom and a slow-dripping thaw. But for the drip, deep silence.
A click, a swish of steel. A scream which scythed across the gloom ; which mowed the long swath of silence down ; which burst torrential on the void across the shattered flood-gates of the night.
The Marten Cat was caught.
The dainty, nimble Marten Cat; the brown-furred, white-frilled Marten Cat; the come-by-chance of last year's fickle pairing.
This night, as most nights, she had roamed afield; had left the moss-clad alder-stump in which she win- tered solitary.
The cold had come betimes. The migrants had long since winged south, in serried, wedged bat- tahons.
The food had dwindled, vanished. Fuseline, hun- ger-maddened, prowled nightly round the village.
More prudent than her kin, maybe, maybe less bold, she shunned the straw-roofed wheat-stacks, the holes and corners of the lofts, the cob-webbed, angled rafters.
Each morning found her snuggled in her nest, far from the village, far from Man.
Six moons had passed, since, with a moon abet- ting, she dragged her last hen-blackbird from its brood. Few birds remained within the forest border; and these were seasoned veterans, who clung, despite the snow, to their old haunts ; whose cunning, equal to her own, was proof against surprise.
A week of fruitless stalking, of biting, gnawing hunger-pangs, steeled her to her first raid on human dwelling.
Through broken tile, stuffed clumsily with straw, through chink, where dry worm-rotted beam shrunk from its mortared setting, she crept into the cowshed loft, thence down the hay-shoot to the ground, thence by a cat-hole to the whitewashed hen house.
204 The Lantern
Lightly she vauhed to the roost on which six melancholy birds drowsed with their legs crooked under them.
She slew them, every one.
A single cunning bite sufficed, a bite which loosed a jerk of blood. Her clawed feet pinned her victim down. She pursed her lips and sucked its neck. She dropped its limp, luke corpse when it was drained. Blood was good meat, good drink. Why trouble to tear bones apart, to mumble throbbing flesh?
Drunk with her meal, her white frill crimson- dotted, with matted fur, with belly like a drum, she homed unconscious of her tell-tale spoor.
Long hours she slept, and, in those hours, Fate spun her silent web.
Each night she grew more daring. She braved the shuttered houses of the village, within whose courts growled watch dogs tushed like boars. She braved the full moon's radiance, when Man lurked in his ambush armed, and spurt of flame, and thunder peal, brought to one luckless prowler death, to all that prowled a warning.
Often the night's excursion failed, consumed itself in wander-hours, aimless, monotonous wander-hours, past garden walls, through hedgerow gaps, up slop- ing thatch and tiling.
But one, a gloomy, moonless night, brought wel- come change of fortune. A sentinel star gleamed through a break of cloud, like candle twinkling from a cottage casement, and, in the dim half light of it, came Fuseline to the drain hole in the wall.
She passed down a clear avenue. The road was fenced about with littered bavins ; dried pea sticks of the year, whose darkened lines converged across the snow to the drain outlet. Within this lay an egg, a cracked egg, oozing yellow yolk. She leapt at it, and gulped it, and licked her stickled lips.
A great find that. Could there be more ? All night she nosed about the wall. Next night the same path beckoned. She found
FUSELINE 205
another egg within the drain. Next night, another.
The winter' day closed sullenly, under a leaden sky. The hummocked snow clung weakly to the boughs. At times, slow-melting, water-laden masses sploshed to the earth and ebbed away in muddied rills and trickles. Fate brooded on the forest, mothering the slow birth of the thaw beneath the uneasy rustling of her wings.
Rose to the window opening of the alder, as though a splash of snow had caught its ledge, a white-frilled, eager-questioning, small face.
On easy, sinuous, gliding feet slid Fuseline to earth. She must be quick. The day had dragged, and two days' hunger gripped her. She ran her course apace. Her stout-clawed, sinewy, splayed feet danced feather-light across the melting drifts; her plumed tail balanced after her ; down silent sludge- scored runs she crept, past rough-set walls of weath- ered stone, past hedgerows blanketed with white, whose endless measured dripping marked the hours.
Hope fired her blood, Hope winged her feet, to- wards the expected meal.
Straight to the bavin road she came, and found it fenced with flanking baulks of timber.
Had these been there before?
The melting of the snow had blurred her landmarks. The egg was there : she smelt it, caught its white- ness— this time a little deeper in the drain.
And one road only led to it — between smooth walls of wood.
Had these been there before?
A snow-splash fell, and, under it. the end of one wall vanished.
The snow, then, might have hidden them.
With groping feet, with snuffing nose, she picked her dainty, cautious way, and, as she neared the egg, smelt Man. She paused, she listened, pricked her ears, half dubious, half afraid.
206 The Lantern
The scent hung close to ground; it needed but a lift of neck to clear it.
The scent was stale — and she was very hungry.
The little paw stole venturing out, one inch, two inches, three —
And jaws of steel, fanged, murderous, whipped their muddied ambuscade, and snapped across the wrist.
The Marten Cat was caught.
Her scream died in a wailing bleat whose echoing shuddered down the aisles of darkness.
Twigs snapped, leaves danced, quick stamps and thuds proclaimed the panic flight of thieves four- footed.
The wrist, the hand was shattered — bone, tendon, ligament crushed to pulp. Yet her first impulse was to rescue it. Vainly she writhed, and tugged, and plunged, and bit the pitiless steel.
Her twists, her strugglings spent themselves — ended in piteous moanings.
Yet she fought on — five hours she fought.
From eastward crept a dim half light, a yellowing of the cloud bank.
A shot rang out. That meant a Man abroad. And she was in His power, and He was coming.
She flung her head back, drummed the ground, arched, tautened like a bow.
A cock crew close at hand.
Backwards she tugged, to right, to left. Forwards she plunged, until the chain, with savage jerk, re- strained her. The teeth bit deeper in her flesh. She licked the welling crimson.
Her head drooped limp; she seemed to sleep.
But second cock-crow roused her, and clank of chain from ox's stall.
The eastern ridge was yellowing. The dawn was close at hand. And Man would come with dawn.
It was her life against her limb. Her limb must go. Writhing, contorted, lashing like a snake, she
FUSELINE 207
flung her hind feet off the ground, and twirled and spun her body's weight against her arm's cohesion.
The imprisoned wrist was twisted Hke a rope.
The wrist bones cracked and spHntered. The arm bones, snapping Hke dried twigs, thrust their jagged ends through flesh and skin. Courage! The cord was fraying, stretching, parting. Her eyes swam in a mist of blood ; froth slavered from her lips ; her fur was matted, sweat-drenched. Again the ghastly spinning of herself. The twisted tendons roped as one, and once more the cock crew. Her teeth? Her teeth were her last hope. Fiercely, magnificently, she turned them on herself, sawed her own living flesh with them, mumbled and gnawed till the trapped wrist hung by one silver tendon.
A last fierce bite, a last fierce wrench — Man would not take her this time. Three-legged she vanished in the gloom, nor cast a glance behind.
Dawn rose from yellow shroud of mist, a wrinkled, haggard, spectre dawn. The gin held fast its spoil — the twisted pulp of flesh and fur, the oblation to Man's sovereignty.
Down mournful hedgerows dripping tears of snow, dragged Fuseline, three-footed, smudging a crimson trail.
Now that the sacrifice was past her force, her energy collapsed.
Blindly she dragged, unconsciously, until across the clouding of her brain flashed Instinct's lightning warning — Sleep or Die.
She checked her perilous open course; she whipped through thorny hedgegap; through trellis-work of leafless, trailing bramble.
She reached a snow-capped drift of leaves, in whose soft, feathery pile her feet sank deep.
She coiled on it to lick her wound, and then to doze, and then to sleep — a sleep profound, nerve-, tendon-, muscle-laxing ; a sleep in which her warm young blood coursed healing, soothing, mending.
208 The Lantern
Twelve hours she slept, and, waking, licked her wound afresh, and crept to the hedge-border. She gazed; she listened; instinct-taught she mapped a bee-line to her home.
Softly she moved, bent low to earth, snaking her head between the tufts of grass.
And, when she reached her alder stump, she swarmed it. Despite the crippling of her limbs, de- spite the weakening loss of blood, she gained her hole, and flung to its embrace, as tired-out child flings to a woman's lap.
Six days the alder held her. Hour after hour she licked her stump — and fever was her food.
At last she issued, grid of skin and bone, owl-eyed, droop-shouldered, pitiable, like cripple whose infirm- ity strengthens his prayers for alms.
But nothing now could drag her to the village, nor even to the common waste, where fowls ran riot after food and grit to build their eggs from.
Her forest was sufficient. She waited for the spring. The spring would bring the buds again, and, with the buds, the birds.
And in two tepid nights, spring came.
Each sunrise she had scanned the sl<y, had listened for the swish of wings. She heard them now, high overhead, like surr of floating silken train, like mur- mur of incoming tide, voicing desire and hope.
The vanguard soon sped northward. But after them would travel the main army, to quarter on the forest, end to end, to plot a web of joy, and love, and music.
Memories of springtime feastings rose to mind; of thrushes ambushed in their leafy hidings ; of pine- trunks scaled to attack bewildered doves ; of crows' nests stormed and pillaged.
As yet her spoils were meagre. She must await the pairing-time, the nuptial flights, the scoldings, wranglings, combats.
The weeks would shape their ordered course. She
FUSELINE 209
looked for easy feastings, for feastings morning- scented, evening-stalked.
Leaf raced with leaf, shoot swelled to bud. The green gained mastery of the wild, gained mastery of the sunshine. Each thicket held its nursery, each briar, each thorn was tenanted.
As whim impelled her, Fuseline fed.
Sometimes along the skirting fence of bramble, sometimes aloft, in pine, or fir.
Blackbirds were easy twilight prey. They perched low in the thickets. They sang full-toned, in stations predisposed, their challenging passionate love-notes; love-notes which broke, and swelled, and broke.
Unseen she slipped beneath them. The bird sang on ; she wormed six inches further ; the shrilling ceased ; she checked and closed her eyes. What was she but a shadow in the tangle ; a thickening of the knotted trunk to which she clung close-welded?
And presently she gauged her leap, and seized her screaming prey, and stilled its screaming.
Yet for such chase her skill was sorely hampered.
The loss of limb meant slower leap, meant balance less assured. Often she missed, and screech of fright alarumed through the wood — the prelude of long weary wait in ambush.
The last slow blossoms of the oak yielded to May's warm sun. In robe of green the Forest met her Lord, in robe of green ablaze with virid gems, with emeralds, beryls, chrysolites, with tourmalines, with jacinths.
The birds' song was a livelier acclamation.
They filled the air with pipings, twitterings, chur- rings, with whistle-calls, with bubblings, chirrupings, sizzlings.
And Fuseline picked her course unheard, and reached the thrush's nest unseen.
The mother bird, deep sunk in the nest's hollow, spread ruflFling feathers to conceal her brood. But not for fear of Fuseline, though fear started from her haunted eyes. A bird of prey had sighted her.
210 The Lantern
He rode at anchor in the blue, swaying, yet holding station. Her eyes had felt his eyes. Instinct re- strained her motionless, and bade her shield her brood with her own body.
A pipe of call-notes from the wood proclaimed the enemy sighted.
The stragglers flocked together. The crows cawed hoarse-toned signals tree to tree, made plain the danger, shirked attack. Let him attack them first — and they would meet him.
The Buzzard took no heed of them. His eyes were on the thrush. He swooped, but never reached her.
He checked to grip the nearest branch. One claw held him in station, its fellow twitched the air. His neck stretched out, his curving beak gaped challenge at his rival.
And Fuseline reared face of hate against him, and snarled her lips, and bared her teeth, and flashed his challenge back.
Between them cowered the mother thrush, deep in the hollow of her nest, a beak, a tail, two frozen eyes, shielding her brood beneath herself, stilling the pip- ings of distress which her own heart-throbs war- ranted.
So Greek met Greek, the bird of prey, the beast of prey, across a common victim. Their eyes glanced hatred, clashed like swords.
And Fuseline struck home the first.
Like dart she loosed in air, like dart she bedded in the mark.
Full weight she struck the breastbone of the buz- zard, and jerked him, like a squirrel, from his bough.
His wings swayed flailing in the air, plunged crash- ing through the twigs. His talons forced her hold and gripped her back.
Skywards he slanted heavily, his burden dragging at his flight.
His vengeance should come later.
Whirled, shaken, spun in dizzying, airy spirals, tossed on the windy ocean of the sky, the beast would
FUSELINE 211
surely sicken. Then his crooked beak should drive at it.
But this was not to be.
At first the pendulous rocking- swing, the parting from earth's solid base, bewildered, palsied Fuseline.
Eyes closed, she dangled limply, unconscious of the deepening gulf between her and her world.
But presently she writhed about, infuriate, gnash- ing at the claws, and, before beak could aim at her, reached the broad breast, and fastened her teeth.
A gush of blod jerked spouting from the wound. As one who feels a mortal stroke, the buzzard threw his head back.
His talons slackened, loosed their grip, and Fuseline hung dangling from her tooth-hold.
But, with a twist, she swung aloft, and, planting claws deep in the feathered flanks, mumbled the bleed- ing, quivering flesh, and burrowed to the heart.
Once more the talons clinched on her, stiffened this time in throes of death, stabbing her lungs, her en- trails.
Upwards the huge bird soared, his supreme effort spent in flight, up, up, towards the sun.
And suddenly his pinions drooped. He swayed, he swung, he foundered.
Swirling from the high firmament, two crimsoned corpses struck the earth as one.
THE WALL-PAPER
By Edmund Gosse
When I was only five years old,
My mother, who was soon to die, Raised me with fingers soft and cold,
On high ; Until, against the parlor wall,
I reached a golden paper flower. How proud was I, and ah! how tall, That hour! "This shining tulip shall be yours,
Your own, your very own," she said; The mark that made it mine endures
In red. I scarce could see it from the floor;
I craned to touch the scarlet sign; No gift so precious had before
Been mine. A paper tulip on a wall !
A boon that ownership defied! Yet this was dearer far than all
Beside. Real toys, real flowers that lavish love
Had strewn before me, all and each Grew pale beside this gift above My reach.
Ah! now that time has worked its will.
And fooled my heart, and dazed my eyes, Delusive tulips prove me still
Unwise. Still, still the eluding flower that glows
Above the hands that yearn and clasp Seems brighter th.in the genuine rose
I grasp. So has it been since I was born;
So will it be until I die ; Stars, the best flowers of all, adorn The sky.
TRIVIA
By L. Pearsall Smith "WHERE DO I COME IN?"
When I read in the newspaper about problems and populations, when I look at the letters in large type of important personages, and find myself face to face with the Questions, the Movements of thought, and the great activities of the age, ''Where do I come in?" I ask uneasily.
Then in the great newspaper-reflected world I find the corner where I play my humble but necessary part. For I am one of the unpraised, unrewarded millions without whom Statistics would be a bankrupt science. It is we who are born, who marry, who die in constant ratios, who regularly lose so many um- brellas, post just so many unaddressed letters every year. And there are enthusiasts among us — Heroes who, without the least thought of their own con- venience, allow street cars to run over them, or throw themselves month by month, in fixed numbers, into the bay.
SANCTUARIES
She said: "How small the world is, after all!" I thought of China, of a holy mountain in the west of China, full of legends and sacred trees and demon- haunted caves. It is always enveloped in mountain mists; and in that white thick air I heard the faint sound of bells, and the muffled footsteps of innumer- able pilgrims, and the reiterated mantra, Nam-Mo, 0-mi-to-Fo, which they murmur as they climb its slopes. High up among its temples and monasteries march processions of monks, with intoned services, and many prostrations, and lighted candles that glim- mer through the fog. There, in their solemn shrines, stand the statues of the Arahats ; and there, seated on his white elephant, looms, immense and dim, the image of the Lord Amitabha, the Lord of the Western Heavens.
She said : "Life is so complicated !"
214 The Lantern
Climbing all but inaccessible cliffs of rock and ice, I shut myself within a Tibetan monastery beyond the Himalayan ramparts. I join with choirs of monks intoning their deep, sonorous dirges and unintelligible prayers ; I beat drums, I clash cymbals, and blow at dawn from the Lamasery roofs conches and loud discordant trumpets. And wandering through those vast and shadowy halls, as I tend the butter-lamps of the golden Buddhas, and watch the storms that blow across the barren mountains, I taste an imag- inary bliss; and then pass on to other scenes and incarnations along the endless road that leads me to Nirvana.
"But I do wish you would tell me what you really think?"
I fled to Africa, into the depths of the dark Ashanti forest. There, in its gloomiest recesses, where the soil is stained with the blood of the negroes he has eaten, dwells that monstrous Deity of human shape and red color, the great Fetish God, Sasabonsum. I like Sasabonsum ; other gods are sometimes moved to pity and forgiveness, but to him such weakness is unknown. He is utterly and absolutely implacable, ruthless, unrelenting; no gifts or prayers, no sac- rifices of human victims can ever appease for one moment his cold, malignant rage. THE SNOB As I paced in fine company on that terrace, I felt chosen, exempt, and curiously happy. There was a glamor in the air, a something in the special flavor of that moment that was like the consciousness of Salvation, or the smell of ripe peaches on a sunny wall.
I know what you're going to call me, reader; but I am not to be bullied by words. And, after all, why not let oneself be dazzled and enchanted? Are not illusions pleasant, and is this a world in which Ro- mance hangs on every tree?
And how about your own life? Is that, then, so full of golden visions?
Trivia 215
THE MOON
I went in and shook hands with my hostess, but ho one else took any special notice ; no one screamed or left the room ; the quiet murmur of talk went on. I suppose I seemed like the others ; observed from outside no doubt I looked like them.
But inside, seen from within . . . . ? Or was it a conceivable hypothesis that we were all really alike inside also — each with a phantasmagoria of queer thoughts and impossible imaginations? Had all these quietly-talking and correct people got the Moon, too, in their heads?
MONOTONY Oh to be becalmed on a sea of glass all day ; to listen all day to rain on the rof, or wind in pine trees ; to sit all day by a waterfall reading the Faerie Queene, or exquisite, artificial, monotonous Persian poems about an oasis garden where it is always spring — where roses bloom and lovers sigh, and nightingales lament without ceasing, and white-robed figures sit in groups by the running water and dis- cuss all day the Meaning of Life.
SELF-ANALYSIS
"Yes, aren't they odd, the thoughts that float through one's mind for no reason? But why not be frank? I suppose the best of us are shocked at times by the things we find ourselves thinking. Don't you agree," I went on, not noticing (until it was too late) that all other conversation had ceased and the whole dinner-party was listening — "don't you agree that the oddest of all are the improper thoughts that come into one's head — the unspeakable words, I mean, and obscenities?"
When I remember that remark I immediately think of space, and the unimportance, in its unmeasured vastness, of our toy Solar System; I lose myself in speculations on the lapse of time, reflecting how after all our human life on this minute and negligible planet is as brief as a dream.
!16 The Lantern
DESIRES
These exquisite and absurd fancies of mine — little curiosities, and greediness, and impulses to touch and snatch, and all the vanities and artless desires that nest and sing in my heart like birds in a bush — all these, we are now told, are an inheritance from our pre-human past, and were hatched long ago in very ancient swamps and forests. But what of that? I like to feel my life drawing its sap from roots deep in the soil of Nature — to share in the dumb delights of birds and animals. I am proud of those bright- eyed, furry, four-footed or feathered progenitors, and not at all ashamed of my cousins, the Tigers and Apes and Peacocks.
LONELINESS
Is there, then, no friend? No one who hates Ibsen and problem plays, and the Supernatural, and Switzer- land and Adultery as much as I do? Must I live all my life as mute as a mackerel, companionless and uninvited, and never tell anyone what I think of my famous contemporaries?
Must I plough always a solitary furrow, and tread the winepress alone?
DAYDREAM
In the cold and malicious society in which I live, I must never mention the Soul, or speak of my as- pirations. If I ever once let these people get a glimpse of the higher side of my nature, they would set on m.e like a pack of hyenas and tear me in pieces.
I wish I had soulful friends — refined Maiden Ladies with ideals and long noses, who live in the suburbs, and play Chopin with feeling. On sad autumn afternoons I would go and have tea with them, and talk of the spiritual meaning of Beethoven's later Sonatas, or discuss in the twilight the pathos of life and the Larger Hope.
A GREETING ''What funny clothes you wear, dear Readers!
Trivia 217
And your hats ! The thoughts of your hats does make me laugh. And I think your sex-theories quite horrid."
Thus across the void of Time I send, with a wave of my hand, a greeting to that quaint, remote, out- landish unborn people whom we call Posterity, and whom, like other very great writers, I claim as my readers — urging them to hurry up and get born, that they may have the pleasure of reading me.
PROVIDENCE
But God sees me; He knows my beautiful nature, and how pure I keep amid all sorts of quite horrible temptations. And that is why, as I feel in my bones, there is a special Providence watching over me ; an Angel sent expressly from heaven to guide my foot- steps from harm. For I never trip up or fall down- stairs like other people; I am not run over by motor cars at street-crossings; in the worst wind my hat never blows off.
And if ever any of the great cosmic processes or powers threaten me, I believe that God sees it. "Stop it!" He shouts from his ineffable Throne. "Don't you touch my Chosen One, my Pet Lamb, my Beloved. Leave him alone, I tell you!"
SENTIMENTAL CONVERSATION
By Virginia Brastow
(From the French of Verlaine)
Down the old path thick grown with weeds they
stray, Two wandering phantoms in the lonely way.
Hollow their eyes, their moving lips are white, And no one hears their voices in the night.
Through the old path w^th weeds thick overgrown, They pass and speak of days they once have known.
''Dost thou recall our love?" 'T do not know. I have forgotten joys of long ago."
"Thrills thy heart never to a once dear name, — In thy long dreams am I not still the same?"
"No dreams are left to me." "But those lost nights Of kisses and of passion?" "Dead delights."
"How fair the days were then with hope and youth!" "But hope is fled and death's the only truth."
Down the old path in darkness thus they stray And only night can hear the words they say.
BABIES
At last, as the result of the most disastrous war in history, the baby is recognized as a work of national importance. Babies occupy almost as much space in the newspapers as potatoes. Obviously we have made up our minds to turn the world into a place better worth being born into than it has hitherto been. It is hardly conceivable that we are inviting millions of new little ones into the world merely to pitch them into the ancient bloody battle between people and people and between rich and poor. Not that the world as it has been in the past is a place to decry. One could not endure to be a parent if one thought that. At the same time, there is no denying that the world in the past has been regulated with a view more to protecting the greed of the old men than to protecting the happiness of babies. The human race did not readily admit the idea that the happiness of babies was quite as important a social end as the self-aggrandizement of its elders. The baby was among many peoples merely one of its father's pos- sessions. He could expose it with as much impunity as a modern householder drowning kittens. Nor was infanticide a custom practiced only among savages. It was accepted almost without protest in the great days of Greece. Aristotle denounced the practice, regarding abortion as the better way of keeping down the population, but Plato in The Republic advocates the exposure of weakly children. Infanticide is, of course, merely the primitive method of limiting families. It is possible that, in countries where in- fanticide is common, the parent thinks no more of preventing a baby from continuing to live than people in civilized communities think of preventing a baby from being born. In both cases economic necessity — or at least economic convenience — presses, and for economic necessity men and women will do almost anything. At least, savages and comfortably well-off people will. The poor in Christian countries alone
220 The Lantern
seem to be able at a crisis to control their dread of a new mouth crying out to be fed. Many savage tribes strictly forbid any woman to bring up a large family. On Radack Island the family was at one time not allowed to exceed three ; any further children that were born had to be buried alive. The Line Islanders permit four children in a family. On one of the Ellice Islands, on the other hand, only two are allowed. It would be absurd to imagine, however, that the custom of slaughtering infants as nuisances is anything like universal in primitive communities. It is. we fancy, the exception rather than the rule, and is usually due. to the fear of famine, when it is not the result of religious superstition. An increase in female infanticide is said to have occurred in Japan as a result of the impoverishing taxation which was levied during the Russo-Japanese War. China, be- insr a land of famine, has always also been a land of infanticide : one realizes how common the practice must have been when one hears of an ancient Chinese book entitled On Abstaining from Drozvning Little Girls. That a parent's relations to his child were in the nature of rights rather than duties was recog- nized both by Roman emperors and Roman pontiffs. A father was allowed either to expose his child or to sell it. He was forbidden by Diocletian to sell his children, but, as he only slew them instead, the pro- hibition was removed. Even the Christian Church in the seventh century recognized the right of a father to sell his sons into slavery, provided they were not seven years old.
Facts like these seem to suggest that there is very little natural affection in parents for their children. But this does not seem to be the case. "Shans are all baby-lovers," say the authors of that charming book, Shans at Home, and we have plenty of evidence from Africa of the affection of negro parents for their children. The negro father does not show the same devotion as the negro mother, but, even as regards him, "one may often see him caressing the babies and
Babies 221
playing- with them." There are certain Red Indian tribes which apparently glorify children much as Wordsworth in his pseudo-Platonic mood did. The Iroquois believe that "a child still continues to hold intercourse with the spirit-world whence it so re- cently came," and they are said to refrain from corporal punishment on the ground that it would hurt the child's soul. A similar glorification of child- ren prevails apparently among the Omaha Indians. Grown-up Omahas refrain from telling stories during the summer, on the ground that the snakes might hear and do mischief. The children, however, are as safe from the snakes as in one of Blake's poems: "They carry the songs out among the summer blos- soms, and the snakes do them no harm." One has only to consider all the games and the stories which are played and told in savage communities to realize that even at a primitive stage man is not insensitive to the delightfulness of childhood. It may be urge^d that folk-stories are, after all, nothing but moral tales, and that their chief object is to frighten children rather than to amuse them. Frankly, we do not be- lieve it. The human being is not such a utilitarian beast as he is pictured. He enjoys giving happiness as much as giving instruction. He gives jam with the powder, not merely to deceive the child into taking the powder, but also because he knows the child likes jam. Uncle Remus, we may be sure, is an in- heritance of delight which comes down .from bar- barous black mothers in the jungle to the pretty pale mothers of the civilized world without much essential change in the spirit. Common-sense tells us that babies, when they are not squalling, must always be the most popular of pleasure-givers. Happiness is infectious, and nothing in the world is quite so unreas- onably happy as a baby that lies on its back, laughing and making guttural noises. A child playing with a spoon and beating the side of a cradle with it — a child crowing as it looks up into the leaves of a tree and sees them stirring in the wind — this is something
222 The Lantern
that wins a laugh in all the continents. It is the most universal of jests. So much is this so that it seems to us at times that it can hardly be called a virtue to be fond of children. One can imagine a fairly bad sort of criminal playing with children and enjoying it as one can imagine him caressing a cat or playing with a dog. And yet, in so far as he does these things, he does in a manner seem to justify human nature. To have a taste for such natural pleasures is nine-tenths of the virtue one needs.
People sometimes talk as if we had only begun to idealize children when we began, as it were, to run short of them. But this is nonsense. The idealiza- tion of children began in days when men still built houses as large as hotels, as though no happily married couple could be expected to have fewer than seven children. Swinburne did not wait till the birth- rate had fallen to sing — how like a drawing-room ballad !—
A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink,
Might tempt, should heaven see meet,
An angel's lips to kiss, we think, A baby's feet.
The attitude of Maria Edgeworth and Mrs. Sher- wood to children may strike people in these days as solemnly comic, but at least they thought children were worth writing books for in days in v/hich child- ren were as common as seaweed. The difference be- tween those days and these is that in those days children were idealized and beaten, whereas in these days they are idealized and pampered. One would have imagined that every child in Europe would have been safe from cruelty as soon as it was known that Christ had said: "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." But unhappily Christian Europe plunged into a theology which taught it not only that the child was a beautiful little angel but that it was also
Babies 223
a miserable little sinner. The Christian God was for centuries a God who could send little children to hell, and they had to be saved from this extreme doom by whipping and hunger and darkness. It seems to us one of the strangest paradoxes in human nature that a Calvinist, believing that the chances of a human creature's being sent to hell preponderated over the chances of his being saved, none the less seems to have had no compunction in introducing children one after another into so doubtful a scene. But perhaps no man would dare to have a child if he thought of the dark side of the universe. It is at the same time rather curious that people who believe the world is reasonably good are more reluctant to bring children into it than were people who believed the world to be unreasonably bad. It may be explained by the fact that, in deciding whether to have children or not, most human beings have regard less to the children than to themselves.
One of the good circumstances which accompany the increased interest in children at the present time is the increased interest which is being shown in the mothers of chldren. However much the Victorian might desire children — and blessed was he who had his quiver full of them ! — he none the less regarded the bearing of children as inferior work to going to an office. It was essentially drudge's work. Woman was looked down on rather than respected for de- voting so much time to it. It was even considered a disqualification for the vote. This attitude had not died a few years ago, as was seen when, during the militant sufifragist campaign, thousands of young men gathered in Hyde Park, many of them armed with little baby dolls, to howl down suffragist speakers with cries of ''Go home and mind the baby!" The baby, however, has now ceased to be a mere supernumerary, and with that the mother, too, ceases to be half an outlaw. Economic necessity is driving the European nations no longer to the destruction but to the mul- tiplication of infants. This, however, has happened
224 The Lantern
before without much apparent benefit to the infants. So great was the destruction of Hfe during the Sicilian expedition that the Athenians legalized bigamy as a means of increasing the population. In the Roman Empire, again, Augustus attempted by the Lex Julia et Papia to compel men and women not only to marry but to have families. Similar causes are, no doubt, at work in the modern world making for an increase of the numbers of children. But we fancy there is also an idealism at work now which was scarcely known in Greece and Rome. There is a desire abroad that the children shall have the best of everything, and that the modern form of infanticide called poverty and slum-dwellings shall cease. It is hypocrisy in us to praise children and to hold national festivals in their honor if we do not intend to make the world a garden for them. There is no ideal possible for an honest man but to desire a world in which every child shall have the same chances of food and air and play and happiness as he would wish for a child of his own.
PASTELS
By Louis Bertrand I— EVENING ON THE WATER
The black gondola glided by the palaces of marble, like a bravo hastening to some nocturnal adventure, with stiletto and lantern under his cloak. A cavalier and a lady were conversing of love.
"The orange-trees so perfumed, and you so indif- ferenjt! Ah, Signora, you are as a statue in a garden !"
'Ts this the kiss of a statue, my Georgio? Why do you sulk? You love me, then?"
"There is not a star in the heavens that does not know it, and thou knowest it not?"
"What is that noise?"
"Nothing ; doubtless the splash of the water up and down a step in the stairway of the Giudecca."
"Help! help!"
"Ah, Mother of the Savior! somebody drowning!"
"Step aside ; he has been confessed," said a monk, who appeared on the terrace.
And the black gondola strained its oars and glided by the palaces of marble, like a bravo returning from some nocturnal adventure, with stiletto and lantern under his cloak.
II— THE GALLANT
My curled mustaches resemble the tail of the tarask, my linen is as white as the table-cloth of an inn, and my doublet is not older than the tapestries of the crown.
Would one imagine, seeing my smart bearing, that hunger, lodged in my belly, is pulling — the torturer! — a rope that strangles me as though I were being hanged ?
Ah, if from that window, where dances a shrivel- ling light, a roasted lark had only fallen in the cock of my hat, instead of that faded flower!
The Place Royale, tonight under the links, is as clear as a chapel; look out for the letter! Fresh
226 The Lantern
lemonade ! Macaroons of Naples ! Here, little one, let me dip a finger in your truite a la sauce! Rascal! — there lacks spice to your April-fool !
Do I not see yonder Marion Delorme on the arm of the Due de Longueville? Three lapdogs follow her yapping. She has fine diamonds in her ears, the young courtesan ! He has fine rubies on his nose, the old courtier !
And the galant struts about, fist on hip, elbowing the men and smiling on the women. He did not have enough to dine on ; he bought himself a bouquet of riolets.
STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT. CIR- CULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24, 1912,
of The Lantern, published monthly at San Francisco, California
for October 1, 1917. State of California. County of San Francisco — ss.
Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and County aforesaid, personally appeared John J. Dwyer, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the Business Manager of The Lantern and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, manage- ment, etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of Congress of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 443, Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to-wit:
1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, manag- ing editor and business manager are: Publishers, Theo. F. Bonnet and Edward F. O'Day, 88 First street, San Francisco; Editor, Theo. F. Bonnet, 88 First street, San Francisco: Managing Editor, Edward F. O'Day, 88 First street, San Francisco ; Business Manager, John J. Dwver, 88 First street, San Francisco.
2. that the owners are: Theo. F. Bonnet. 88 First street, San Franci«co; Edward F. O'Day, 88 First street, San Francisco.
3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bords, mortgages or other securities are:_ None.
4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving the names of the owners, stockholders and security holders, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and security holders as they appear upon the books of the company but also, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or cor- poration for whom such trustee is acting, is given; also that the said two paragraphs contain statements embracing affiant's full knowl- edge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds or other securities than as so stated by him.
JOHN J. DWYER.
Business Manager. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 1st dav of October, 1917. (Seal) JULIUS CALMANN,
(My commission expires May 29, 1921.)
T
MM ^
Tlieodore I BeBnel and MmrA K OD^
iii> 1 1 1 i 1 1 1 iiiitiiiiir
// 15 better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for November, 1917
THE LAUREATE OF CALIFORNIA
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
THE EGO IN HADES (A Story)
By HORACE B. SAMUEL
THE HOUND OF DEATH (A Poem)
By JOHN GURDON
OUR MASKS
THE SILVER GIRL (A Prose Fancy)
By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
POEMS IN PROSE
By CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Single Copies, 15 Cents
$1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
lY^^^ Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is p^ per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipi^ received the first Gold Medal awarded by the American Museum of Safety for the "Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention'^ and at the San Francisco Exposition, 191 5y received the Grand Prize, the highest award, for Safety First Appliances, a^ well as for Railway Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Power.
Travel via Southern Pacific
5043 Phones Douglas 5044
'In a Class by Itself
TTjeGRANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 November, 1917 No. 8
-■
The Laureate of California
By Edward F. O'Day
When the grass shall cover me,
Head to foot where I am lying, — When not any wind that blows. Summer-blooms nor winter-snows,
Shall awake me to your sighing: Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was," You will say, "How true she was,"
When the grass grows over me.
When the grass shall cover me, Holden close to earth's warm bosom, —
While I laugh, or weep, or sing,
Nevermore, for anything, You will find in blade and blossom.
Sweet small voices, odorous,
Tender pleaders in my cause.
That shall speak me as I was — When the grass grows over me.
When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved, in my sorrow
Very patient, I can wait.
Knowing that, or soon or late. There will dawn a clearer morrow:
When your heart will moan: "Alas!
Now I know how true she was;
Now I know how dear she was" — When the grass grows over me!
In his anthology called Songs of Three Centuries John Greenleaf Whittier marked this exquisite poem Anonymous. The Quaker poet compiled his anthol- ogy from the scrap books he had kept for fifty years ; the newspaper cutting which contained "When the Grass Shall Cover Me" bore no author's name. For
228 Thk Lantern
many years the poem had been going the rounds of the press, as poems of simple sincerity always do. Most editors affect to believe that they have no hearts, and sometimes they deceive others as well as them- selves ; but editorial heart after heart capitulated to the brave sadness of "When the Grass Shall Cover Me;" its gentle, sweet upbraiding made melodious every Poet's Corner throughout the land. Whittier cannot have been the only one who pasted the poem in a scrap book. For it voiced without bitterness and without self-pity a feeling which is very common among souls whose lot it is to endure and be patient; it must have consoled and strengthened many a fainting spirit.
When Songs of Three Centuries was published this poem marked Anonymous was acclaimed by critics as the most appealing of all in the volume. It is said that the Quaker anthologist himself joined the select chorus of praise. Efforts were made to pierce the veil of anonymity ; honor came in due time to the modest author. It was made known to every lover of poetry throughout the United States that "When the Grass Shall Cover Me" was the work of Ina Coolbrith. The poem had been written for the Overland Monthly in that golden time of San Fran- cisco literature when the periodical edited by Bret Harte was searched eagerly every month for mani- festations of new genius.
In the late sixties and early seventies San Francisco had a coterie of letters. It was perhaps not as com- pact as it seems in retrovision — coteries never are ; but that was a time when people lived more leisurely and more neighborly than they live in this mad day of scurry and skirmish, and those who had a common interest, like writing, were neither too busy nor too selfish for occasional communion. vStories of Attic days and Ambrosian nights have come down to us ; always they show us a woman installed in the place of highest honor, a Guinevere amid the knights. That woman was Ina Coolbrith. She stood level with
The Laureate of California 229
the great men of that epoch. She has survived them all. She has lived through the second annus mirabilis of San Francisco. 1868, the year of the founding of the Overland Monthly, was the first: 1915, the year of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, was the second. In the calendars of both years the name of Ina Coolbrith is blazoned. Take the author of ''When the Grass Shall Cover Me" from the young Overland and you diminish its glory. Rescind the honor which California conferred upon Ina Coolbrith during the World's Fair and you mar the perfection of that masterpiece.
Unto the singer the laurel to cover the thorn That the nightingale finds on the rose: Never was coronal purer, more worthily worn Than your own from the morn to the close.
That was written when the World's Fair crowned Ina Coolbrith poet laureate of California. Poet laureate! The West honored itself when the wreath of bays was placed upon Ina Coolbrith's brow. At that gesture of homage a dead phrase came to life — here at last was poetic justice!
When one is writing of a woman poet it is per- missible to record tributes which she has been paid not for her poetry alone. Beauty of soul is the highest but not the only kind of beauty. I make no apology for recalling that in one of the charming papers in that most charming book Exits and En- trances, Charles Warren Stoddard tells us of Joaquin Miller's first meeting with Miss Coolbrith, tells us how, when the newcomer from Oregon was pre- sented to her, he whispered in a worshipful aside:
Divinely tall and most divinely fair.
I make no apology for recalling that in later .days Miller called her "a beautiful woman, beautiful al- most beyond comparison," adding in one of his rare bursts of critical enthusiasm, that she was also "in- spired beyond all comparison in her peculiarly pure.
230 The Lantern
sweet way of work." Neither do I make apology for mentioning a letter of Jack London's in which the grown man revived his first boyish memories of Miss Coolbrith. She was in charge of the public library of Oakland; he was a gamin of the streets hungering and thirsting after knowledge. It should interest the psychologist to know that the boy London thought of men and women in terms of adjectives. At the first sight of Miss Coolbrith noble flashed across his mind. From that moment he never thought of her except as noble. When he saw the adjective noble on the printed page or heard it spoken, the image of Miss Coolbrith rose before him. He raised her to the shrine of his rude boyish chivalry as a be- ing "ensky'd and sainted." When she commended his choice of books, as she did one day when he asked for Prescott's Conquest of Pern, he was the happiest boy in the world. Noble had praised him ! Bret Harte has left an opinion of Miss Coolbrith : "the sweetest note in California literature." Another note was sounded by Charles Warren Stoddard when he called Ina Coolbrith *'the sweetest singer of all the tribe in that golden land of song — and the sad- dest." But let us not linger over those last three words. Let us remember, rather, that Luther Bur- bank named a California poppy in Ina Coolbrith's honor.
Admiration from Joaquin Miller ; adoration from Jack London : praise from Harte and Stoddard ; homage from Burbank — here is a diversity of tribute. Ina Coolbrith deserves it all.
Born in Illinois, Ina Coolbrith was brought West by the Overland route when she was a very little girl. "She was cradled in the camp, amid the stormy splendor and savage glory of the Rocky Mountains," wrote Joaquin Miller. "When we had crossed the plains," she has said, "our first camp was on the top of the mountains of the Plumas range. We spent our first summer in a mining camp. I used to rock the cradle for the miners. I was their pet, and
The Laureatk of Caijforxia 231
they used to make me presents of ^old. Our party, by the way, was the first to come in through Beck- with Pass. Jim Beckwith himself guided us through."'
Most of her girlhood was spent in Los Angeles. Mrs. Ella Cummins Mighels in her very valuable re- view of Calif ornian literature The Story of the Files, tells a sweet story of this time: "She was stand- ing bv the road one day when some Mexican-Cali- fornians came riding by, with jingling spur, and embroidered saddle, and arms full of flowers. *See the pretty little Americana,' called out one of the gallant swarthy race, and as he spoke, he showered his flowers upon her. And thus was she properly christened by the spirit of the old times and dedicated to the service of the new California." Of this part of her life Miss Coolbrith has said: "As a girl I lived in Los Angeles when Los Angeles was still a Spanish town, but the old saying that in familiar places there are no wonderful things was exemplified in my case. I was brought up in the midst of wonderful things and did not realize it till they had passed away." It was at this time that she first wrote verses. "I began making songs," she has said, "before I could write them. I made verses to my dolls."
The Coolbrith family moved to San Francisco at a propitious time for this girl with the natural gift of song. For San Francisco was cultivating literature very seriously and very successfully, and the Golden Era. a weekly publication of pronounced literary merit, readily accepted Tna Coolbrith's first timid offerings of verse. Founded in 1852 by J. Mac- donough Foard and Rollin M. Daggett, the Golden Era numbered among its contributors Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Joaquin Miller, Charles Warren Stod- dard. Joseph T. Goodman (famous later as editor of the Virginia City Enterprise), Dan De Quille, Orpheus C. Kerr, Thomas Starr King, Stephen Massett. Prentice Mulford, Richard Henr>' Savag-e and Adah Isaacs Menken (the "Mazeppa" of after
2Z2 The Lantern
years). The Golden Era was still in the field when the Californian made it first bid for popularity in 1864. Ably edited by Charles Henry Webb, this weekly paper lasted only three years, but they were brilliant years, and Ina Coolbrith helped to make them so. 'The Californian lived to be three years old and has never died," writes Mrs. Mighels. The parodox may stand, for out of the Californian g-rew in 1868 the great Overland Monthly with Bret Harte as its editor. Flutter the leaves of that old Overland and you breathe the fragrance of Ina Coolbrith's flowers of song.
A glance at the index of the Overland shows what company Ina Coolbrith kept in those days. Bret Harte was the first editor, and was succeeded by Benjamin P. Avery whose memory is perpetuated in Miss Coolbrith's poem "At Rest." Among the writers were Edward Rowland Sill, Stoddard, Miller, Mark Twain, Prentice Mulford, Daniel O'Connell, John Muir, J. Ross Browne, Henry George, Ambrose Bierce, Louis Agassiz, Noah Brooks, Joseph Le Conte and Therese Yelverton. "Those early writers formed a group that was really harmonious," Miss Coolbrith has said. "They were not afflicted by jealousy. The success of one pleased all, for they were united by sincere friendship." In their gather- ings, as I have said, Ina Coolbrith had the place of honor. "She was the center of a little world, the .San Francisco world," Joaquin Miller testified.
During this Overland period Miss Coolbrith moved to Oakland where she was made librarian of the public library. She held this position for many years, and must have exerted her gentle influence upon other young Oaklanders besides Jack London. Those who have the key to that strange book of auto- biographical fiction, Stoddard's For the Pleasure of His Company, will find therein a touching descrip- tion of Miss Coolbrith and her home in Oakland. . .One other biographical note : The student of literature will recall that in 1870 a bitter controversy
The Laukf.atk of Caufornia 233
was started by Harriet Beecher Stowe's black charge ag-ainst the honor of Byron. But how many know of Ina Coolbrith's protest against that monstrous defamation? The story has been told briefly by Joaquin Miller.
Miss Coolbrith is the American who tore down the dilapidated old church at Hucknall Torkard, where Lord Byron is buried, and rebuilt it at a cost of many thousands. And she did it in this way. At the time of that most cruel insult to the mighty poet's memory, she made a wreath of laurel and sent it by one on a pilgrimage to Byron's tomb. But the vicar protested against it. The bitter abuse, however, in America, had aroused the lion in the Briton, and a bitter clerical battle was fought in the old Norman church that had stood there for nearly 500 years. And the matter was finally appealed to the Bishop of Norwich. The Bishop of Norwich sent to the King of Greece for another laurel wreath, and so had the two hung side by side above the dust of Byron, who, had he lived, would have been the king of the land he died to liberate from the Turk. But the King of Greece did more than this, so did the Bishop of Norwich. So money poured in and the church was rebuilt. William Winter, in an article in Harper's, in speaking of this wreath and what grew out of the sending it from America, gives credit entirely to another. So it has been with her always. For she always refuses to let her name be mentioned, even though in the noblest work.
The pilgrim who carried the wreath to Byron's tomb was Joaquin Miller himself. This piece of literary history is only hinted at in Ina Coolbrith's beautiful poem "With a Wreath of Laurel." There is more of it in Miller's poem **At Lord Byron's Tomb:"
A bay wreath, wound by Ina of the West . . .
Fair as thy eternal fame, She sat and wove above the sunset wave, .'\nd wound, and sang thy measures and thy name.
All of Ina Coolbrith's poetry that a severe self- criticism deemed worthy of preservation was pub-
234 The Lantern
lished in 1907 by Houghton, Mifflin and Company in a volume of one hundred and fifty-nine pages entitled Songs from the Golden Gate. It is not all of her poetry that her admirers wish to possess. The files of San Francisco publications would yield much more ; the best Eastern magazines have been enriched by her verses both before and after 1907. (Charles Warren Stoddard told Joaquin Miller that she had never received a rejection slip.) For sev- eral years now Miss Coolbrith has been living on Russian Hill, an eminence which commands San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate, waters that to San Francisco poets always have proved irresist- ible. So one may surmise that Miss Coolbrith has poems yet unpublished. Let us hope that she will give us another volume.
What do we find in this slender volume of Ina Coolbrith's? The diapason of her life, the gamut of her thoughts. The book begins with a magnificent ode to California ; it ends with a tender tribute to her mother. Embraced within is all else that Ina Cool- brith holds high. Has any other Californian poet ever loved California as she has loved it? All that makes California passionately dear to her is gath- ered up into the sheaves of this ode which is the richest harvest of all her singing seasons. She voices here California's human cry for appreciation :
What matters though the morn Redden upon my singing fields of corn! What matters though the wind's unresting feet
Ripple the gold of wheat,
And my vales run with wine,
And on these hills of mine The orchard boughs droop heavy with ripe fruit?
When with nor sound of lute Nor lyre, doth any singer chant and sing
Me, in my life's fair spring: The matin song of me in my young day? But all my lays and legends fade away From lake and mountain to the farther hem Of sea, and there be none to gather them.
Lo!. I have waited long! .
The Laureate of California 235
How longer yet must my strung harp be dumb,
Ere its great master come? Till the fair singer comes to wake the strong. Rapt chords of it unto the new, glad song!
Him a diviner speech
My song-birds wait to teach:
The secrets of the field
My blossoms will not yield
To other hands than his;
And, lingering for this, My laurels lend the glory of their boughs
To crown no narrower brows. For on his lips must wisdom sit with youth, And in his eyes, and on the lids thereof,
The light of a great love —
And on his forehead, truth!
The poets, the painters, the sculptors, the musicians — all who loved California with a reasoned love — answered this challenge in the year of the World's Fair; answered it with the unique honor they paid to Ina Coolbrith. The laurels of California lent the glory of their boughs to her. Was the honor de- served, the action justified? The pages of Ina Cool- brith's book are sown with justification as a hillside field of California is sown with poppies. For Ina Coolbrith has celebrated all of California: the amber, rose and amethyst of Yosemite's wild fountains ; the cloud that turbans the white brow of Shasta ; the everlasting summits of the vast and awful Sierras ; the miner's camp-fire ; the cabin in the lone ravine ; the mountain trail ; the sweet cool smell of pines beneath the stars ; the Mission's fragrant garden- close ; Sausalito's hills looking down upon the golden seas; the ripening wheat; the golden tassels of the corn ; the sunset land of vine and rose and bay where the golden green of the citrons leans to the white of the saintly lily, and the sun rays drowse in the orange boughs — open the volume at random and hear her own beautiful words tell why Ina Coolbrith is poet laureate of California.
How she loves the flowers of this Sunset Para- dise ! The daisies with their little elfin faces are her
236 The Lantern
pets. In the least of the daisies she sees a deeper meaning than the seers have wrung from all the centuries. She praises God for that skill which makes the daisy's face a miracle no less than man. She loves the lilies — the saintly throng of callas, purest nuns; the Mariposa lily, that blossom-butterfly with its petal-wings of broidered gossamer ; she looks at La Flor del Salvador and remembers what He said about the lilies of the field. She is the friend of all the roses, the full-blown rose royal as a queen and the maiden rose-bud — but the beautiful Cloth of Gold is the rose of roses to her. She loves the clover, the blue-bell, the anemone, the daffodil, darling of the sun, and the violet in which heaven sees its own fair hue. All wayside flowers with their sinless faces held upward to the dew are her confidants, for they are little comforters, and blessed thoughts stir at their dainty presence. All the budded laughter of the May is beautiful to her, but there is a special place in her heart for the California poppy, the flower whose Spanish name Copa de Oro, it has al- ways seemed to me, was fashioned of a smile and a kiss. She has celebrated this kingly cup brimmed with the golden vintage of the sun in one of her finest sonnets. Small wonder Luther Burbank named a new variety in her honor.
She loves the winds of her California, whether they ripple the long grass or kiss the jeweled sea or clash their fairy cymbals amid the corn ; she loves their summer sighing, and their breath rife with meadow scents, with odors of redwood and pine. She loves the brown-bodied bees ; and all the sweetheart birds, but most of all, the bird with the plain brown breast, the lark of the Golden West.
Ina Coolbrith has many readers who never saw San Francisco. Surely she has coaxed them to like our city, she celebrates it with so much affection. In her poems the alien may know San Francisco Bay, **the bay which stout old Portola for sweet St. Francis claimed." She describes it at morning when
The Laureate of California 237
the sea-gull rides on the drowsy tide and the massed vapors wait beyond the Golden Gate; and at evening when the restless fog glides in like a ghost and the echo of the bell floats mournfully from Alcatraz. ''grim warden of the Gate." She tells us of Fort Point where a broad sea of liquid gold goes singing up the shining shore ; of Telegraph Hill, sadly scarred by man but noble nevertheless ; of her best beloved Russian Hill "where, from the long ago, Rezanov's sailors sleep." She looks back fondly to the past of San Francisco and sings the "yo""& city of my love and my desire :" she contemplates the awful catas- trophe of 1906 — "each wound upon thy breast, upon my own" — and weeps for the "sad city of my grief and my desire :" she hails the rebuilt city, prophesies its glories of the future, and acclaims the "great city of my faith and my desire." Was ever city of the New World loved so well?
Rut Ina Coolbrith is not provincial. The poet whose sympathies are exclusively intramural cannot be a great poet. Ina Coolbrith does not forget her country. In 1881 she was asked to write a Memorial Day poem for the Grand Army veterans. It is one of her greatest achievements, she will leave it as a legacy to patriotism. There is an Ina Coolbrith whose lyrics are at times Elizabethan in their felicity and grace, and who can do a short tripping measure, dainty-sweet, to perfection ; but here we find an Ina Coolbrith W'ho dares Pindaric leaps and is superb mistress of a long masculine line. It is a poem which takes hold of you in the first verse, and grips you tighter with every syllable. It fastens on you closer and closer till you are constricted breath- less in the clutch of its vigor of word, its virility of thought. It is a poem of national importance.
Ina Coolbrith is a child of the sun and of the summertide. She does not like that bleak, chill time of year when the swallow leaves for his castle-nest in Spain, the time of bitter wind and dreary rain. The time of falling leaves weighs upon her spirit.
238 The Lantern
O royal summer reign, she cries in this season, when will you come again? And she calls to the swallow to fly swiftly and bring the summer back to her. Hers is a heart that supports the burden of winter only because it believes the promise of spring. If we could look into that heart of hers, and understand why the winter is heavy upon it and why the spring uplifts it, we should understand Ina Coolbrith, be- cause then we should be as sensitive as she. True, she tells herself it is not the pallid sky nor any other influence of winter weather that strikes a discord in the restless spirit. There is, she knows, some false note within the spirit itself. Yet she is not satisfied. If nowhere else, then in her favorite poets she must find what her nature demands:
Ah, eternal summertime
Dwells within the poet's rhyme!
One cannot know how strong is this passionate love of Nature, this sensitive response to Nature's moods until one has read and absorbed her mag- nificent poem ''From Living Waters." Here too we hear again that lesson the poets never weary of teaching us — that Nature is a refuge from life and the troubling of books :
Art thou a-worn and a-weary.
Sick with the doubts that perplex?
Come from thy wisdom most dreary,
Less fair than the faith which it wrecks.
Not in the tomes of the sages
Lieth the word to thy need; Truer my blossomy pages,
Sweeter their lessons to read.
In another poem she shows us how Nature rebukes the complaining mind. Is the world cold? Behold the sunlight! Is the world's voice harsh? Hark, the song of a bird ! Is the world impure ? Look, a little child !
Children are very close to Nature, and to Nature's
The Laureate of California 239
God. How this Vestal does love them ! She sings the innocent gold of a baby's head ; the lisp of child- ish prayers; the clinging of bare white arms. With boldness because with sure sympathy Ina Coolbrith enters into a mother's heart, even when it is closed to all the world beside, locked in grief over the loss of a child.
She is so sympathetic because her life has known much sorrow. It is evident that she has found life hard, but never intolerable. The note of resignation she touches often — wistfully at times, but always sweetly. She knows the inequality of existence; she does not call it injustice. She may not understand, but she has faith. Like all true poets she accepts mysteries. Let us not try to read the story of her sadness in her verses. Let us respect her reticence, lay no rude, curious hand upon the drawn curtains of her soul. If she mentions her sadness in her poems, it is only to help others who are sad. She is very brave. She would have us think that the visitation of sadness is a sunset mood with her, noth- ing more. That it must be more than that we perceive when she sings of death, dwelling a little luxuriously on closed eyes that need no longer see the desolate dawn and the dreariness of night. To slumber and forget! To be done with regret and yearning, with doubt and fear and hope and sorrow ! It must be sweet, she sighs, it must be very sweet! Again, she asks. What do I owe the years? and answers, Dead hope, and mocked desire, and sorrow vast and pitiless as the sea, and silence, and bitter tears. The tears may be bitter, but the soul is not. This is not repining, it is honesty — only the canter pretends that trouble is light, that failure does not sting. To weep bitterly is permissible, even for a saint. A poet who walks with God must use true language. But though Ina Coolbrith's text be Sorrow at times, her context is always Submission. There is no room to argue against her love of God, her deep-seated Christian piety. Ina Coolbrith has
?40 The Lantern
heard the Sermon on the Mount; she accepts the Beatitudes ; she cultivates the gifts of the Holy Ghost ; she has been to Bethlehem, and some of her sweetest songs are sung before the Crib.
Several years ago I asked Ina Coolbrith what she considered her best poem. She smiled as she an- swered, 'The poem I haven't written." What did she mean? Was it her life she referred to? I do not know but that Ina Coolbrith's life with its poignant sorrow and its pervasive bravery is the greatest of her poems. She has suffered and has not been embittered. She has sung while her eyes were wet with tears. It may well be that her best poem is one whose music she has not, cannot set to words. But how much she can say, with mingled tenderness and scorn, when it seems necessary to vindicate her attitude toward life and art may be judged from a sympathetic reading of her
MARAH
"The song were sweeter and better,
If only the thought were glad." Be hidden the chafe of the fetter,
The scars of the wounds you have had; Be silent of strife and endeavor.
But shout of the victory won, — You may sit in the shadow forever.
If only you'll sing of the sun.
There are hearts, you must know, over tender
With the wine of the joy-cup of years; One might dim for a moment the splendor
Of eyes unaccustomed to tears: So sing, if you must, with the gladness
That brimmed the lost heart of your youth, Lest you breathe, in the song and its sadness,
The secret of life at its truth.
O violets, born of the valley.
You are sweet in the sun and the dew, But your sisters, in yonder dim alley.
Are sweeter — and paler — than you! O birds, you are blithe in the meadow,
But your mates of the forest I love, And sweeter their songs in its shadow
Though sadder the singing thereof!
The Laureate of Cam torn i a 241
To the weary in life's wildernesses
The soul of the singer belongs: Small need, in your green, sunny places.
Glad dwellers, have you of my songs. For you the blithe birds of the meadow
Trill silverly sweet, every one, But I cannot sit in the shadow
Forever, and sing of the sun.
GIFTS
I will wrap you in beauty and weave you a queenly
dress Of sunshine and of starshine where you walk in your
loveliness : You shall be shod with silver, your head with gold
I will tire. And you shall stand clear in the twilight arrayed in
my dreams and desire. jAnd I will build for your shelter a house of in- credible peace To hear your soul in the silence where the world's
wild voices cease: We shall hold it in woods of quiet and under the deep
cool skies, And it shall be lit and gladdened by the love in my
waiting eyes.
— Theodore Maynard.
THE EGO IN HADES
By Horace B. Samuel
With my natural patriotism duly magnified into a blind sadic gusto, and calling ferociously upon the name of the one goddess whom I had ever seriously worshipped, I rushed gaily into the ridiculous scrim- mage of a mutual butchery.
But inasmuch as these pages constitute not, for- sooth, a melodramatic account of a banal charge, but rather a racy and romantic chronicle of posthumous happenings, I consider as irrevelant the precise de- tails of how I, in fact, met my glorious death. It is enough to state that, having killed a few odd Germans with the keenest possible pleasure (and in my then mood I could have killed anyone, man, woman, beast, baby, devil or god with the keenest possible pleasure), I received myself a wound as mortal as it was, I am glad to say, instantaneous.
Having died, I also lost consciousness, strange as this may appear to the fatuous exponents of the theory of a complete vital continuity. It is quite possible that I found dying rather a shock. Anyway, there was a distinct gap in my consciousness — a gap which, for all I knew, might have lasted seconds, minutes, hours, days or weeks.
When, however, I did once again catch hold of the vital thread, I felt at once that there was something radically wrong, something specifically missing. Of course, during the whole tenor of my so tragically curtailed life, I had always prided myself on being an intellectual, but I can assure you that never be- fore had I either been, or indeed conceived it possible to be, so chillily and confoundedly intellectual as I now felt. A lover who has lost his mistress, a politician who has lost his seat, a woman who has lost her virtue, a B. E. F. subaltern who has lost his valise, a man who has lost a limb, are all pitiable enough specimens in all conscience ; but at least there is this .to be said for them : they are still there, angrily,
The Ego in Hades 243
vividly there, lamenting, swearing, expostulating, be- ing pathetic. They all still have something definite to do, to wish for, to fuss about. But the inconveni- ence which they sustain is, I assure you, the most in- significant of bagatelles compared with that of the gentleman who wakes up one fine hour of infinity to find himself bodyless, a ludicrous Kantian Thing- in-lt?elf, a floating piece of abstract intellectualism, a poor drifting consciousness, an intangible memory, a mere derelict idea.
No, my good crank friends of Theosophy, I did not feel relieved, purified and exalted at being freed from the sordid integument of the body. On the contrary I positively yearned for the warm crass consciousness of my own base carcase. Intellectual? Agreed! But poor fun was there, forsooth, in being intellectual when you could neither read, for you had no eyes, nor write, for you had no hands (to say nothing of the question of paper), nor even dictate, for you had no voice.
What, in fact, was there to do in this blank Hades? Only one thing, obviously. To find some warm nest in this bleak desolation of a chill infinity. And where was this nest to be found, this little home for the poor outcast idea running loose in space? In the heart, forsooth, of the only woman whom I had ever loved, the woman who for ever so short a time had yet once loved me.
Did she still draw^ me to her by her eternal magnet- ism? Possibly, but, on the whole, I prefer to favor the other theory. For even as in life, it was I who had made love to her, and had by the force and light of my own fire produced in her an answering reflection of my love, so even now I was so extra- ordinarily avid of her presence that almost immedi- ately and without search and without efifort. I found myself within her heart. And what was my dwelling- place therein? Alas! exceedingly small. A little chamber shrouded in blue silence, which in moments of reverie and souvenir she would occasionally re-
244 The Lantern
visit. And so happy was I that I should be within the heart of my beloved, that for a time my con- sciousness slumbered in sweet contentment. And then, awaking vigorous and refreshed, I strove to invade her brain. And in this respect I can boast of a success, slow but yet very definite. For by degrees I broke down the barriers of time and circumstance so that I obtained free movement within her soul. And I exploited my opportunities with some adroit- ness. When her mind was blank, I would spring up in it with the slap-dash suddenness of a jack- in-the-box. When she was busied with the thousand and one prosaic details of everyday life, I would suddenly assail her, traveling swiftly across the lines of two or three possibly somewhat complex associations of ideas. In former times she had stated, not vauntingly or coquettishly. but simply, and as a constation of fact — as indeed it was — that she was the only woman who had ever touched my emo- tional chord. It was now my turn to play tricks with hers. I haunted her with increased assiduity and cumulative success. In the bad old days I had frequently waited in vain outside the locked door of her flat while she lay stretched in some perverse dream upon her silken couch, stubborn, unheeding, absorbed. Rut now it was otherwise, since I was well inside the house of her soul, and could not be dislodged. For with the force of one single thought I could set a thousand bells ringing within her, to which in a flutter of emotions she would hasten to respond. And the measure of success which attended my persever- ance may be gauged by these two facts. The first was this: When caressing the man whose name she bore she would occasionally murmur my own name, so that I was reminded of the numerous occasions when I myself had made love to other women, only to obtain a bastard and inferior exaltation and to curse them either in my heart or aloud for the un- forgivable crime of not being She. And as she kissed her first-born, who had been baptised with some stolid
The Ego ix Hadks 245
bourgeois prefix, I would catch her occasionally think- in.2f of that fantastic Phoenician name which we our- selves had designated for our own unbegotten child.
And she would begin to create in dream the un- realized happiness of our own two lives — each work- ing hard at our respective careers in our two coun- tries, and then skipping across Europe to take hands for a brief but concentrated merry-making — and then that flippant projected journey over the continent, when we were to sign in the visitors' books of the most fashionable hotels all the names of all our most austere and depraved friends and enemies in the most impudent and monstrous collocation, so that we might thus obtain the mood and the mise-en-scene for the mischievous and rollicking farce of a col- laborated novel ; and then the sacred pilgrimage to our East, and the task of creation which we were there to accomplish.
But, alas ! what can a poor ghost of a memory efifect against the concrete reality of an existing life? What availed the raffiiie intercourse of souvenir against the solid facts of her matrimonial and maternal duties, and the petulant and persistent trifles of her social life? The excitement which I had kindled gradually subsided, and, so far as my dis- appointed ghost was concerned, her heart turned once again from fire to a dull stone, and the love-notes in her voice were once more muffled. The perfume of souvenir exhaled a fainter and yet fainter frag- rance, and my angry spirit beat once again in futile protest against doors definitely closed.
So yet again my derelict ego floated out over the void.
Frozen thus out of the heart of the only woman whom I had ever loved, my thoughts naturally turned by way of contrast to the chief criminal among the many men whom I had ever hated, the pestilential fellow who had done me, if not the worst, at any rate the most recent injury, that bluff, burly black-
246 The Lantern
guard with his bastard bonhomie and gruff geniality, who had obstructed for years past the path of my happiness.
I accordingly luxuriated in the exquisite thoughts of an Oriental revenge ; my curse should hound him to an insanitary grave; he should catch from his wife the fashionable malady of the moment only to convey it to his favorite paramour; the shadows of his sons were to be lessened in the war, and his three ugly daughters were to experience contretemps at the hands of the Bulgarians.
But, alas again! my poor, noble but abortive ideals, poor, meritorious aspirations, never to be fulfilled !
The unfortunate fact remained that I could effect no entrance into that adamantine Chubb's safe where the villain kept those Humbert's millions which he called his soul. The reason was obvious, on a little reflection. For a mere ghost to find a posthumous habitat, for it to live for ever so short a time within the soul of another man, some measure of sympathy is essential. The magic and stimulating electricity of a good old hate will answer the purpose, with its mutual partnership of clashing and revivifying shocks and the cogent contacts of its hostile cur- rents. But what was one to do with the prosaic phlegm of this most typical of British Philistines, who just went blundering on in his stolid bourgeois way and had completely forgotten my very existence? Nothing, forsooth. I could haunt him till I was weary, but he never even appreciated my ghostly presence.
From this point my existence became more and more attenuated. I became just a miserable tramp of Space and Time, cadging a few crumbs of life here and there in the memories of my friends, when some circumstance or the turn taken by some con- versation would awaken for a few transitory seconds the association of my personality.
And then, quite naturally, I began to suffer from ennui to an extent so alarming that I positively be-
The Ego in Hades 247
gan to envisage the possibility of a ghostly suicide. I turned to thoughts of the conventional deities of all ages, the Buddhas, Pans, Priapuses, Sivahs, Allahs and Kalis. But, unfortunately, they were all so en- grossed in a great war of mutual extermination as to have no time left to attend to their more serious duties. And then I became suddenly thrilled by the good red presence of my old friend the Will to Live. My consciousness began to bubble with an ever-increasing heat, and all the fibres of my soul to expand and expand with a vehement, peremptory yearning after reality.
"We all thought you were as good as dead," said the nurse, with a startled expression on her face, as I came to.
"You ought to have been by rights," observed the doctor. "Your case is simply an instance of the Will to Live — very instructive from the scientific standpoint. Your delirium has, I assure you, been extremely interesting."
"I hope I mentioned no names?" I queried with some anxiety.
"Nurse listened intently, but could catch nothing," he answered.
UNWRITTEN POEMS
Fairy spirits of the breeze — Frailer nothing is than these. Fancies born we know not where — In the heart or in the air: Wandering echoes blown unsought From far crystal peaks of thought: Shadows, fading at the dawn. Ghosts of feeling dead and gone: Alas! Are all fair things that live Still lovely and still fugitive?
— William Winter.
THE HOUND OF DEATH
By John Gurdon
The shaded lamps with rosy Hght Flood the warm, velvet-curtained room. Without, the bitter, wintry night Is black with darkness as a tomb, And soundless as the feet of Doom.
The shadow of Peace still lingers here Among the old familiar things, My friends through many a bygone year And many ways and wanderings — My Psyche with the broken wings,
The bronze Discobolus who heaves His weighty quoit, in act to throw. While generations fall like leaves. And tribes and nations come and go Like winds that blow and cease to blow.
There on her ebon pedestal White Aphrodite smiles at ease ; There Sappho gazes from the wall Forlornly o'er Leucadian seas. Still lost in passion's reveries.
What ails me? For unto me comes Blind fear, as in the gulfs profound Of dream a palsying terror numbs v'^uddenly. Ah ! — Again that sound ! — Was it the whimpering of a hound —
Some waif that in the night beneath My window, famished, cries for food?
What monster lurks, with crimson breath, There, in the dark? — The Hound of Death! The Hound of Death that whines for blood!
OUR MASKS
We should do badly, as things are ordered, if we went about the world with our natural faces. Even stopping short of the extravagance of betraying our most important secrets, and frankly telling men and women what we think of them, it is difficult in society to do without a mask in minor matters. Like Fal- staff, we are fain to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch. The plain face of truth is intolerable. Often it is a foolish blank or it has an awkward and gawky look. The oddest consequence of the artificial state in which we find ourselves obliged to live is that Nature usually looks like affectation, and that the highest art is the most like Nature of anything we know. It is in life as on the stage. A thoroughly inartificial, untrained actor, innocent of cultivated pretense, is the least natural to the eye ; and he whose acting brings the house down because of its "truth to Nature" is he whose art has been the most pro- foundly studied, and with whom the concealment of art has therefore been the most perfectly attained. So in society. A man of thoroughly natural manners would pass as either affectedly morose or affectedly pert, according to his mood — either stupid because disinclined to exert himself, or obtrusive because in the humor to talk. He would mean no offense, but he would make himself disagreeable all the same. The "natural" man is the pest of his club and the nuisance of every drawing-room he enters. It matters little whether he is constitutionally boorish or good- natured : he is natural, and his naturalness simply makes him uncouth, strange and apparently insincere. Natural women, too, may be found at times — women who demonstrate on small occasions, sincerely no doubt, but excessively ; women who skip like young lambs when they are pleased, and pout like naughty children when they are displeased ; who disdain all those little arts of dress which conceal defects and heighten beauties, and who are always at war with the fashions of the day; who despise those conventional
'50 The Lantern
graces of manner which have become part of the reHgion of society, contradicting pointblank, softening no refusal with the expression of a regret they do not feel, yawning the face of the bore, admiring with the naivete of a savage whatever is new to them or pleasing. Such women are not agreeable companions, however devoid of affectation they may be, however staunch adherents to truth and things as they are, according to their boast. The woman, on the other hand, who is not ''natural," who has not a particle of untrained spontaneity left in her, who has herself in hand on all occasions, who gives herself to her company, and who is always collected, graceful and at ease, piaying her part without a trip, but always playing her part and never letting herself drop into uncontrolled naturalness — this is the woman whom men agree to call not only charming, but thoroughly natural as well. She is thought to be far more nat- ural than the untrained woman who speaks just as she thinks, who cares more to express her own sen- sations than to study those of her companions. The unsophisticated are always most obnoxious to the charge of affectation. Their transparency, to which the world is not accustomed, and to which it does not wish to get accustomed, puzzles the critics. So- cial naturalness, like perfect theatrical representation, is everywhere the result of the best art — that is, of the most careful training. It simulates self-forget- fulness by the very perfection of its self-control, while untrained Nature is self-assertion at all corners, awk- ward and uncertain.
All of us carry our masks into society. We offer an eidolon to our fellow creatures, showing our fea- tures, but not expressing our mind ; and the one whose eidolon, while betraying least of the being within, reflects most of the being without is the most popular and is considered the most natural. We may take it as a certainty that we never really know any- one. If our friend is a person of small curiosity and large self-respect, we may trust him not to commit
Our Masks 251
a base action ; if he has a cahn temperament, with physical strength and without imagination, he will not do a cowardly one; if he has the habit of truth, he will not tell a lie on any paltry occasion ; if he is tenacious and secret, he will not betray his cause or his friend. But we know very little more than this. Even with one's most familiar friends there is always a secret door which is never opened ; and those which are thrown wide are not those which lead to the most cherished treasures. With the frankest or the shallowest there are depths never sounded ; what shall we say, then, of those who have real profundity of character? Who is not conscious of a self that no man has seen? In praise or blame we feel that we are not thoroughly known. There is something very touching in this consciousness of an inner self, an unrevealed truth, which bears us up through injus- tice and makes us shrink from excessive praise. Our friends esteem us for the least worthy part of us, or for fancied virtues which we do not possess ; and if our worst enemies knew us as we are the}^ would come round to the other side and shake hands over the grave of their mistaken estimate. The mask hides the reality in either case, for good or for ill: and we know that if it could be removed we should be judged differently.
Everything serves for a mask. A man's public character makes one which is as impenetrable in its disguise as any. The world takes one or two salient points, and subordinates every other characteristic to these. It ignores all those intricacies which modify thought and action at every turn, producing apparent inconsistency, but only apparent; and it boldly blocks out a mask of one or two dominant lines. Any quality that makes itself seen from behind this mask which popular opinion has created out of a man's public character is voted as inconsistent, or, it may be, insincere ; and the richer the nature the l^ss it is understood.
THE SILVER GIRL
By Richard Le Gallienne
Sometimes when I have thought that the Sphinx's mouth is cruel, and could not forget its stern line for all her soft eyes, I have reassured myself with the memory of a day when I saw it so soft and tender with heavenly pity that I could have gone down on my knees then and there by the side of the luncheon table, where the champagne was already cooling in the ice-pail, and worshipped her — would have done so had I thought such public worship to her taste. It was no tenderness to me, but that was just why I valued it. Tender she has been to me, and stern anon, as I have merited ; but, would you understand the heart of woman, know if it be soft or hard, you will not trust her tenderness (or fear her sternness) to yourself; you will watch, with a prayer in your heart, for her tenderness to others.
She came late to our lunch that day, and explained that she had traveled by omnibus. As she said the word omnibus, for some reason as yet mysterious to me, I saw the northern lights I love playing in the heaven of her face. I wondered why, but did not ask as yet, delaying, that I .might watch those fairy fires of emotion, for her face was indeed like a star of which a little child told me the other day. I think some one must have told him first, for as we looked through the window one starlit night, he com- municated very confidentially that whenever any one in the world shed a tear of pure pity, God's angels caught it in lily-cups and carried it right up to heaven, and that when God had thus collected enough of them, he made them into a new star. "So," said the little boy, "there must have been a good deal of kind people in the world to cry all those stars."
It was of that story I thought as I said to the Sphinx :
The Silver Girl 253
"What is the matter, dear Madonna? Your face is the Star of Tears."
And then I ventured gently to tease her.
**What can have happened? No sooner did you speak the magic word 'omnibus,' than you were trans- figured and taken from my sight in a silver cloud of tears. An omnibus does not usually awaken such tenderness, or call up northern lights to the face as
one mentions it, though," I added wistfully,
"one has met passengers to and from heaven in its musty corners, traveled life's journey with them a penny stage, and lost them for ever "
"So," I further ventured, "may you have seemed to some fortunate fellow passenger, an accidental com- panion of your wonder, as from your yellow throne by the driver "
"Oh, do be quiet," she said, with a little flash of steel. "How can you be so flippant," and then, noting the champagne, she exclaimed with fervor: "No wine for me today ! It's heartless, it's brutal. All the world is heartless and brutal .... how selfish we all
are. Poor fellow ! I wish you could have
seen his face!"
"I sincerely wish I could," I said; "for then I should no doubt have understood why the words 'omnibus* and 'champagne,' not unfamiliar words, should well, make you look so beautiful."
"Oh, forgive me! Haven't I told you?" she said, as absent-mindedly she watched the waiter filling her glass with champagne.
"Well," she continued, "you know the something Arms, where the bus always stops a minute or so on its way from Kensington. I was on top, near the driver, and, while we waited, my neighbor began to peel an orange and throw the pieces of peel down on to the pavement. Suddenly a dreadful, tattered figure of a man sprang out of some corner, and. eagerly picking up the pieces of peel, began raven-
254 The Lantern
ously to eat them, looking up hungrily for more. Poor fellow! he had quite a refined, gentle face, and I shouldn't have been surprised to hear him quote Horace, after the manner of Stevenson's gentleman in distress. I was glad to see that the others noticed him too. Quite a murmur of sympathy sprang up amongst us, and a penny or two rang on the pave- ment. But it was the driver who did the thing that made me cry. He was one of those prosperous young drivers, with beaver hats and smart overcoats, and he had just lit a most well-to-do cigar. With the rest of us he had looked down on poor Lazarus, and for a moment, but only for a moment, with a certain contempt. Then a wonderful kindness came into his face, and, next minute, he had done a great deed — he had thrown Lazarus his newly-lit cigar." "Splendid!" I ventured to interject.
"Yes, indeed!" she continued; "and I couldn't help
telling him so But you should have seen the
poor fellow's face as he picked it up. Evidently his first thought was that it had fallen by mistake, and he made as if to return it to his patron. It was an impossible dream that it could be for him — a mere rancid cigar-end had been a windfall, but this was practically a complete, unsmoked cigar. But the driver nodded reassuringly, and then you should have seen the poor fellow's joy. There was almost a look of awe, that such fortune should have befallen him, and tears of gratitude sprang into his eyes. Really, I don't exaggerate a bit. I'd have given anything for you to have seen him — though it was heart-breaking, that terrible look of joy, such tragic joy. No look of misery or wretchedness could have touched one like that. Think how utterly, abjectly destitute one must be for a stranger's orange-peel to represent dessert, and an omnibus-driver's cigar set us crying for joy "
"Gentle heart," I said, "I fear poor Lazarus did not keep his cigar for long "
Till-: SiLVKR Girl 255
"But why? "
"Why? Is it not already amono^ the stars, carried up there by those angels who catch the tears of pity, and along with Uncle Toby's 'damn.' and such bric- a-brac, in God's museum of fair deeds? We shall see it shining down on us as the stars come out tonight. Yes! that will be a pretty astronomical theory to ex- change with the little boy who told me that the stars are made of tears. Some are made of tears, I shall say, but some are the glowing ends of newly lit cigars, thrown down by good omnibus-drivers to poor, starving fellows who haven't a bed to sleep in, nor a dinner to eat, nor a heart to love them, and not even a single cigar left to put in their silver cigar-cases."
"That driver is sure of heaven, anyhow," said the Sphinx.
"Perhaps, dear, when the time comes for us to arrive there, we will find him driving the station bus — who knows? But it was a pretty story, I must say. That driver deserves to be decorated."
"That's what I thought," said the Sphinx, eagerly.
"Yes ! We might start a new society : The League of Kind Hearts; a Society for the Encouragement of Acts of Kindness. How would that do? Or we micrht endow a fund to bear the name of your bus- driver, and to be devoted in perpetuity to supplying destitute smokers with choice cigars."
"Yes," said the Sphinx, musingly, "that driver made me thoroughly ashamed of myself. I wish I was as sure of heaven as he is."
"But you are heaven,"! whispered : and apropos of heaven, here is a little song which I wrote for you last night, and with which I propose presently to settle the bill. I call it the Silver Girl :
Whiter than whiteness was her breast.
And softer than new fallen snow, So pure a peace, so deep a rest,
Yet purer peace below.
256 The Lantern
Her face was like a moon-white flower That swayed upon an ivory stem,
Her hair a whispering silver shower, Each foot a silver gem.
And in a fair white house of dreams. With hallowed windows all of pearl,
She sat amid the haunted gleams, That little silver girl:
Sat singing songs of snowy white,
And watched all day, with soft blue eyes.
Her white doves flying in her sight, And fed her butterflies.
Then when the long white day was passed, The white world sleeping in the moon,
White bed, and long white sleep at last — She will not waken soon.
POEMS IN PROSE
Dy Charles Baudelaire l._WHICH IS TRUE?
I knew one EJenedicta who filled earth and air with the ideal ; and from whose eyes men learnt the de- sires of greatness, of beauty, of glory and of all whereby we believe in immortality.
But this miraculous child was too beautiful to live long; and she died only a few days after I had come to know her, and I buried her with my own hands, one day when Spring shook out her censer in the graveyards. I buried her with my own hands, shut down into a coffin of wood, perfumed and in- corruptible like Indian caskets.
And as I still gazed at the place where I had laid away my treasure, I saw all at once a little person singularly like the deceased, who trampled on the fresh soil with a strange and hysterical violence, and said, shrieking with laughter: ''Look at me! I am the real Benedicta ! a pretty sort of baggage I am ! And to punish you for your blindness and folly you shall love me just as I am!"
But I was furious, and I answered: ''No! no! no!" And to add more emphasis to my refusal I stamped on the ground so violently with my foot that my leg sank up to the knee in the earth of the new grave; and now, like a wolf caught in a trap, I remain fastened, perhaps for ever, to the grave of the ideal.
2.— CROWDS
It is not given to every man to take a bath of multitude: to play upon crowds is an art; and he alone can plunge, at the expense of humankind, into a debauch of vitality, to whom a fairy has bequeathed in his cradle the love of masks and disguises, the hate of home and the passion of travel.
Multitude, solitude: equal terms mutually convert-
258 The Lantern
ible by the active and begetting poet. He who does not know how to people his solitude, does not know either how to be alone in a busy crowd.
The poet enjoys this incomparable privilege, to be at once himself and others. Like those wandering- souls that go about seeking bodies, he enters at will the personality of every man. For him alone, every place is vacant : and if certain places seem to be closed against him, that is because in his eyes they are not worth the trouble of visiting.
The solitary and thoughtful walker derives a sin- ofular intoxication from this universal communion. He who mates easily with the crowd knows feverish joys that must be for ever unknown to the egoist, shut up like a coffer, and to the sluggard, imprisoned like a shell-fish. He adopts for his own all the oc- cupations, all the joys and all the sorrows that cir- cumstance sets before him.
What men call love is small indeed, narrow and weak indeed, compared with this ineffable orgie, this sacred prostitution of the soul which gives itself up wholly (poetry and charity!) to the unexpected which happens, to the stranger as he passes.
It is good sometimes that the happy of this world should learn, were it only to humble their foolish pride for an instant, that there are higher, wider and rarer joys than theirs. The founders of colonies, the shepherds of nations, the missionary priests, exiled to the ends of the earth, doubtless know something of these mysterious intoxications : and. in the midst of the vast family that their genius has raised about them, they must sometimes laugh at the thought of those who pity them for their chaste lives and troubled fortunes.
T
Edited 1^ Theodore I Bennet and Mvfard K ODjf"
// M 4c//er to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for Christmas, 1917
SPEAKING OF THE MIDDLE-AGED
By THEODORE F. BONNET
THE SEXTON'S STORY (A Poem)
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
AN EVENING AT MADAME RACHEL'S
By ALFRED d. MUSSET
TO GEORGE STERLING (A Sonnet)
By ANDREW DEWING
BROKEN LIGHTS (A Story)
By HERVEY FISHER
DANSE MACABRE (A Poem)
By XAVIER MARTINEZ
THE WORLD OF HENRY JAMES
By AN ENGLISHMAN
CRADLE SONG
By PADRAIC COLUM
Single Copies, 15 Cents
'1.50 a Year
Where Money Talks and Figures Count
I'lf^^ Miles of Southern Pacific railroad in Cali- fornia are protected by Interlocking and Auto- matic Block Safety Signals. This is 95 per cent of the total steam railroad mileage in the State so protected, and represents an expenditure of over Five Million Dollars.
Southern Pacific in ipi^ received the first Gold Medal awarded by the American Museum of Safety for the "Utmost Progress in Safety and Accident Prevention/* and at the San Francisco Exposition, ipij, received the Grand Prize, the highest award, for Safety First Appliances, as well as for Railway Track, Equipment and Mo- tive Pozver.
Travel via Southern Pacific
5043 Phones Douglas S044
"In a Class by Itself
TTjeGRANEY
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room in the World
924 MARKET ST. 65 EDDY ST.
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 December, 1917 No. 9
■
Speaking of the Middle- Aged
By Theodore F. Bonnet
What a great difference there is between the ties of friendship and the ties of comradeship! This is a thought that may never strike you as you tread your tortuous way through Hfe's shallows until you sud- denly find yourself in mid-stream. You have then arrived at the transition period of life, and you are made introspective and sensible of what great mis- takes you may have made in your career. This is the sobering, serious period that comes with what Osier once described as the ''dangerous age," dangerous not in the sense that was absurdly inferred when Osier uttered himself, but on account of considerations both spiritual and physical that are of paramount importance.
These observations may not be inspiring to you ; if so turn the page, dear reader. In truth I am mounted on the airy stilts of abstraction, writing only for myself and dwellers in the land of Has-been where rules are framed for the guidance of those who realize that as they are no longer young they are not to be satisfied with paradox and epigram. I am assuming that the middle-aged are not neces- sarily futile, that they are still ambitious of life, still have some interests worth talking about. Let us consider these folk. They are much neglected by our social philosophers and alas ! there is no hope of a Balzac making his appearance among the writers of m.agazinedom. Their imagination is hopelessly pedes- trian ; they take no thought of the subtleties that mark the psychology of the middle-aged but assume that even in the early fifties the average man is little
260 The Lantern
more than a martyr to health with nothing left but possibly the charm of strange memories, which is a charm likely to be impaired by garrulity.
Now the worst to be said of middle-age is that it is inclined to scepticism, for it is a sobering period that laughs at illusions and finds it hard to accept early mistakes. But let it not be supposed that one passes straight from the forties to old age. Even though the middle-aged person be one who has to subdue his inclinations and hold them in check, he may learn to quit kicking against the pricks and continue to indulge his passion for romance. There is indeed much left in life after the wild joys of a reckless youth. One may accept middle-age and thus solve most of its problems. But nothing is so desirable as to anticipate middle-age by picking the proper pursuits before they become compulsory and thus cultivating the essential experience. It is in this connection that I would be of some little service to those who have not yet had experience thrust upon them.
Of course men's tastes differ in all periods. Some men are to be made happy by an expert barber who trims the thin hair deliberately or touches it up like an artist in camouflage ; others of little soul, to whom exterior seemliness generally is delightful, by a tailor, but I am writing only for the temperamental who, after all, are the only ones worth considering, as they are sensitive to spiritual changes and in them the subtlest impulses are never dead nor even dying. Dear to them are the creature comforts and a serene mind; a fine companionship is their chief de- light, and not all of them are married. Be not mis- taken. I am not advocating club life. There are creature comforts to be sure in the monastic estab- lishment haunted by the confirmed bachelor or celibate who in middle age and later abhors loud noises and a babel of tongues. He is merely the antithesis of domesticity who boasts that he is immune to the cajoleries of woman. A selfish beast is he, hardly
Speaking of the Middle-Aged 261
worth talking about. Instinctively he prefers a chop with a crony or even with John Doe to a tete-a-tete with a bright and charming woman. I never con- found such a person with Pepys, the lover of tavern talks, for that gallant gossip was far from insensible to the delights of propinquity with the skirted sex. I am writing of the middle-aged to whom the years have brought the necessity of a curious and tender care for the discomforts of the body when it is too much even for the mind to devote itself incessantly to the services of the clayey tabernacle. I have met with men to whom this experience has come, and it is with them even in mid-stream as though they had a foretaste of the grave. For such as they the club is not akin to paradise. The average club is full of bores. And so it is that I remark the difference be- tween comradeship and friendship.
The superficial sympathy of friends ought to be forced into deeper and more intimate currents of feeling; for there often comes a time in middle-age when the soul thirsts for a sweeter sympathy than ordinary friendship knows. Do not misunderstand me; I would not underestimate friendship. A good friend is a treasure, inestimable in possession, much to be lamented when gone, but friendship is sometimes only the expedient of those that appreciate an acquaintance with men who, having looked into the world, can give good advice. The value of friends of this sort is not to be lightly considered at any time; at least they may improve your mind; or they may dispel ennui, especially when they have a golden temper and no pretensions to a high oppressive great- ness. Among them may be found men who prove a sure refuge in poverty and misfortune, but for the soul is sometimes needed in middle-age the judicious sympathy of men with whom we are never under restraint.
Fortunate is the man who has become united to another by a more sacred tie than friends, however estimable, have ever known. Between the best of
262 The Lantern
friends natures are sometimes incompatible, and in such cases men carelessly drift into a kind of in- timacy whereby they waste much time. A notable case was that of the friendship cultivated at a round table in a public dining room, which I had known through a long period of years. Men sat into com- pany there to sharpen their wits. They were friends after a fashion. When one died all the others sent a handsome floral piece, and pleasant memories were permitted to linger. But there were no tender sym- pathies at this table. On the contrary there were simulated antipathies intended to make men wisely cynical and to stimulate the comic spirit for the good of men's souls, it being assumed that it was a great blessing to prevent men from ever taking themselves seriously. Here indeed was the mirror held up to nature that men might enjoy the great gift of seeing themselves as others saw them. A great gift indeed, but at the round table I speak of the cynicism that was cultivated and prevalent gave facility to ex- changes of the outgivings of insincerity. For while there was a disposition to be frank there was also a temptation to employ candor on the side; that is, beyond earshot, and the result was tantamount to backbiting. It may have been prompted by good motives, but in such cases you never can tell, and at any rate the man himself who is most directly in- terested is likely to be the better judge whether the third person is a suitable auditor. But anyway w^e need comrades ; friends of a kind we can do without; comrades adapt themselves with a nicer fit and adjustment to what is peculiar and charac- teristic in^ those they love.
The ties of comradeship are the very sinews of life. And comrades are more indulgent of one an- other. They are kind and generous in their inter- pretation of behaviour that may unconsciously wound sensitive feelings. They are quick to appre- hend, and they withhold resentment of words and conduct that seem to call for reprisals, knowing that
Speaking of the Middle-Aged 263
there are times when men lose their poise and are unintentionally rude. A friend may permit pride to step in before generous emotion and to take violent exceptions to what are hastily interpreted as affronts, when none has really been intended, when indeed, the guilty person might deeply deplore the thing that gave offense and would be glad to be chided that he might make reparation.
Again friends are good to have because we are gregarious and our instinct for companionship is never so strong as when we get into middle life. The gregarious animal, especially the sheep and dog, feels an instinctive horror if he be away from the herd; he hates solitude, he loves warmth which in the case of man is supplied by companionship and sympathy. There is a certain terror of loneliness, and lonely rooms and warmth have acquired a per- fectly unreasonable association with security. Here we find simple manifestation of human gregarious- ness, remnants of the purely animal instinct breaking out in the human mind. Too bad we cannot all be Robert Louis Stevensons. R. L. S. had the power of absorbing the places he visited. Here was a man who never had a home at all in the accepted sense of the term. He was a wanderer from his birth, an absolute stranger to the homing spirit. Edmund Gosse has related that while the rest of Stevenson's contemporaries settled down and acquired the impedi- menta of the householder, Stevenson was wont to laugh at their encumbrances and despise their provinciality. He himself knew no continuing city; he was an Ariel of the open field. But how curious ! though the shrines of the dead author are desolate and forbidding the companionship quality of good fellowship has never forsaken him ; it is secure against the taint of time just because his spirit haunts the habitations of his life till place and memory are so inextricably woven that fancy can scarcely sep- arate them.
How lovely it would be to have Stevenson (if only
264 The Lantern
in his books) a comrade forever. But, ah, there's the rub! In middle Hfe may come the time when to read is impossible; that is, to read with your mind on the book. And so it is I say that it is well to anticipate middle-age so far as possible by the de- lights of companionship whether in domesticity or the comradeship akin thereto or by some assured means of diversion. We cannot all be Oriental philo- sophers. The Grand Lama of Thibet is somewhat ex- ceptional, and it is not easy to let the world jog as it will with perfect indifference. And besides there are few joys for the philosopher who dwells apart in an island formed by screens, regardless of the praise of the wise and the oblivion of the mob. If the milk of human kindness has dried up and if grudging no one his joys neither are you touched by the reverses of your fellows you have simply gone back to the self-preoccupation of the savage. This is a dismal prospect that nobody need face, since it is possible for us all to enter middle life with a fad and thus be agreeably indifferent to discomforts, mental and physical. Hence I would admonish you, assum- ing that you have borne with me thus far, to prepare for the fifties by cultivating a fad. It is a wise man that keeps a fad handy for a rainy day, one that he may take pleasure in with no mental, and very little physical, exertion. Now, take it from me it is of some importance to guard against the perils of middle-age. Remember that man lives in opposition to the forces of nature and that it is his recurrent task to build up bulwarks against the in- cursions of these forces that he may endure in mental vigor to the end. It would be well if you could indulge in the week-end habit of the leisured, for holidays are a great tonic. They take your mind off business. But if week-end trips are im- possible take to golf and get bitten with it. The pursuit of the little white pill in the open air is a diversion that has added years to many a man's life.
THE SEXTON'S STORY
By Edward F. O'Day
There's a corner in the churchyard We were always taught to shun, And when we had to pass it, We would shut our eyes and run.
'Twas a grave o'ergrown with brambles, With a mouldy, shattered stone, And what the carved inscription was The sexton knew alone.
That corner of the churchyard Is always wrapped in gloom, For a weeping willow guards it With the silence of the tomb.
And beneath that mournful pent-house, In that cold and brambly bed, Which we shunned as something evil, A murderer rests his head.
Death holds no fear for children. And we gathered day by day In that quiet, ancient graveyard Our childish games to play.
We would scramble o'er the tombstones With laughter gay and loud. But we always feared the gloomy spot Where the weeping willow bowed.
One summer day as thus we played. In the haunted spot I spied The sexton kneeling at the grave — And he bent his head and cried.
I stole from my laughing comrades, And silently I crept To a place where I could watch him As he knelt at that grave and wept.
266 The Lantern
He was old, was the sexton, and silent,
His step was weary and slow,
And his hair was gray and his heart was bowed
With the weight of a secret woe.
And though he tended the churchyard And all its history knew, I had never seen him kneel before Where the weeping willow grew.
And though he was heavy-laden, With a sorrow secret and deep, And no one had ever seen him smile, I had never seen him weep.
Filled with childish pity,
I ran to the sexton's side,
And stole my arm around his neck
And asked him why he cried.
He lifted his tear-stained face to mine. And his eyes were filled with gloom ; ''My child," said he, "I weep for myself. For this is my father's tomb.
'Tor forty years at yonder kirk I have tolled the passing bell, For all whose souls have gone to heaven, And some that have gone to hell.
'Tor forty years I have dug their graves And carved each burial stone, And daily I tended their last abodes. Except this spot alone.
'Tor my father died for a deed of blood. And though I rang his knell, I could not garnish a murderer's grave. For I thought that his soul was in hell.
The Sexton's Story 267
**Many a time in these forty years Have I longed to brighten this spot, But I thought of the crime for which he died, And I trembled, and dared it not.
"Many a time in the dead of night I have slept and seen my sire. His soul imbrued in guilty blood, Writhing in awful fire.
"And when from my mind the vision fled I would wake with bated breath. And pray for my father's tortured soul, And for the man he did to death.
"Last night another vision came — There was no blood, no fire — But there rose on a beam of light to heaven The soul of my ransomed sire.
"And now I may deck his lonely grave And plant it with flowers gay, And rU prune this sad old willow tree, And let in the light of day."
The old man's words were joyous to hear. But his eyes had a look of doom. And he swayed and fell in a swoon of death On the face of his father's tomb.
Once more the passing bell was tolled, And his grave if you would see. The son is laid at his father's side 'Neath the weeping willow tree.
AN EVENING AT MADAME RACHEL'S
(Although this letter hears no date, and its envelope has been lost, it is possible to iix the evening pre- cisely; it zvas May 2p, 18^9- Dating from this, the relations between the poet and the young tragedian became most friendly.)
Translated from Alfred de Musset
My very best thanks, honored Madam and dear Godmother, for the letter of the amiable Paolita (Pauline Garcia) which you sent me. This letter is both interesting and charming; but you, who never miss an opportunity to show those whom you love best some beautiful little attention, deserve the great- est praise. You are the only human being whom I have found to be so constituted.
A charitable act always finds its reward, and thanks to your Desdemona letter I shall now regale you with a supper at Madame Rachel's, which will amuse you, providing we are still of the same opinion, and still share the same admiration for the divine artist. My little adventure is solely intended for you, because "the noble child" detests indiscretions, and then also because so much stupid talk and gossip circulate since I have been going to see her, so that I have decided not even to mention it when I have been to see her at the Theatre Francais.
The evening here referred to she played Tancrede, and I went in the intermission to see her to pay her a compliment about her charming costume. In the fifth act she read her letter with an expression which was especially sincere and touching. She told me herself that she had cried at this moment, and was so moved that she was afraid she might not be able to continue to speak. At ten o'clock, after the close of the theatre, we met by accident in the Colonnades of the Palais Royal. She was walking arm-in-arm with Felix Bonnaire, accompanied by a crowd of young people, among whom were Mademoiselle Rebut, Mademoiselle Dubois of the Conservatory and
An Evening at Madame Rachel's 269
a few others. I bow to her; she says to me "You come along."
Here we are at her house; Bonnaire excuses him- self as best he can, annoyed and furious about the meeting. Rachel smiles about this deplorable de- parture. We enter ; we sit down. Each of the young ladies at the side of her friend, and I next to the dear Fanfan. After some conversation Rachel notices that she has forgotten her rings and bracelets in the theatre. She sends her servant girl to fetch them. There's no girl there now to prepare supper! But Rachel rises, changes her dress, and goes into the kitchen. After a quarter of an hour she reenters, in house-dress and cap, beautiful as an angel, and holds in her hand a plate with three beefsteaks which she has just fried. She puts the plate in the middle of the table and says "I hope it will taste good to you." Then she goes into the kitchen again and returns with a soup bowl of boiling bouillon in the one hand and in the other a dish of spinach. That is the supper! No plates, no spoons, because the servant girl has taken the keys with her. Rachel opens the sideboard, finds a bowl of salad, takes the wooden fork, eventually discovers a plate and commences to eat alone.
"In the kitchen," says Mamma, who is hungry, "are the pewter knives and forks."
Rachel rises, fetches them, and distributes them among those present. Now the following conversa- tion takes place, in which you will notice that I have not changed anything:
The Mother: Dear Rachel, the beefsteaks are too well done.
Rachel : You are right ; they are as hard as stone. Formerly, when I still did the housekeeping, I certainly cooked much better. I am poorer for this talent now. There is nothing to be done about it, and for that I have learnt something else. Don't you eat, Sarah? (the sister).
270 The Lantern
Sarah : No ; I do not eat with pewter knives and forks.
Rachel: Ah, just Hsten to that! Since I have bought you from my savings a dozen silver knives and forks you cannot touch pewter any more. I sup- pose when I become richer you will have to have a liveried lackey behind your chair and one before. (Pointing to her fork) I shall never part with these old knives and forks. They have done us service for too long. Isn't it so, Mamma?
The Mother (with her mouth full) : She is a perfect child!
Rachel (turning to me) : Think of it, when I was playing in the Theatre Moliere I had only two pairs of stockings, and every morning — (Here the sister, Sarah, commences to speak German in order to prevent her sister from saying any more).
Rachel (continuing) : Stop talking your German. That is no shame at all. Yes, I only had two pairs of stockings, and in order to be able to appear at night I had to wash one pair every morning. They hung in my room on a string while I wore the others.
I : And you did the housekeeping ?
Rachel: I got up every morning at six o'clock, and at eight o'clock all the beds were made. Then I went to the Halles and bought the food.
I: And didn't you let a little profit go into your own pocket?
Rachel: No. I was a very honest cook, wasn't I, Mamma?
The Mother (continuing to eat) : Yes, that's true.
Rachel: Only once I was a thief for a whole month. If I bought anything for four sous I charged five, and if I paid ten I charged twelve. At the end of a month I found that I was in possession of three francs.
I (severely) : And what did you do with those three francs. Mademoiselle?
The Mother (who sees that Rachel is silent) :
An Evening at Madame Rachel's 271
Monsieur de Musset, she bought the works of Moliere with that money.
I: Really?
Rachel: Why, yes, certainly. I had Corneille and Racine, and so I had to have Moliere, and I bought him for three francs, and then I confessed
all my sins Why does Mademoiselle Rebut
go? Good night, Mademoiselle!
The larger part of the dull people follows the example of Mademoiselle Rebut. The servant girl returns with the forgotten rings and bracelets. They are put on the table. The two bracelets are mag- nificent, worth at least four to five thousand francs. In addition to that there is a most costly golden tiara. All this is lying anywhere about the table, betwixt and between the salad, the pewter spoons and the spinach.
The idea of keeping house, attending to the kitchen, making beds and all the cares of a poverty-stricken household, sets me thinking, and I regard Rachel's hands, secretly fearing that they are ugly or ruined. They are graceful, dainty, white and full, the fingers tapering. In reality, hands of a princess.
Sarah, who is not eating, does not cease scolding in German. It must be remarked that on this certain day, in the forenoon, she had been up to some pranks which, according to her mother's opinion, had gone a bit too far, and it was only owing to the urgent interference of her sister that she has been forgiven and been allowed to retain her place at the table.
Rachel (answering to her German scolding) : Leave me in peace. I want to speak about my youth. I remember that one day I wanted to make punch in one of these pewter spoons. I held the spoon over the light, and it melted in my hand. By the way, Sophie, give me the kirsch; we will make some punch. Ouf .... I am through ; I have eaten enough. (The cook brings a bottle.)
The Mother: Sophie is mistaken. That is a bottle of absinthe.
272 The Lantern
I : Give me a drop.
Rachel: Oh, how glad I would be if you would take something with us.
The Mother: Absinthe is supposed to be very healthy.
I: Not at all. It is unhealthy and detestable.
Sarah : Why do you want to drink some, then ?
I : In order to be able to say that I have partaken of your hospitality.
Rachel: I want to drink also. (She pours out absinthe into a tumbler and drinks. A silver bowl is brought to her, in which she puts sugar and kirsch ; then she lights her punch, and lets it flame up.) I love this blue flame.
I : It is much prettier if there is no candle burn- ing.
Rachel: Sophie, take the candles away.
The Mother: What ideas you have! Nothing of the kind will be done.
Rachel: It is unbearable Pardon me,
Mamma, you dear, good one (She embraces
her.) But I would like that Sophie takes the candles away.
A gentleman takes both candles and puts them under the table — twilight effect. The mother, who in the light of the flame from the punch appears now green, now blue, fixes her eyes upon me, and watches every one of my movements. The candles are brought up again.
A Flatterer: Mademoiselle Rebut did not look well this evening.
I : You demand a great deal. I think she is very pretty.
A Second Flatterer: She lacks esprit.
Rachel: Why do you talk like that? She is not stupid, like many others, and besides, she has a good heart. Leave her in peace. I do not want my col- leagues to be talked about in this manner.
The punch is ready, Rachel fills the glasses, and distributes them. The remainder of the punch she
An Evening at Madame Rachel's 273
pours into a soup plate, and commences to eat it with a spoon. Then she takes my cane, pulls out the dagger which is in it, and commences to pick her teeth with the point of it.
Now there is an end to this gossip, and this child- talk. A word is sufficient to change the whole at- mosphere of the evening, and what follows is conse- crated with the power of art.
I : When you read the letter this evening you were very much moved.
Rachel: Yes, I felt as if something was break- ing within me, and in spite of all I do not like this piece ("Tancrede") very much. It is untrue.
I: You prefer the pieces of Corneille and Racine?
Rachel : I like Corneille well enough, although he is flat occasionally, and sometimes too pompous. All that is not truth.
I : Eh, eh ! Mademoiselle, slowly, slowly !
Rachel: For instance, see, when in Horace Sa- bine says "One can change the lover, not the hus- band"— well, I don't like that; that is common.
I : At least you will admit that that is true.
Rachel: Yes, but is it worthy of Corneille? There I prefer Racine. I adore him. Everything that he says is so beautiful, so true, so noble!
I : As we are just speaking about Racine, do you remember that some time ago you received an anonymous letter in which some hints were given to you in reference to the last scene of Mithridate?
Rachel: Certainly. I followed the advice, and since then I have a tremendous amount of applause in this scene. Do you know the person who wrote me that?
I : Very well. It is a woman who is the happy possessor of the most brilliant mind and the smallest foot in Paris. Which role are you studying now?
Rachel: This summer we will play Maria Stuart and then Polyeucte, and may be ... .
I: What?'
Rachel (beating the table with her fist) : Listen,
274 The Lantern
I want to play Phedre. It is said I am too young, that I am too thin, and a hundred other stupidities of that kind. But I answer, it is the most beautiful part by Racine, and I shall play it.
Sarah : That would probably not be right, Rachel.
Rachel : Leave me in peace ! They think I am too young, the part is not appropriate. By heaven, when I was playing Roxane I have said quite dif- ferent things, and what do I care about that? And if they say that I am too thin, then I consider that stupidity. A woman who is filled with a criminal love, and who would rather die than submit to it, a woman who is consuming herself in the fire of her passion, of her tears, such a woman cannot have a bosom like the Paradol; that would be absurd. I have read the part ten times within the last eight days. I do not know how I am going to play it, but I can tell you this: I feel the part. The papers can write what they please. They will not spoil it for me. They do not know what to bring up against me, in order to harm me instead of helping and encouraging me; but if there is no other way out of it I shall play it to only four persons (turning to me). Yes, I have read many candid and conscien- tious criticisms, and I know of nothing better, noth- ing more useful; but there are many people who are using their pen in order to lie, in order to destroy. They kill the intellect with pin-pricks. Really, if I could I would poison them !
The Mother: Dear child, you do not stop talk- ing; you are making yourself tired. You were on your feet at six o'clock this morning; I don't know what was the matter with you. You've been gossip- ing all day. And you even played this evening. You will make yourself sick.
Rachel (full of liveliness) : No, let me be. I tell you, no. I call this life. (Turning to me) Shall I fetch the book? We will read the play together.
Ax Evening at Madame Rachel's 275
I : You attempt to ask ? You cannot make me a pleasanter proposition.
Sarah : But, dear Rachel, it is half-past eleven.
Rachel: Who hinders you from going to sleep?
Sarah actually goes to bed; Rachel rises and goes out, and on returning holds in her hands the volume of Racine. Her expression and her walk have some- thing festive and sacred. She walks like a priestess who, carrying the holy vessels, approaches the altar. She sits down next to me, and snuffs the candle ; the mother falls asleep smilingly.
Rachel (opens the book with special reverence and leans over it) : How I love this man ! When I put my nose into this book I could forget to eat and to drink for two days and two nights.
Rachel and I begin to read Phedre. The book lies open between us on the table. All the others go away. Rachel bows to each one as they depart, with a slight nod of the head, and continues in her reading. At first she reads in a monotonous tone, as if it were a litany; by and by she becomes more animated; we exchange our ideas and our observa- tions about each passage. Finally she arrives at the explanation. She stretches out her right arm on the table, resting it on her elbow, the forehead in her left hand. She lets herself be carried away by the contents of the passage; at the same time she speaks in a half-lowered voice. Suddenly her eyes flash, the genius of Racine lights up her features, she pales, she blushes. Never have I seen anything more beau- tiful, anything more moving; nor did she ever make such a deep impression on me in the theatre.
So the time passes until half-past twelve. The father returns from the Opera, where he had seen La Nathan appear for the first time in The Jewess. No sooner had he sat down than he ordered his daughter in brusque words to stop her declamation. Rachel closes the book and says:
276 The Lantern
"It is revolting. I am going to buy myself a light, and will read alone in bed."
I looked at her, big tears filled her eyes.
It was really shocking to see such a creature treated in this way. I rose to go, filled with admira- tion, respect and sympathy.
Having arrived home I hurry to put down the details of this memorable evening with the faithful- ness of a stenographer for you, in the expectation that you will keep it, and that one day it will be found agfain.
TO GEORGE STERLING
By Andrew Dewing
His song shall waken the dull-sleeping throng, That dreams of sullen and of earth-bound things ; He soars with Beauty where the eternal sings,
And the Deep's insuperable chants prolong
The everlasting sovereignties of Song;
Where caverned thunder from the mountains flings Its dirge o'er dust of crumbled thrones and kings.
He stands defiant of Oblivion's wrong.
Yet ampler Liberty, divine and strange. Lifts in the song of his Promethean lyre, An echo of lost Time's immortal ones; The tangled webs of mortal death and change Perish before his chanting lyric fire,
Caught in the paling light of sinking suns.
BROKEN LIGHTS
By Hervey Fisher
For nineteen years John Purkiss had lived on a small farm at the edge of the village named Brax- hurst in the New Forest. He was blue-eyed, red- bearded, inclined to silence at home, though loqua- cious enough at the "Silver Moon." His companions liked him in his cups and distrusted him sober. He was suspected of poaching and of damaging an orchard fence belonging to Farmer Dilton, with whom he had quarreled over cards.
One night a hayrick owned by Dilton was set alight, and Purkiss was openly accused of the deed. So the village constable questioned the latter, and even commandeered his boots so that he might com- pare them with faint footprints left apparently by the malefactor. Purkiss was furious, and dared all those round the blazing rick to prove his guilt. Prove it they could not, and next morning on the village highway Dilton offered his hand to Purkiss, but Purkiss spat in his face. Dilton glowered and shook his heavy head like an angry heifer. But he moved away, swallowing the insult in silence.
A week later Purkiss disappeared from his home. He left it on a bright, windy April morning with twenty-five shillings in his pocket and a twisted, var- nished hollystick in his hand. Weeks passed, and no news of him came. Search parties scoured the forest, the river and ponds were dragged, descrip- tions of the missing man were circulated by the police, but all in vain. John Purkiss, leaving a wife and five children, had completely and mysteriously vanished.
Then it was recalled that the missing man had been wont to speak of foreign parts with a zest born of desire. He had often repeated scraps gleaned from newspapers or books about American cities, gold mines, tropical forests. ''What has Braxhurst for a man?" he would say. "Abroad there's some-
278 The Lantern
thing to see." He would complain that in the village he was the sport of evil tongues; he had brooded with bitterness on his unpopularity. He had felt himself a failure. Utterly indolent, he was ambitious only in his dreams. "You'd be a fine man to travel !" his wife would exclaim to him sarcastically. "Why, you can't even look after a couple of cows!" Yet Mrs. Purkiss was stricken when her husband did not return. She tried to believe that he had left South- ampton for America to amass a fortune with which he would ultimately enrich his family.
Nellie, her eldest daughter, was slim and strong, with the flush of a wild rose in her cheeks. Her hair was red-gold, and she had masses of it. She could milk the cows, make butter and help her mother in the house. Well-balanced, she was ambitious enough to look beyond the village and the farmyard. A few weeks before her father's disappearance she had become engaged to a young draper of Lyming- ton named Kitson. They had met at a dance, then at a cricket match on Braxhurst Green. Finally, on most Sunday afternoons Kitson would cycle over to spend a few hours with Nellie. He thought her figure "ladylike," and her beauty flattered his vanity. The slight condescension in his manner towards her he retained to mark the slight superiority in his social position and accomplishments. He had the confidence of the pavement; it did not escape him that Nellie was ill at ease in the Lymington High Street; he could play a waltz on the piano, and was earning thirty-five shillings a week at the finest drapery stores within fifteen miles of Braxhurst.
When Nellie's father disappeared, Kitson was even more shaken than Nellie. The event was to him not a romantic mystery, nor even a tragedy, so much as an ugly impropriety. He was at length soothed by Nellie repeatedly assuring him that her father had probably contrived to get to America, whence he might return in a few years' time with a fortune. "A clever man dad is," she would say, "if he only
Jroken Lights 279
gets an opening. There's no opening for a man like him in Braxhurst."
Whipple and Pilling, whom Kitson consulted — for they were his closest friends — were inclined to take Nellie's view. They represented to the young draper that "Old Purkiss was probably an artful card who knew a thing or two," and that no social stigma attached to a daughter whose father had run away to make money.
One Saturday afternoon, towards the end of June, Kitson and Nellie, Whipple and Pilling with their young ladies. Ivy Palmer and Rose Tubbs, formed a party strolling in the Forest. They sang music hall songs in Queen's Bower, and gave each other riddles ; they carved their initials on the venerable trunk of a glorious beech, and Whipple displayed his skill in balancing a cane on the end of his nose. Pilling imitated the cry of a woodpecker so drolly that little Ivy Palmer laughed until the tears came into her eyes. Then they sought the resinous cool- ness of a fir enclosure and sat down in the fresh green bracken to drink ginger beer.
It was Whipple who proposed hide-and-seek.
"It's just the place!" he exclaimed. "You can hide anywhere in these firs, and I'll put up my stick in the path for home." He knew that his sweetheart, little Ivy, ran like a fawn, and wished to enjoy the pleas- ure of catching her. Pilling observed that the game would give the girls a chance of showing their mettle, and after a little discussion Whipple's suggestion was adopted. It was arranged that two should hide and four should seek, and the first two to hide were Nellie and Kitson.
They two ran off together through the firs whilst the others counted sixty seconds. The young draper, alarmed by the bramble and stumbling over twisted tree roots, followed Nellie, who, surer and fleeter, was his guide. She ran, breathless and exultant, until she came upon a large dry ditch, into which she leaped. Then Kitson heard her scream and saw
280 The Lantern
the girl scrambling back, her rosy face dead-white. "Has an adder bitten her?" he thought.
"There's a man down there!" she gasped, coming towards him.
"A man?" questioned the youth, perplexed and frightened, he knew not why.
"A body," she whispered.
Kitson stepped forward, but the girl clutched his arm.
"Don't go!" she cried. "It's too awful!"
He stood for a moment irresolute, then, curiosity overcoming fear, he suggested they should look at the thing together. They went forward, and Kitson coming to the large ditch, jumped into it.
"To the left," murmured the girl, standing above him.
Kitson turned to see a few paces from him at the bottom of the ditch the body of a man whose big- footed feet were towards him. One knee was doubled up, upon which lay, emerging from a black mildewed sleeve, the ghastly relic of a hand. Kitson saw the bones and divined the livid shreds of putrescent flesh on which the gluttonous flies were fastened in motion- less clusters. He looked for a face, and found only a swarm of merciless flies and rapacious beetles seeth- ing above a tangled red beard.
"He's as dead as a doornail," he muttered, turning to the girl. He sprang from the ditch and was at her side. She was crying. He shook his spruce gray flannel trousers as if the creeping pollution clung to them. The odor of corruption was in his nostrils. "Let's go and join the others," he said.
But Pilling had descried them through the trees, and was hallooing his discovery to his fellow searchers.
"We aren't playing," shouted back Kitson to his friend.
A minute later the little party was assembled on the swarded path and informed of the strange dis- covery.
Broken Lights 281
**I vote we go on with our game," declared Pilling. "It's nothing to stop for."
"Dead men can't bite," added Whipple with a faint cackle, as if a little doubtful of the propriety of his remark.
"Oh, it's made me quite ill," moaned Nellie. "I'm not going into the horrid wood again — no fear!"
"What a shame!" muttered Ivy. "Just as we were going to have some fun. There's always something to spoil things." Pilling suggested they should all go together to view the corpse, but the girls re- ceived the proposal with tremulous cries of disfavor.
"Go yourself, Ted, but don't expect me to go with you!" exclaimed Ivy.
"I should want a sovereign to see such a sight," added Rose.
"It's not a sight for ladies," remarked Kitson, with a look of frigid severity at Pilling.
In the end Whipple and Pilling, after receiving curt but sufficient directions from Kitson, disappeared into the firs to see what they could for themselves. But Nellie, meanwhile, had begun to walk home- wards up the path. Kitson, as in duty bound, has- tened to follow his fiancee.
"Ain't you stopping with us, Nell?" called out Rose, who, with Ivy, was awaiting the return of their two cavaliers from the wood. But Nellie merely turned, very pale, to wave her hand in adieu. Then she resumed her way.
"She's come over queer," remarked Ivy to Rose.
"And no wonder. I feel funny myself," replied Rose. "They say he was all eaten away," she added in a whisper.
Meanwhile through the deep June stillness of the soundless forest, broken only by the tap, tap of a hidden woodpecker, Nellie and her young draper hastened homewards, the latter perplexed and pained, feeling as if he had struck suddenly the sharp edge
282 The Lantern
of an obscure and cruel scandal. He began to re- sent the presence of this girl, who seemed tainted by the corruption of the corpse that was driving her home. With the quick instinct of cowardice he divined the link that bound her to the nameless horror in the ditch, and his soul was uneasy.
That evening there was much talk in Braxhurst about the dead man. There was no doubt now of his identity. The rough red beard told its tale. Whipple had fished out from the ditch with his cane a purple-checked handkerchief marked ''J- Purkiss," and had hung it in triumph on the branch of an adjacent fir. Two hours later the village constable paid his visit in the company of Mrs. Purkiss. The woman stared mutely at the half-eaten head, to fall into a storm of weeping when she caught sight of the twisted hollystick she knew so well. The constable, having discovered it in a thicket, held it out for her inspection with official self-importance, and was somewhat shocked by her emotion.
But stranger things were to happen. The next morning Farmer Dilton was found by his maid- servant hanging from a blackened beam in his cow shed, his red bull-neck strangled by a cord. And a week later the young draper formally surrendered his claims to the hand of Nellie. He was afterwards fond of explaining this step to his friends, who were inclined to appreciate his wisdom.
"How can a fellow be keen on a girl, "he would observe, "whose father he finds in a ditch half-eaten by beetles and flies?"
But Nellie a few weeks later left her home, and, coming into Sussex, met a pleasant young car- penter, to whom she was soon married.
DANSE MACABRE
By Xavier Martinez
On voit a peine les etoiles, Le ciel et un gouffre noir, Les arbres n'ont plus de feuilles ; Sur le lac, jadis de cristal Flottent des ombres bizarres, La tous les morts se sont donne Sinistre rendez-vous, pour celebrer Leur grands fetes macabres.
THE WORLD OF HENRY JAMES
By An Englishman
The art of Henry James has often been discussed. He was a conscious artist, knowing more clearly than is the wont of English novelists what he wished to do, and, given his subject, how he must set about it. His books were therefore an excellent theme for critics eager to convince a generation persuaded of the contrary, by too many dazzling achievements in the opposite manner, that fiction need not be form- less and that after all the soul of a good story is an idea. To Henry James the novel was something other than a convenient hold-all into which any valu- able observations and reflections might be stufifed at the last moment ; nor was it, to go no farther into the matter, merely peptonized experience. He was an artist, a creator, a dreamer of dreams. Of course the world he created bore a vital relation to our ordinary experience, as all art must if it is to be- witch and move us; but the characters in that world, in whose fate and emotions he interested us, existed in a medium which was not the atmosphere we ordinarily breathe. The medium was his own mind. Just as there is a world called ''Dickens," another
284 The Lantern
called "Balzac," so there is a world called "Henry James." If we speak of the reality of such worlds, it is only a proof we have been completely beguiled. We are only paying homage to the shaping minds of their creators. How independent of the actual world, how dependent vitally upon the world in which they are set, these characters in fact are, becomes instantly clear if we imagine one of them removed from one imaginary world to another. Consider Pecksniff transplanted into The Golden Bowl; he would become extinct. And how incredible would "the Dove" be in the pages of Martin Chuzzlewit! The same holds good of all characters constructed piecemeal from life when introduced into a world which is composed out of an overflow of imagination. They become solecisms ; either they kill the book or the book kills them. The unforgivable artistic sin in a novelist is the failure to maintain his tone. This was a sin which Henry James never com- mitted. His characters always belong to his own world; his world is always congruous with his char- acters. What sort of a world was it? And what were its relations to our common experience which made it so interesting to us? The answers to these two questions, which the work of every creative artist prompts, need not be separated. H the analyst suc- ceeds in answering the one he will suggest the answer to the other.
We have begun by emphasizing Henry James's creative power, because in every novelist of whom that faculty can be predicated at all it is always the most important thing. Yet in his case it has often been overlooked. Most critics have found in his work so much else to interest them — his style, his methods, his subtlety — that from what they have written it might be supposed that his main distinction lay in being either a psychologist, or an observer, or an inventor of a new, impressive, fascinating, but, according to many, a not altogether defensible, style. Yet to regard him primarily as an observer or
The World of Henry James 285
psychologist or a maker of phrases is not only to belittle him, but to make the same mistake as we did when first Ibsen came into our ken. It seems hardly credible that we should have taken Ibsen for a realist, but we did. Despite his rat wife, wild duck, towers and ice churches ; despite the strange intensity of his characters, which alone might have put us on the right track; despite the que^r deep-sea stillness and pressure of the element in which they had their be- ing and the vivid, perverse commonness of the ob- jects surrounding them, as of things perceived in some uncomfortable dream, we fought his battle under the banner of realism. Because his characters threw such a vivid light on human nature and our own predicaments we took them for studies from Hfe. And yet we knew all the time what we meant by "an Ibsen character" as clearly as we knew what "a Dickens character" meant. The fact that we can also be understood when we speak of a "Henry James character" is a proof that his imagination, too, was essentially creative.
Most great novelists have given to their creations an excess of some characteristic, usually the one predominant in themselves. Thus Meredith's char- acters are filled to an unnatural degree with the beauty and courage of life, while Balzac gives to his a treble dose of will and appetite. The men and women in Henry James's novels, the stupid as well as the intelligent, show far subtler powers of per- ception than such men and women actually have. It was only by exaggerating, consciously or uncon- sciously, that quality in them that he could create the world which satisfied his imagination. But with this exception his work is unrivalled for its delicate actuality. His men and women are no more heroic or single-hearted or more base than real people, and, granted their superior thought-reading faculties and the concentration of their interests, events follow one another as they would in real life. The reader may sometimes find himself saying, "No one without
286 The Lantern
corroborative evidence would act on such a far- fetched guess as that;" but he will never find himself saying (granted the subtlety of these people) "That is not the way things happened." Whether his char- acters are children of leisure and pleasure, jaded journalists, apathetic or wily disreputables, hard- working or dilatory artists, they are all incorrigibly preoccupied with human nature, with watching their own emotions and the complex shifting relations and intimate dramas around them. There is a kind of collected self-consciousness and clairvoyance about them all; they watch, they feel, they compare notes. There is hardly a minor character in his later books, not a butler or a telegraph clerk, who, if he opens his lips twice, does not promptly show the makings of a gossip of genius. There are other generaliza- tions to be made about the people of Henry James's world equally important, but this is the most com- prehensive. Here it has a claim to a certain prior- ity, not on esthetic grounds, but because it leads to the centre of our subject. What in Henry James's case was the determining impulse which made him create the particular world he did?
In that astonishing record of imaginative adven- ture The American Scene he continually refers to himself as "the restless analyst," and he speaks of himself as a man "hag-ridden by the twin demons of observation and imagination." The master-faculty of Henry James was without doubt his power of going into his impressions, going into them not only far, but, as they say in Norse fairy tales, "far and farther than far." Indeed, there are only two other novelists whom a passion for finality in re- search and statement has so beset, for whom the assurance that everything that there was to be said had indeed been at any rate attempted, was the sole condition of a Sabbath's rest: Balzac (with whom the later Henry James had more sympathy than any other fellow-craftsman) and Dostoevsky, both very different men, both laboring in other continents.
The World of Henry James 287
Dostoevsky's subject is always the soul of man, and ultimately its relation to God; his deepest study is man as he is when he is alone with his soul. In Henry James, on the contrary, the same passion of research is directed to the social side of man's na- ture, his relations to his fellowmen. The universe and religion are as completely excluded from his books as if he had been an eighteenth century writer. The sky above his people, the earth beneath them, contains no mysteries for them ; he is strangely care- ful never to permit them to interrogate these : their sky is the great architectural dome of civilization, their earth its ancient mosaic. Mr. Chesterton has called Henry James a mystic; the truth is that he is perhaps the least mystical of all writers who have ever concerned themselves patiently with the inner life. It is not the mystical (the mystical would have shattered his world) which attracts him, but a very different thing — the mysterious: namely, whatever in life fascinates by being hidden, ambiguous, illusive, and hard to understand. And this brings us again immediately in front of the question — What was his directing impulse as an artist? It was to conceive the world in a light which (a religious interpretation of man's nature being excluded) would give most play to his master faculty of deep investigation. It was a desire, or shall we say the necessity in him, to see people in a way which made them and their emotions and their relations to each other as wonder- ful and inexhaustible subjects as possible for the exploring mind. A formula for a great writer is justly suspect to a critical reader; but entertain this for a moment on approval ; it may be the pattern in the carpet.
It suggests an explanation, in the first place, of his choice. His long career was a continual search for more and more recondite and delicate subjects. He begins with cases of conscience, in which already the shades seemed fine to his contemporaries, and the verdicts went by evidence that would not have car-
288 The Lantern
ried weight for the minds of twelve good men and true. The formula explains his early fondness — long before he had found a method of constructing an inexhaustible world of recondite possibilities — of ending with that substitute for mystery, the note of interrogation. It explains the excitement in his dis- covery of Europe, and especially of the secluded corners of European society where dark deposits of experience might be postulated without extravagance in its members. It explains his passionate interest in the naive consciousness of his Americans con- fronted with people of more complex standards and traditions. Did they or did they not understand? It explains his later interest in children, in whom it is more puzzling to fix the moment of the dawn of comprehension ; his constant marked preference for faithful failures over the comparatively soon ex- hausted and rather obvious interest of success, it explains in a measure his comparative lack of interest in the life of the senses (there is no mystery in the senses compared with the mind) ; his effort to keep in the background, so that they may gather in more impenetrable portentousness, the crude facts some- times necessary to them, adultery, swindles, and even murder, which had nevertheless for the sake of the story to go through the empty form of occurring. It explains the attraction the magnificently privileged class had for his art, his Olympians, whose surround- ings allowed latitude to the supposition of a won- derfully richer consciousness, and by the same reason the almost total exclusion from his world of speci- mens of laboring humanity, to whom no such com- plexity can be with any plausibility attributed: a dustman in the world of Henry James is an incon- ceivable monster. It accounts, too, for the blemishes in his books ; his refusal to admit that such a thing as a molehill can exist for a man with eyes in his head, and (how it seems to fit!) for his reluctance, even when occasion demanded it, to call a spade anything so final, dull and unqualified as a spade.
The World of Henry James 289
It explains the fascination of his style, which conveys so amazingly the excitement of the quest, the thrill of approaching a final precision of statement. And above all it explains why he came to endow his men and women more and more with his own pene- tration, tenderness and scrupulousness, till at last he had created a world worthy of his master faculty, in which beings confronted each other who saw volumes in each other's gestures and profundities in each other's words, who took joy in each other's insight, like brave antagonists in each other's strength, who could exclaim about each other with justice that they were ''wonderful" and "beautiful," and who belonged to each other or fought each other on levels of intimacy which had never yet been de- scribed.
The words which he found to describe those in this world which he loved are unrivalled for delicacy and for the mystery of character they reveal. It is his method to present them through some other char- acter dowered with his own power of appreciation. Mrs. Stringham in The Wings of the Dove is the medium through which we first catch a glimpse of Milly. She is first conscious of the immense rich extravagant background of New York from which Milly springs, the luxuriance of which ''the rare creature was the final flower;" then of "a high, dim charming ambiguous oddity which was even better" in Milly herself, who seemed on top of all that to enjoy boundless freedom, the freedom of the wind in the desert — "it was unspeakably touching to be so equipped and yet to have been reduced by fortune to little humble-minded mistakes." It is thus that the characters in Henry James's world appreciate the romance of each other, and thus it is he describes their charms and mysteries himself:
She had arts and idiosyncrasies of which no great account could have been given, but which were a daily grace if you lived with them; such as the art of being almost tragically impatient and yet making it
290 The Lantern
light as air; of being inexplicably sad and yet making it clear as noon; of being unmistakably gay and yet making it as soft as dusk.
Although his world is peopled with cleverer men and women than any other novelist's, the crown does not go to the clever. It is tempting even to describe him as an inveterate moralist, who, finding ordinary scales too clumsy to weigh the finer human qualities, employs instead esthetic weights and measures. The conse- quent reversal of verdicts was always one of his favorite themes. 'There are no short cuts," he seems to say, *'to being beautiful." You must be really good. To attempt to express in a sentence the effect of his art upon our lives : he has made us understand better the meaning of intimacy and the beauty of goodness.
CRADLE SONG
By Padraic Colum
O, men from the fields ! Come gently within. Tread softly, softly, O! men coming in.
Mavourneen is going From me and from you. Where Mary will fold him With mantle of blue!
From reek of the smoke And cold of the floor. And the peering of things Across the half-door.
O, men from the fields! Soft, softly come thru'. Mary puts round him Her mantle of blue.
The<)d(«-e f. Boffliet mA. Mmd E 0(D^
It is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents for January, 1918
RODIN NUMBER
A MEMORY OF RODIN
By GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
AUGUSTE RODIN
By ARTHUR SYMONS
RODIN
By LAURENCE BINYON VENUS DE MILO
By AUGUSTE RODIN, transJ. by E. F. O'DAY
A FANTASY
By THEODORE F. BONNET
THE GHOST BEREFT (A Poem)
By E. NESBIT
ROSE-LEAVES (A Poem)
M. M. JOHNSON
'}4
Singl* Copies, IS Cents
91.50 a Year
TTieGRANEY
WHEN REOPENED WILL BE THE
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room
in the World
''In a Class by Itself 3 Floors — Billiards — Bowling and Pool
TWO ENTRANCES 65 EDDY ST. 924 MARKET ST.
The Lantern
A Periodical of Lucid Intervals
Edited by Theodore Bonnet and Edward F. O'Day
Single Copies at All Netvsstands
15 Cents; $1.50 for Twelve
Numbers
Published Monthly at
88 FIRST STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
THE LANTERN
Vol.3 January, 1918 No. 10
A Memory of Rodin
By George Bernard Shaw
In the year 1906 it was proposed to furnish the world with an authentic portrait-bust of me before I had left the prime of life too far behind. The question then arose: Could Rodin be induced to undertake the work? On no other condition would I sit, because it was clear to me that Rodin was not only the greatest sculptor then living, but the great- est sculptor of his epoch : one of those extraordinary persons who, like Michael Angelo, or Phidias, or Praxiteles, dominate whole ages as fashionable fav- orites dominate a single London season. I saw, therefore, that any man who, being a contemporary of Rodin, deliberately allowed his bust to be made by anybody else, must go down to posterity (if he went down at all) as a stupendous nincompoop.
Also, I wanted a portrait of myself by an artist capable of seeing me. Many clever portraits of my reputation were in existence; but I have never been taken in by my reputation, having manufactured it myself. A reputation is a mask which a man has to wear just as he has to wear a coat and trousers: it is a disguise we insist on as a point of decency. The result is that we have hardly any portraits of men and women. We have no portrait of their legs and shoulders; only of their skirts and trousers and blouses and coats. Nobody knows what Dickens was like, or what Queen Victoria was like, though their wardrobes are on record. Many people fancy they know their faces ; but they are deceived : we know only the fashionable mask of the distinguished novelist and of the queen. And the mask defies the
292 The Lantern
camera. When Mr. Alvin Langdon Coburn wanted to exhibit a full-length photographic portrait of me, I secured a faithful representation up to the neck by the trite expedient of sitting to him one morning as I got out of my bath. The portrait was duly hung before a stupefied public as a first step towards the realization of Carlyle's antidote to political idolatry: a naked parliament. But though the body was my body, the face was the face of my reputation. So much so, in fact, that the critics concluded that Mr. Coburn had faked his photograph, and stuck my head on somebody else's shoulders. For, as I have said, the mask cannot be penetrated by the camera. It is transparent only to the eye of a god-like artist.
Rodin tells us that his wonderful portrait-busts seldom please the sitters. I can go further, and say that they often puzzle and disappoint the sitter's friends. The busts are of real men, not of the reputations of celebrated persons. Look at my bust, and you will not find it a bit like that brilliant fiction known as G. B. S. or Bernard Shaw. But it is most frightfully like me. It is what is really there, not what you think is there. The same with Puvis de Chavannes and the rest of them. Puvis de Cha- vannes protested, as one gathers — pointed to his photographs to prove that he was not like his bust. But I am convinced that he was not only like his bust, but that the bust actually was himself as dis- tinct from his collars and his public manners. Puvis, though an artist of great merit, could not see him- self. Rodin could. He saw me. Nobody else has done that yet.
Troubetskoi once made a most fascinating Shavian bust of me. He did it in about five hours, in Sar- gent's studio. It was a delightful and wonderful performance. He worked convulsively, giving birth to the thing in agonies, hurling lumps of clay about with groans, and making strange, dumb movements with his tongue, like a wordless prophet. He cov- ered himself with plaster. He covered Sargent's
A Memory of Rodin 293
carpets and curtains and pictures with plaster. He covered me with plaster. And, finally, he covered the block he was working on with plaster to such purpose, that, at the end of the second sitting, lo! there stood Sargent's studio in ruins, buried like Pompeii under the scoriae of a volcano, and in the midst a spirited bust of one of my reputations, a little idealized (quite the gentleman, in fact) but recognizable a mile off as the sardonic author of Man and Superman, with a dash of Offenbach, a touch of Mephistopheles, and a certain aristocratic delicacy and distinction that came from Troubetskoi himself, he being a prince. I should like to have that bust ; but the truth is, my wife cannot stand Off enbach-Mephistopheles ; and I was not allowed to have the bust any more than I was allowed to have that other witty jibe at my poses, Neville Lytton's portrait of me as Velasquez's Pope Innocent. Rodin worked very differently. He plodded along exactly as if he were a river god doing a job of wall building in a garden for three or four francs a day. When he was in doubt he measured me with an old iron dividers, and then measured the bust. If the bust's nose was too long, he sliced a bit out of it, and jammed the tip of it up to close the gap, with no more emotion or affectation than a glazier putting in a window pane. If the ear was in the wrong place, he cut it off and slapped it into its right place, excusing these cold-blooded mutilations to my wife (who half expected to see the already ter- ribly animated clay bleed) by remarking that it was shorter than to make a new ear. Yet a succession of miracles took place as he worked. In the first fifteen minutes, in merely giving a suggestion of human shape to the lump of clay, he produced so spirited a thumbnail bust of me that I wanted to take it away and relieve him from further labor. It reminded me of a highly finished bust by Sarah Bernhardt, who is very clever with her fingers. But that phase vanished like a summer cloud as the bust evolved. I say
294 The Lantern
evolved advisedly ; for it passed through every stage in the evolution of art before my eyes in the course of a month. After that first fifteen minutes it sobered down into a careful representation of my features in their exact living dimensions. Then this representa- tion mysteriously went back to the cradle of Chris- tian art, at which point I again wanted to say: "For Heaven's sake, stop and give me that: it is a Byzantine masterpiece." Then it began to look as if Bernini had meddled with it. Then, to my horror, it smoothed out into a plausible, rather elegant piece of eighteen-century work, almost as if Houdon had touched up a head by Canova or Thorwaldsen, or as if Leighton had tried his hand at eclecticism in bust- making. At this point Troubetskoi would have broken it up with a wail of despair. Rodin con- templated it with an air of callous patience, and went on with his job, more like a river god turned plasterer than ever. Then another century passed in a single night; and the bust became a Rodin bust, and was the living head of which I carried the model on my shoulders. It was a process for the embry- ologist to study, not the esthete. Rodin's hand worked, not as a sculptor's hand works, but as the Life Force works. What is more, I found that he was aware of it, quite simply. I no more think of Rodin as a celebrated sculptor than I think of Elijah as a well known litterateur and forcible after-dinner speaker. His ''Main de Dieu" is his own hand. That is why all the stufif written about him by profes- sional art critics is such ludicrous cackle and piflfle. I have been a professional art critic myself, and perhaps not much of one at that (though I fully admit that I touched nothing I did not adorn), but at least I knew how to take ofif my hat and hold my tongue when my cacklings and pififlings would have been impertinences.
Rodin took the conceit out of me horribly. Once he showed me a torso of a female figure: an antique. It was a beauty ; and I swallowed it whole. He
A Memory of Rodin 295
waited rather wistfully for a moment, to see whether I really knew chalk from cheese, and then pointed out to me that the upper half of the figure was curiously inferior to the lower half, as if the sculptor had taught himself as he went along. The difference, which I had been blind to a moment before, was so obvious when he pointed it out, that I have despised myself ever since for not seeing it. There never was such an eye for carved stone as Rodin's. To the average critic or connoisseur half the treasures he collects seem nothing but a heap of old paving stones. But they all have somewhere a scrap of modeled surface, perhaps half the size of a postage stamp, that makes gems of them. In his own work he shows a strong feeling for the beauty of marble. He gave me three busts of myself: one in bronze, one in plaster, one in marble. The bronze is me (growing younger now). The plaster is me. But the marble has quite another sort of life: it glows; and light flows over it. It does not look solid: it looks luminous; and this curious glowing and flowing keeps people's fingers off it; for you feel as if you could not catch hold of it. People say that all modern sculpture is done by the Italian artisans who mechan- ically reproduce the sculptor's plaster model in the stone. Rodin himself says so. But the peculiar qualities that Rodin gets in his marbles are not in the clay models. What is more, other sculptors can hire artisans, including those who have worked for Rodin. Yet no other sculptor produces such marbles as Rodin. One day Rodin told me that all modern sculpture is imposture ; that neither he nor any of the others can use a chisel. A few days later he let slip the remark: "Handling the chisel is very in- teresting." Yet when he models a portrait-bust, his method is neither that of Michael Angelo with his chisel nor of a modeler in the round, but that of a draughtsman outlining in clay the thousand profiles which your head would present if it were sliced a thousand times through the centre at different angles.
AUGUSTE RODIN
By Arthur Symons
I.
I met Auguste Rodin in Paris, 182 rue de TUni- versite, 1892. The last time that I saw him was at a dinner given in Old Burlington street in 1907. No one who has seen him can ever forget his singular appearance. There before me stood a giant of genius, with the timidity of the colossus ; with a face in which strength struggled with passion ; with veiled blue eyes that dilated like the eyes of a parrot when he spoke of anything that interested him deeply. He made few gestures; only when he sat, with his great hands folded on his knees, the gestures he made were for a purpose, never for an effect. I was struck by his quietness, his simplicity, a certain caution which comes from a suspicion that he is not being taken simply enough. When he talked of books or of his art or of nature, there was always the same freshness and profundity.
It was in Meudon, in 1903, that Rodin spoke to me about Gustave Moreau. He said Moreau was a man of science, one of a generation which was taught to study art in the galleries, and not from nature. He was a great combiner. He took color from Dela- croix, his figure from the antique. He was not a genius, not a creator, not the great artist some have called him, but he belongs to the second rank. His greatest defect was that the figures which should be the principal part of the composition were uninterest- ing; the detail and the surroundings took up most of his interest. // etait froid au fond, said Rodin.
He spoke to me of Stephane Mallarme's conversa- tion and his way of writing — full of foreshortening — "many people don't understand foreshortening." Certainly Mallarme, whom I met later, used in his later work this artistic heresy. Imagine his poem written down, at least compressed. With this most
AuGusTE Rodin 297
writers would be content, but with Mallarme the w^ork has only begun. He works over it, word by word, changing a word here, for its color, which is not precisely the color required, a word there, for the break it makes in the music. A new image oc- curs to him, rarer, subtler than the one he has used; the image is transferred. By the time the poem has reached, as it seems to him, a flawless unity, the steps of the progress have been only too effectually effaced ; and while the poet, who has seen the unity from the beginning, still sees the relation of point to point, the reader, who comes to it only in its final stage, finds himself in a not unnatural bewilderment. Pursue this manner of writing to its ultimate de- velopment ; start with an enigma, and then withdraw the key of the enigma; and you arrive, easily, at the frozen impenetrability of those latest sonnets in which the absence of all punctuation is scarcely a recog- nizable hindrance.
He spoke to me also of modern dress ; what could be done with it? It all depends on the suggestion of the nude underneath the clothes. The beauty of woman's costume is that the woman is underneath, and lends it some of her life. It makes him sad to see old clothes hanging in shop windows — they seem so empty of life, waiting to become alive. He spoke of the way in which the nude is suggested here, simplified by some fine sweep. He has not done it because he has been engaged in other work and so has had no time even to attempt it. It can never be as great as the nude, but the eighteenth century had shown that it can be delightful.
When I first saw him he said to me that his secret consisted in exaggeration: that in this way he gets his effects without any of the hardness of other sculptors. As he showed me his mysterious little statue — the man kneeling so strangely in adoration before the woman in whom is imaged the sphinx and the child — he said to me: 'Tell me what it means — what is your impression?"
298 The Lantern
"Le mystere de famour/' I said.
I saw the Danaid slightly enlarged, with its won- derful flesh, the palpitation of the very dimples. Certainly no one but Rodin has been so tender with women in his exquisite creations; none has ever caught so much of the eternal feminine as this sculp- tor of Hell. I saw the bust of Puvis de Chevannes, in marble, wonderfully modeled; the Hues of the neck coming out like real flesh, the modeling of the ear, the lines of the face. Yet in so wonderful a poise of the head one saw the ability of the expres- sion of nullity: the look of a man who goes through a crowd and sees nothing.
When one has realized what is called the coloring of his statues, in a sense Hke that of painting, the cunning employment of shadows, the massing, the conception that begins them, the achievement that ends them, one sees little enough of the infinite secrets of this man of genius. Let me choose, for instance, the exquisitely enlaced couple where a youth and a maiden are clasped in a virginal embrace — the shadow of the hair falling along his cheek — with so lovely and discreet a shadow, when the lips press the hair of the maiden; her face is blotted out under his cheek: one sees it, lost in ecstasy, behind. And in these who lie in a space of small rock, one sees the exquisite purity of the flesh, the daring of the pose, foot pressed amorously on foot: the very down of the flesh.
Rodin told me that the inspiration for La Porte de I'Enfer came to him in 1875. When I saw it it covered the entire space of one vast wall ; there was the great door, and on either side of the door climbed up and down tormented creatures, climbed and crawled and coiled: all one headlong flight and fall- ing, in which all the agonies of a place of torment, which is Baudelaire's rather than Dante's, swarm in actual movement. Femmes damnees lean upward and downward out of hollow caves and mountainous crags, they cling to the edge of the world, oflf which
AuGusTE Rodin 299
their feet slip, they embrace blindly over a precipice, they roll together into bottomless pits of descent. And all this sorrowful flesh is consumed with desire, with the hurrying- fever of those who have only a short time in which to enjoy the fruits of desire. Their mouths open towards one another in an endless longing, all their muscles strain violently towards the embrace. They live only with a life of desire, and that obsession has carried them beyond the wholesome beauty of nature into the violence of a perversity which is at times almost insane.
Le Penseur is seated in an air of meditation in the middle of the frieze. On one side of it a Dance of Death : a skeleton, a M^nad, with lifted throats and hands ; figures shameless and hilarious, dancing, lying on the ground, lifted on one another's shoulders. Some writhe in agony, move tumultuously, swarm round the Thinker. Below are larger groups. Here is one figure falling backwards — a great figure of a man — who falls right out of the composition, be- yond the line of the frieze. A winged figure falls horribly; creatures creep out of holes, climb rocks, grovel, mount and descend in an agony of useless effort. A desperately faced woman flings herself on the body of her lover, as if to guard or save or help him. Some stand, lifting desperate arms ; a woman sits, doubled up on herself, the head hanging below the knees : and always there is beauty as well as terror; the lines are the lines of beauty.
In the work of what might be called (perhaps wrongly) a modern Michelangelo, one finds the anatomy at times extravagantly visible, at times for- gotten in the suavity of still suffering flesh ; the charm of perversity, the joy and the beauty of hell are there : and everywhere one sees marvelous ef- fcts of color, of light and shadow: always a sense of movement. Never did any sculptor so adore woman's back and loins ; and always there is simplicity in his approach to art by way of nature ; even in the profile of the bones. And in these wave-like, flame-like.
300 The Lantern
wind-tossed, tourmentees figures, one sees the sexual delight of sex and the terror of their abominable depravities.
And all this is an art of nerves, modern nerves, perverse and malign, and yet always in the classic tradition ; seen always in the beauty of the lines, in the human harmonies ; where the beauty in all cases comes from the color, the modeling. Nor was there ever an art which conquered more difficulties. In the intensity of expression, in faces and forms alike, one finds the extremes of strength and of sweetness : stupendously, where one sees limbs and figures, some partly seen, legs emerging from a human crowd ; the wonderful figure who leans forward, clasping the right foot before him in a nervous agony ; in the lovely little group of Sirens, caught in the hollow of a wave, the wave humanized.
So, in the two qualities I have named, sweetness and strength, he is allied with Michelangelo. "For to his true admirers," wrote Pater, "there are sweet- ness and strength, pleasure with surprise, an energy of conception which seems at any moment about to break through all the conditions of comely grace, recovering, touch by touch, a loveliness found usually only in the simplest natural things — ex forti dulcedo/'
Yet, in this epic in stone, stone becomes song, becomes music. And in its perfect proportions, in its harmonies, in its balance (composed of so many exquisite poems massed together) how lyric art be- comes a great drama! And there is a definite reason for comparing this creation of Rodin's with both the lyrical and the dramatic arts. Did he not say to me, did he not write, of the architecture of the human body, "that it is architecture, and that archi- tecture is comparable with it?" "Moving archi- tecture," as he calls it in his book, "and so simple, if one posseses the secret of it, that it hurts one's eyes and yet one must see it." But, he said to me with his deep laugh, "instead of giving me my due as a sculptor — as to the quality of my work — they
AuGusTE Rodin 301
say I am a poet. Of course, when one is inspired one is a poet. Yet when they say that my inspira- tion gives a certain value to the theory of the poet neighboring on folly, there they are wrong. Je suis le contraire d'un exalte/'
In regard to this saying I asked him why he had represented Hugo naked, and he said: ''Cest plus beau." Then he said: "It is for the Pantheon — a man in modern dress would not be in keeping there." I give here the stanza I wrote on Le Penseur:
Out of eternal bronze and mortal breath, And to the glory of man, me Rodin wrought; Before the gates of glory and of death I bear the burden of the pride of thought.
II.
In Orpheus and Eurydice there is shown the majesty of sorrow, the very passion of life (as in the Keats-like face), and in one who descends upon him like a wind or a flame, and in the marvelous suggestion of a body which weighs nothing. One sees in it the smoke of hell rising about them in the hollow of the cave, and in Orpheus' gestures as he covers his face with his hands, a sign of exquisite despair. The Alcestis, held in the arms of Admetus, as Mercury, seated beside her, waits to take her with him, is superb: the faces seen in a great gulf of shadow.
Take, for instance, two figures that I saw in his studio. One, a woman, rigid as an idol, stands in all the peace of indifference; the other, a man tor- tured with desire, every muscle strained to exas- peration, writhes in the ineffectual energy of a force which can but feed upon itself. She is there, before him, close to him, infinitely apart, and he could crush but never seize her. In the exquisite rendering of the Temptation of Saint Anthony the saint lies prostrate, crouched against the cross, which his lips
302 The Lantern
kiss feverishly, as he closes his pained eyes ; the shoulders seem to move in a shuddering revolt from the burden which they bear unwillingly; he grovels in the dust like a toad, in his horror of her life and beauty which have cast themselves away upon him. And the woman lies back luxuriously, stretching her naked limbs across his back, and twisting her delicate arms behind her head, in a supple movement of per- fectly happy abandonment, breathing the air; she has the innocence of the flesh, the ignorance of the jSpirit, and she does not even know what it is to tempt. She is without perversity; the flesh, not the devil ; and so, perhaps, the more perilous.
The artist should never consciously aim at strength ; but, conscious of his strength, he should aim at the utmost subtlety of strength. What I mean will be quite clear if I recall two Greek marbles which I once saw in a private exhibition in London. In one, the head of an old man, strength went as far as strength could go without being changed into some further and higher substance. The truth and energy of the head, gnarled and wry, with its insistence on all the cavities and disgrace of age, are only to be com- pared, in Greek art, with the drunken old woman in Munich, or in modern work, with La Vieille Heaul- miere of Rodin. The drunken woman is indeed a more "harrowing lesson in life" as she sits hugging her wine jar. In the old man you have the restrain- ing strength of a will which endures age and pain with gravity. There is strength in it and truth, and there is the beauty which grows up inevitably out of a sufficiently powerful truth. But let us look across at another head — the head of a woman, which does not seem clever at all ; which seems curiously simple, as if the difficulties of the art of sculpture had been evaded rather than conquered, yet which ravishes the mind into a certain quiet and fullness of delight. You do not notice it for strength, for any ingenious mastery of any evident difficulty. Venus rose out of the waters, when human beauty came con-
AuGusTE Rodin 303
sciously into the world, not startling anyone, but like a dream that has come true. The forehead and cheeks are no subtler than a flower; the neck in its breadth from chin to nape has no refinements on an actual neck in which one has felt life rather than seen beauty. And you will see what is not in the other head, the lack of which leaves it where it is : a something incalculable, something which begins where truth leaves off, something which transforms truth.
And I am not sure that you will find this some- thing in the bronze of La Vieille Heaulmiere in the Luxembourg gallery. Wasted, ruinous, *'lean, wizen like a small dry tree," this piteous body remembers the body it had when it was young, and the beauty is still there, in the lovely skeleton that shows right through the flesh, in the delicate contours of the almost hairless head, in the indestructible grace of the profile. This "poor old light woman" is more tragic than the old drunken woman in Munich; but as one looks at the old drunken woman, one sees only the sordid pity of things as they are, while La Vieille Heaulmiere is saying *'thus endeth all the beauty of us," as it can be said by those who have fastened "the sweet yoke" of beauty upon the necks of the world.
CAUTION
By L. Pearsall Smith
With all that I know about life, all the cynical and sad knowledge of what happens and must happen, all the experience and caution and disillusion stored and packed in the uncanny gray matter of my cere- brum— with all this inside my bald head, how can I ever dream of banging it against the Stars?
RODIN
By Laurence Binyon
I remember, some fourteen or fifteen years ago, being present at one of the dinners given to Rodin in London. Speeches were made in his honor, gratify- ing no doubt in their eloquence, but, being in English, lost, I imagine, on the guest of the evening. Sitting placidly genial, but inwardly rather bored, Rodin took a large pear from the dish before him, absent- mindedly forgot that it was eatable, and with his knife began carving it into a head. He then put it down and would have forgotten it, but the artists present seized on this precious souvenir of the Master with exclamations of admiring delight. It was handed down the table for reverent contemplation till it arrived at J. M. Swan, who, solemnly imper- turbable as one of his own polar bears, promptly ate it — to the horror of everyone but Rodin. I still see the Master, like some antique Faunus, with his massive, delicate hands half unconsciously carving that pear, and I recall a saying of his: "A pear or an apple, from the modeler's point of view, is as large as the spheres of heaven."
Rodin was not one of the inarticulate artists. He has left many pithy sayings, both about his own art and about the sculptors of the past — French, Gothic and Greek, Egyptian and Japanese. When he was a boy it was his first ambition to be a public speaker, and he w^as surprised by his schoolfellows making an impassioned harangue to empty benches. There was something within him which he vaguely wanted to express. But it was only when he began to handle clay and wax that he found his natural medium. He began to think in mass, volume and movement. He studied deeply the theory of his art, and the principles on which the great men and the great schools of the past had worked ; in some cases confessing that for long he could not divine the secret. A sublime patience, an immense docility, mark
Rodin 305
his career. One of his sayings is ''Slowness is beauty." The Frenchmen who have written about him have naturally had much to say about the per- sistent opposition to his genius and the long delay in its recognition. Academic tradition in France is a power which we, who have practically no tradition, can with difficulty realize. All this has but historic interest now; but we can admire the calmness and confidence of the patient sculptor under each re- buff. In reality, he was very fortunate in his train- ing. His first master was Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose admirable method of making his pupils study and observe the distinctive form, character and movement of what they were to draw, and then draw it from memory, has had so strong a working influence on some of the finest artists of that gen- eration. Legros and Dalon were fellow students. And then, when Rodin was making his first essays in sculpture, he had a second piece of good fortune in studying at the Jardin des Plantes under Barye. That great sculptor and profound artist, who also taught his pupils to model animals from memory and from rapid sketches, put him through a still severer course of research into organic structure and the laws of movement in bodies. And just as he studied the wild animals under Barye, so in his ap- prenticeship as a modeler of architectural ornament he studied the leaves and flowers and branches which gave him the hint for his decorations. It was al- ways the secret of growth, the informing essential life, which he sought to understand, and then, in his own way, reproduce. Even when all his art came to be concentrated on the human form, Rodin was always seeing analogies between the human body and non-human nature. The fall of land in the^ hills would suggest to him recumbent shapes, the stems of young trees the lines of youth in girl or adolescent boy.
It is worth while recalling this early training and the trend of study and long thought it helped to
306 The Lantern
foster in the maturing sculptor, because it explains the real meaning of Rodin's perpetual insistence on returning to Nature ; a cry that has been so often raised in the history of art at one time or another, and so often — like all the other cries, for that matter — misunderstood and misapplied. Rodin omitted to talk about the essential designing power, because he took that for granted — it was ahnost unconscious in him. What he meant was not the reproduction of phenomena in terms as close to the object as possible; it was the aim to seize the underlying energy of which every living form is the minutely articulated expression, and to re-create that, according to its own inherent laws, under the stress of his own temperament. Quite early in life he discovered and enunciated to himself a principle which guided him through life — and that was never to dictate a pose, but to wait on the spontaneous attitudes and ges- tures of the living form, in the firm faith that these could not be anything but beautiful, because they obeyed an inner rhythm of the body.
IN TIME OF WAR
As I go walking down the street, Afany's the lad and lass I meet; There's many a soldier I see pass, And every soldier has his lass.
But when I saw the others there — The women that black mourning wear, "Judged by the looks of these," I said— 'The lads those lassies court are dead."
VENUS DE MILO
By AuGusTE Rodin (Translated by Edward F. O'Day)
Fashioned by the sea, the abiding place of all power, you bewitch and overwhelm us by that grace and calm which only power possesses. The glamor of your serenity is upon us, like the charm of melodies powerful and grave.
What triumphant amplitude ! What mighty shad- ows!
From the confines of two worlds men throng to look on you, adorable marble, and the twilight of the gallery deepens so that they may see you the better by the single radiance of your own beauty, the while, in silent admiration, they are oblivious of the passing hours.
Again and yet again you hear our acclamations, immortal Venus ! The beloved of your contem- poraries, you are ours now, you are for all of us, for the universe. It seems as though the twenty-five centuries of your life have only consecrated your unconquerable youth.
The centuries, billows on the ocean of the ages, pass away only to return to you who are victorious over time, allured and called back irresistibly. Marble crumbles, but admiration does not wear itself away.
For poets, for seekers, for lowly artists, in the hurly burly of the city, you provide long intervals of refuge. Mutilated, to their eyes you stand entire. If the outrage of time has been permitted, it is only that a trace may remain of its impious eflfort — of its impotence.
You are no vain and barren statue, no image of some unreal goddess of the empyrean. Instinct with life, you breathe, you are Woman, and that is your glory. You are a goddess only in name, the ichor of mythology does not flow in your veins. That which is divine in you is the infinite love your sculptor had
308 The Lantern
for nature. More ardent, so much more patient than other men, he was able to Hft a corner of the veil too heavy for their indolent hands.
You are far indeed from being a mosaic of admir- able contours. Here are not merely admirable con- tours, but contours which harmonize, which supple- ment one another according- to the irrefutable logic of harmonious necessity, reciprocally giving and re- ceiving life. Your parts are knit together in an in- divisible whole, and the noiseless flood of life flows over you, the flood from which you sprang naked, unique. Patchwork beauties could never attain this unity. One detail which did not harmonize with all the rest, the least discord in your outlines, and the masterpiece would be destroyed, a useless thing, a work belied, disowned by the light of day, sentenced to all wretchedness, to all ignominy. Such would be the inevitable fate of an assemblage, however adroit, of parts, however perfect, chosen from different models.
But you, you see, you think. And your thoughts are a woman's thoughts, not the thoughts of some strange, imaginary, artificial ''superior" creature. You are formed of truth alone, and it is from truth alone that your all-powerfulness springs. For there is nothing strong, nothing beautiful divorced from truth.
Your truth is the key to everything. Your truth is Woman. Woman ! whom everyone believes he knows, the familiar companion of all men, yet no- body has ever seen her, neither the wise nor the simple.
Who looks at a sunbeam? Sunlight is taken for granted. Nevertheless, without schooling oneself in constant, scrupulous, more and more profound ob- servation of reality, one can accomplish nothing.
There are those who call you "ideal." It is a meaningless description. The Ideal ! Dreams ! The realities of nature surpass our most ambitious dreams. A thought is but an imperceptible point in nature.
Venus De Milo 309
The part does not encompass, much less dominate the whole.
Man is incapable of creating, of inventing. He can only approach nature, with docility, with love. After all, she does not unclothe herself to his gaze ; man only sees, she will permit him to see, only that which by virtue of patience he has come to under- stand, nothing more. Yet man's is a high privilege. He is the peer of Prometheus since he has known how to wrest from nature that life w^hich we adore in the Venus de Milo.
Nothing can take the place of persevering study. The secret of life surrenders only to study. Give your life patiently, passionately to the understanding of life. What a reward, if you come at last to an understanding of life! You have attained the circle of everlasting joy. To understand, to see — truly to see! Would one recoil before the necessary effort, before the indispensable apprenticeship, long and laborious as it is, if one realized in advance the de- light of understanding? To understand! It is to defeat death!
In my memory the masterpieces of antiquity are associated with all the joys of young manhood. Or rather, Ancient Art was my youth itself. And Ancient Art makes my heart young again, hides from me the knowledge that I am old. In the Louvre, once upon a time, the Olympian gods spoke to me as the saints speak to a monk in his cloister, telling me all that a young man usefully could understand. A little later they protected and inspired me. After an interval of twenty years I have rediscovered them with a happiness unutterable, and I have come to understand them. Those divine fragments, those marbles more than two thousand years old, speak to me more distinctly, have more powder to move me, than living creatures. In its turn my old age meditates upon these marvels and strives to raise itself to their level by understanding and love. It
310 The Lantern
owes to them its better pleasures. Man can be the architect of his own happiness ....
Ancient Art and Nature are initiates of the same mystery. Ancient Art is the human artisan arrived at the supreme height of mastery. But Nature is higher than that. The mystery of Nature is more unfathomable than the mystery of genius. It is the glory of Ancient Art that it understood Nature.
O Venus de Milo, the marvelous sculptor who fashioned you knew how to communicate to you the thrill of generous nature, the thrill of life itself! O Venus, you are the arch of triumph of life, you are the bridge of truth, you are the circle of grace!
What splendor in your beautiful body strongly upheld by firm limbs, and in the half-tints which slumber upon your breast, upon your glorious belly wide as the sea ! You are indeed the mother of gods and men.
The outlines of this body, the temple of generation, help us to understand, reveal to us, the proportions of the world. And the miracle is in this, that these outlines, in their suggestion of depth, length and breadth, express by an incomprehensible magic the human soul and its passions and the character which differentiates one being from another.
With a minimum of strokes and by means of modeling, the ancients obtained both that individual character and that grace stamped with grandeur which relate the human form to the forms of uni- versal life. When modeling the human body they achieved all the beauty of the curved lines of the flesh. The outlines are firm, full as the contours of mountains. It is architecture. Above all, they are simple, they have the calm of the serpents of Apollo.
Anatomical terms have had a deplorable effect by clouding the mind with the divisions of bodily con- tours. The great geometric and magnetic line of life seems broken to the eyes of the ordinary person. The uninitiated man does not see truly ; he is befogged by theory. Every masterpiece cries out against this
Venus De AIilo 311
false and fictitious idea of division. Its harmonious contours flowing one into another, undulating like the coils of a snake — these are the true body in all its magnificent unity. Left to himself the ignorant person does not perceive that details make a thing visible ; he cannot trace expression to its source ; synthesis is eloquent, but it does not speak to him. It is regrettable that anatomical descriptions bolster the mob's ignorance. Yet so it is. The very terms of such description divide attention between the various parts which compose the architecture of the body. Pedantic words like biceps, brachial triceps, crural and so many others, and common words like arm and leg have no meaning plastically considered. In the synthesis of a masterpiece the arms, the legs count only insofar as they contribute to the general effect. And the same holds good of nature which does not trouble itself with our analytical descriptions. The great artists work as nature does, not as anatomy decrees. They do not model a muscle, a nerve or a bone for its own sake — it is the ensemble they see and express. It is on account of its broad surfaces that their work vibrates with light or shrouds itself in shadow.
Thus, from where I stand I have a three-quarters view of the Venus de Milo, and all the outline is streaming with light while the rest is bathed in shadow. At the lower part of this three-quarters outline one can scarcely distinguish half-tints. Higher up, further away, the head is lifted, dominant, mod- eled by chiaroscuro, while the reposeful, sloping lines of the back concert their slow melodies. What con- descension is expressed by the long sweet lines of that back and the elusive, half-shadowed loins! The sublimity of marble pride! The tranquility of the body's spirit! Here nature is an uninterrupted harmony.
View the Venus from any point you wish. What we admired a moment ago was beauty which evoked, which imposed the idea of the eternal. From another
312 The Lantern
point of view you behold another outhne, equally- stamped with the seal of the imperishable. All views extort admiration and induce tenderness. All views yield delight. She has the variety and the freedom of a flower. The mind of the artist, resting atten- tively upon her, is exalted religiously. Venus speaks to him.
I walk around her. Behold another outline. I examine the face. There is a shadow on her mouth; a moment ago there was none. Now we see the modeling as well as the design, and the lines which wavered are clear-cut. The corners of the lips are turned in a little, the corners of the nostrils too — these are signs of young womanhood. That mouth is a design of the school, but it is the work of a master. It would be a mistake to look for the commissure of the lips. Everything is in the poise of the head, in the turn of the cheek. That cheek which we overlooked in the profile, that cheek is the whole of Sculpture, just as one virtue is the whole of Virtue.
O mouth so simple, so natural, so generous ! It holds thousands of kisses ! It is impossible to escape from its charm. The most ignorant person is touched by it, as though he realized that here was a woman who posed for godhead.
The soul of form breathes in the profound life of this palpitating body. I perceive its thoughts as plainly as I see the magnificent framework of its back. All this grace, hidden and revealed, is organ- ized so vigorously ! Beneath this honey-sweet ex- terior where the eye detects neither blemish nor im- perfection and where life flows without a ripple, clear as living water, one senses so surely the re- sistance of a firm and powerful frame. Confident of the solidity of its supporting framework, the flesh leaps with joy, as though it would fain escape from the shadows which mass upon the breasts and make them swell while brilliant light seems to emanate from the rest of the body. ^leanwhile that adorable
Venus De Milo 313
face smiles upon up a welcome of proud superiority.
Ah, the shadows, the divine play of shadows on ancient marbles ! The shadows love masterpieces. They embrace them, clothe them as with a garment. I have not found in Gothic architecture nor in Rem- brandt such orchestras of shadows. Shadows indue beauty with mystery. And they steep us in peace, permit us to hearken without distraction to the elo- quence of the flesh which amplifies and enriches the soul. This eloquence of the flesh floods us with truth, like light. It is the radiation of joy.
What secret emotion overwhelms me before the meditated grace of this statue. Ineffable gradations from light to shadow ! Inexpressible splendor of half-tints! Nests of love! What wonders without name are in this sacred body!
Venus genetrix! Venus victorum! O glory entire of grace and genius ! Admiration holds me spell- bound.
The Venus de Milo is reflected by all the others. In them this, that or the other of its infinite beauties is specialized. In one, freed from all its draperies, the shadows palpitate more voluptuously over the flesh ; the thigh, the column of life, actually quivers. In another the chiaroscuro of the belly and legs is a playground for love — for all love's intoxication, all its appeasement too. The upper part of the body bends in a gesture of reverence, the gracious gesture in which Gothic and Renaissance art found their symbol. And that other again, what instinct has curved it in an arch of grace! One single curve composed of all the curves of shoulders, legs and thighs fashions the Crouching Venus.
I have a little masterpiece which for a long time intrigued my eyes and my soul, defeated all my knowledge. I have vowed it a profound gratitude because it has made me think a great deal. This statue belongs to the epoch of the Venus de Milo. It gives me the same sensation of a modeling power- ful and complete; it has the same suavity in the
314 The Lantern
grandeur of its contours which are, however, of pro- portions materially reduced. What calm intoxication it breathes and inspires, or rather, what delight! The beautiful shadows which caress it all have the same direction. With what cunning, with what knowing- ness they make the breasts stand out! Brooding on the broad belly they give the thighs a vigorous model- ing. The further arm, seen from the side, is bathed in a slight chiaroscuro. The other holds the drapery over the thighs with a gesture which gives the massed shadows at the base of the belly a great warmth of feeling. Shadow, at the will of the artist, has made for the whole figure a garment which veils certain contours and reveals others. Looking closely, you perceive that all these veiled tints are underscored by a black line, a line of intensity.
In beautiful sculpture as in beautiful architecture the principle is the same. The expression of life, if it is to preserve the infinite suppleness of reality, must never be arrested, fixed. Black which gives efifect, must therefore be used sparingly. You will notice that all the ancient masterpieces are treated so. That is why they produce the impression of suave pro- portion and of durability. Badly proportioned, their effects would be blasphemies against nature. They would have no eloquence, and would convey only a sense of harshness and sterility. After all, re- strained effects are by far the most powerful.
The Venus de Milo in particular owes to restraint its powerful effect. There is no jarring note. Ap- proaching her gradually you persuade yourself that she was moulded little by little by the rhythmic action of the sea. Is it not this that the ancients wished to convey when they declared that Aphrodite was born from the bosom of the waves?
A FANTASY
By Theodore F. Bonnet I.
Man's love of woman is a stepping stone to his love of God. But men are blind and Pierrot was no exception. He thought of the sensuous love-life as something to be lived only for amusement and to be most enjoyed with the aid of the imagination. Hence his greatest sorrow, for when love was broken life to him was a day overcast. He was sure that the clear bell-like ring of love would never be heard again.
When first Pierrot embraced Columbine he fainted from ineffable joy. "Love," he said, "is made in her image."
Hers was the supple tenderness of a child. Her flesh was softer than new-fallen snow. "Here," he thought, "is the life breath of the heart." He knew of love only as an instinct which man has in common with the beast. Its strength, like a lion's, surpassed his own. Columbine's body possessed mastery over his mind and heart. A kind of voluptuary was Pierrot. Like a poet or a sculptor he could worship the beauty of Columbine's delicately chiseled, bare limbs. He felt his heart thrill at sight of them. His love of her was madness.
But one day a child was born to Columbine. Pier- rot thereupon said to himself : "Man's love of woman is a stepping stone to his love of God; it is an essence of the divine nature." His child filled him with thoughts of his Lord, and he reflected on the mystery of divine love. Thus he came in the fulness of the sensual life to the great stepping stone. He had thought mutual love — the love of himself and Columbine — the crown of all earthly bliss, but yet he was asking himself: "What is this love of God I hear so much of?"
An inkling had come to him like a flash in the
316 The Lantern
dark, and he exclaimed: *'Oh, to be an epicure of love!" A prelibation of heavenly joy intoxicated all his faculties. How happy he might have been had he raised his love of Columbine to a spiritual plane! His eyes were opened a wee bit to a delicious mystery, and he thanked God for sending him the child. The child made him reflect what a wonderful mystery was this love of God. His soul was full of melody as he looked into the smiling face of the little stranger who was dearer to him than all the world.
"I should try to obtain the grace of God," he whispered to the babe, and the little one smiled at him; 'T should try because He might teach me the mystery of a love even greater than the love of you."
Then Columbine called for the babe and Pierrot forgot to pray. Instead he went to Columbine and kissed her sweet lips, and they were like honey, and her flower-like face that was so beautiful when flushed like a rose it swayed on its ivory stem was extraordinarily pale. Pierrot heard a mysterious voice. The voice said :
"He that followeth Me walketh in darkness. He that hath My spirit will find therein a hidden manna."
Poor Pierrot! he did not like darkness. The manna he sought was to be supped from Columbine's luscious lips.
In the light of the moon he cared for naught but love.
And one night when the nightingale was singing and Pierrot was sleeping in Columbine's white arms a cold moon mirrored a motionless lake that in- undated the bed of roses whereon they lay. Their lips mingled in a long embrace.
It was to be their last kiss, Columbine said. Yet they had vowed endless love, this passionate pair who used to think they would love always.
Among the lilies and roses it was their pleasure to kiss and caress while intoxicated with the subtle perfume of their own bodies which each loved so well.
A Fantasy 317
It was hard for Pierrot to believe his ears, but when Columbine said: "I will dance no more for you," a mysterious suffering contracted his features. He looked on her sweet face, and alas ! her smiles were frozen cold as marble. He knew her heart was dead. To Pierrot it was a ghastly sight. Poor Pierrot !
What had happened to Columbine? Pierrot asked. Columbine smiled and shook her head. *'My love is dead," she said; nothing more.
Pierrot knew she spoke the truth. His body shook with anguish. He wept. He poured out sorrow like an overflowing river. Suddenly the moon dropped into the motionless lake. A flaming whiteness quivered in the darkness and the pillars of Pierrot's flowered paradise disappeared one by one. Pierrot's eyes were wet with tears that an angel caught in lily cups.
Pierrot was much puzzled. What one sees in the light of the effulgent moon is difficult to discern. To see what is profound and fertile one must have an eye that defies luminosity. It is peering into the depths of the soul that one sees things worth while. There may one see the inner joys and griefs. In the moonlight we miss things that count in life. In the light of the moon one lives through years of blind and blissful ignorance. Too bad that Pierrot let the tears damp his eyes when the moon dipped into the lake!
XL
He who had lain so long on his bed of roses dreaming of unknown joys and inviolable glories missed what was worth knowing. Hence he- wan- dered out into the night where there was no one to sympathize with him in his sorrow. Hoping to hear Columbine call him back, he heard nothing save the sublime rhythm of the spheres echoing in his bosom. Sitting at the edge of the garden he deepened the
318 The Lantern
anguish of his soul, giving himself up a prey to his disappointed ambitions and to thoughts of the joys he was once sure would be with him in his speeding years. Poor Pierrot was bewildered by all the com- plex feelings that war on one another in the heart of man in the solemnest moments of life. Night and solitude filled his heart with sadness. All the world was heartless and brutal.
*'Is this the end of all?" he asked, ''the end of my wedded bliss?" He prayed for death, since there was naught to live for.
Night passed, and Pierrot staggered along with bowed head. Nights passed while he wandered over the earth. The cities everywhere took on autumn tints. Here and there the walls of cities veiled themselves in mortuary draperies. "Her love is dead," he re- peated to himself. Everywhere and incessantly church bells tolled. Pierrot felt like one passing through a very pageant of funerals. The scene was symbolized by his soul itself.
Presently he mocked at himself for his weakness. What he needed was courage. "How cowardly to suffer in one's mind. Strength of mind is the brave man's duty to himself. True peace is in myself. It is God's will that tribulation should come over me. Affliction is the way of the cross. I should rejoice that God thinks of me."
All day Pierrot was in a state of perpetual dis- quietude. He was one of those hapless beings to whom evening brings no cahn. The coming of dark- ness was the signal for a witches sabbath. A physician gave him the juice of a strange flower to make him sleep. In vain; there was no deliverance from his anguish.
"Oh God," he cried, "what is my inexpiable sin?" He heard his voice echoing in the stony labyrinth of the city. It was the place where he spent his boyhood, his youth and his first years of manhood. Here he had tasted the meagre joys of life that preceded his meeting with Columbine. That was a
A Fantasy 319
time when women threw themselves at his feet, yielding what men call love. He lamented his past, and at this moment he entered his home again — the garden of roses and lilies. It was dark but the subtle perfume of the flowers was familiar. All was in profound darkness. The moon had not risen and clearly he saw himself in the mirror that used to reflect Columbine's face. He was startled by all he saw, for there was reflected his own mind and heart. He saw also his child's soul, and he heard the soul sing with joy. He listened to words of great sweet- ness surpassing all the knowledge of philosophers. "Forsake thyself and thou shall find God," were the words of a refrain that he heard.
Pierrot looked into the mirror again and he saw — in almost blinding whiteness that what men call love is small indeed compared with the sacred orgies of the soul when it gives itself up wholly to spiritual graces.
"There are higher, wider and rarer joys than I used to know," he said. Pierrot felt that healing hands were laid upon his brow. He had entered a tideless calm where souls find repose.
Presently the moon rose and Pierrot saw Colum- bine with his child in her arms. He saw that the room was hung with pink satin embossed with crimson sprays. He was lying on a purple-flowered carpet. He rose quickly, seized his child, and at once his pale face was lighted up with an inner fire. Something passed through Pierrot's soul that gave him a thrill as of a mysterious ecstasy.
THE GHOST BEREFT
By E, Nesbit
The poor ghost came through the wind and rain And passed down the old dear road again;
Thin cowered the hedges, the tall trees swayed Like little children that shrink afraid.
The wind was wild and the night was late When the poor ghost came to the garden gate;
Dank were the flower-beds, heavy and wet, The weeds stood up where the rose was set.
The wind was angry, the rain beat sore
When the poor ghost came to its own house-door;
"And shall I find her a- weeping still To think how alone I lie, and chill?
"Or shall I find her happy and warm
With her dear head laid on a new love's arm?
"Or shall I find she has learned to pine For another's love and not for mine?
"Whatever chance, I have this to my store — She is mine — my own for evermore."
So the poor ghost came through the wind and rain Till it reached the square bright window pane.
"Oh ! what is here in the room so bright — Roses and love and a hid delight?
"What lurks in the silence that fills the room? A cypress wreath from a dead man's tomb?
The Ghost Bereft 321
"What wakes, what sleeps ? Ah ! can it be Her heart that is breaking — and not for me?"
Then the poor ghost looked through the window pane, Though all the glass was wrinkled with rain.
*'Oh, there is light — at the feet and head Twelve tall tapers about the bed.
**Oh, there are flowers, white flowers and rare, But not the garland a bride may wear.
"Jasmine white, and a white, white rose — But its scent is gone where the lost dream goes.
"Lilies laid on the straight white bier. But the room is empty — she is not here.
"Her body lies here deserted, cold ;
And the body that loved it creeps in the mould.
"Was there ever an hour when my love, set free, Would not have hastened and come to me?
"Can the soul that loved mine long ago Be hence and away and I not know?
"Oh, then, God's judgment is on me sore For I have lost her for evermore!"
But up in Heaven, where memories cease Because the blessed have won to peace.
One pale saint shivered, and closer wound The shining raiment that wrapped her round:
"Oh glad is Heaven and glad am I,
Yet I fain would remember the days gone by:
"The past is hid and I may not know — But I think there was sorrow long ago.
322 The Lantern
"The sun of Heaven is warm and bright, But I think there is rain on the earth tonight
"O Christ, because of thine own sore pain, Help all poor souls in the wind and rain!"
ROSE-LEAVES
By M. M. Johnson
The Rose must fall before the scent Of her silken leaves is spent.
Unfamiliar with decay Glides her loveliness away.
Dimly from her glowing heart The odorous petals break apart,
Delicately one by one
Drift in silence thro' the sun,
And in crispen bunches follow Hollow clasped to velvet hollow.
Swift, in an unlamenting pride. Flake on flake the balmy tide
Deepens — not a perfumed tear
Or sigh save heaven alone may hear.
Lay thy cheek against the cool Fragrance of this crimson pool ;
Drink these rose-leaves' mellow breath, Then, O tell me — is this death?
t
r y
Mtedfer
Theodore B Besaiet aod Bdi«»^ 1 Oljgf
// w 6c//er /o starch for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents
ADAH ISAACS MENKEN
By Edward F. O'DAY
TIGER LAW (A Story)
By ELIZABETH KIRBY
INVOCATION (A Poem)
By SIEGFRIED SASSOON
CONCERNING ISLANDS
By H. M. T.
VALUES
By T. P. C. WILSON Single Copies, 1 6 Cents $ 1 .50 a Year
I ^
f ^ ■ ■ !.ii!.i.' -i j.i!ij^> :::: '^^m; •■^.' 'u: ■
J-" :bifelj?m^{.!5i!..ai-iWJfeS!JJJ-'-M-i,!»!J
The GR ANEY
WHEN REOPENED WILL BE THE
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room
in the World
''In a Class by Itself 3 Floors — Billiards — Bowling and Pool
TWO ENTRANCES 65 EDDY ST. 924 MARKET ST.
The Lantern
A Periodical tf Lucid htervals
Edited by Theodore Bonnet and Edward F. O'Day
Single Copies at All Newsstands
15 Cents; $1.50 for Tivelve
Numbers
Published Monthly at
88 FIRST STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
THE LANTERN
Vol.3 February, 1918 No. 11
Adah Isaacs Menken
By Edward F. O'Day
Dancer, actress, Mazeppa, poet arid courtesan. Wife of *'The Benicia Boy," friend of Charles Dickens. Inspiration of one of Swinburne's most notorious poems, mistress of the elder Dumas. Queen of beauty, slave of passion. The toast of San Francisco, London and Paris. She flung gold about by the handful, died in squalor. She had five husbands, who knows how many lovers? Her flesh is dust, her spirit — ? Well, there is a volume of her poetry, but nobody reads it. Adah Isaacs Menken was of yesterday, and already her career is legendary.
How little of the truth is preserved about this Sappho of the sixties, this mid-Victorian Phryne! Her legend is a chronique scandaleiise, acrid, pun- gent and plausible; yet the facts are few. Where was she born? What was her true name? Joaquin Miller said she was born in Cincinnati. Other authorities — if one may call them that — confer her upon Louisiana. The Britannica says New Orleans; the unsigned memoir prefixed to Infelicia says "with- in a few miles of New Orleans, at a place then known as Chartrain, and now as Milneburg." Her tombstone in the Jewish cemetery at Mont-Parnasse says only "Born in Louisiana, U. S. of A." But cities have neglected to vie for her as they did for Homer, so what's the difference?
Her true name one would like to know, for names explain careers or at least elucidate them, but here again there is baffling conflict. Joaquin Miller who claimed pretty intimate acquaintance with the Menken, at the same time naively disclaiming bonne
324 The Lantern
fortune, said her parents were Jews. The Britan- nica says her father was a Spanish Jew, and gives her name as Dolores Adios Fuertes. But the In- felicia memoir says her father was a merchant, James McCord, and that her baptismal name was Adelaide. Young Swinburne said her mother's name was Libitina and her father's — Priapus! But young Swinburne was not writing her biography when he celebrated her in Dolores^ he was paying her Swin- burnian compliments.
There is no doubt that what religion she had in later years was Jewish. It is said she was attended by a rabbi on her miserable deathbed. She lies in a Jewish cemetery. Those who would have her Christian-born say she embraced the older faith when she married the second of her five husbands, Alex- ander Isaac Menken, a Jewish musician. In this account Adelaide became Adah when Menken won her. In the Britannica Adah is derived from Adios. I think she was a Jew by birth. Her poems imply a knowledge of the Old Testament which a convert in her circumstances would be unlikely to acquire but which a daughter of orthodoxy would absorb with her mother's milk. Word of mouth testimony in San Francisco is that she was a Jewess and looked it beautifully.
The date of her birth is given as June 15, 1835. There is no dispute about this, and as she died August 10, 1868, we may feel reasonably certain that her ups and downs, her fevers of the blood and sorrows of the soul, her five marriages and numerous liaisons were all crowded into thirty-three years. She began living early and died a young woman old in passion.
The legend of her childhood runs that she was the eldest of three children and only eight years old when her mother was widowed ; that with a sister she entered the ballet at the French Opera in New Orleans ; and that the Theodore Sisters as they were known soon began to attract attention.
Adah Isaacs Menken 325
That is all we hear of her family. The mother, the other coryphee and the third child (whether boy or girl we know not) disappear from the Mencken's legend, never to return. Perhaps there were reasons why she gave the world no clue to her family his- tory. She may have thought that she had dis- honored her family, or (more likely) that her family was no credit to her.
There can be no doubt that she had a good mind, and it is likely that she was precocious ; but one need not believe that at twelve she had mastered French and Spanish, Latin and Greek, and had com- pleted a translation of the Iliad! A press agent must have invented that ^tory. At fourteen, we are told, she was physically mature and a reigning beauty in New Orleans. At seventeen she made her first marriage, with one of the Davenport Brothers. One can see the headline in the New Orleans papers: ''Theodore Sister Marries Daven- port Brother." The legend runs that he treated her cruelly and abandoned her. If we may believe the legend all five husbands did that. It is not necessary to believe it; in our easy divorce laws "cruelty" and "desertion" are convenient legal fictions for restive wives, and the Mencken always tired quickly of double harness.
On the heels of this first recorded romance, it would seem, she went to Havana where she was danseuse at the Tacon Theatre and toasted as "Queen of the Plaza." It is all so remote, so vague, so legendary that one may fancy what one pleases. Was she already a mercenary fighting under the banner of the flesh? Did the "Queen of the Plaza" capitalize her charms? Answer as you will.
We hear of her next at Liberty in eastern Texas. She had joined a troupe, whether as ballerina or actress we know not, and the troupe was stranded. So she started a newspaper. It failed quickly of course, but the experience left her with the pleasant smell of printer's ink in her nostrils. She resolved,
326 The Lantern
it seems, to devote herself to literature. Back in New Orleans, the legend says she taught French and Latin in a seminary, studied German and wrote for the papers. And now was published her first volume of poems. It "met with considerable popular favor," and seems utterly to have disappeared. It was prob- ably the sort of verse any girl of twenty with "liter- ary leanings" would write in 1855.
There is no word of a divorce from Davenport, but in 1856 at Galveston she married Alexander Isaac Menken. It is likely he loved her. From the fact that she always kept his name (only adding an s to the Isaac) it has been inferred that she loved him. I suppose she did, for a time. But the charity of history does not demand that we credit her with more than a physical attachment to any man. This particular marriage had the flavor of respectability, however; and women like the Menken hanker for the sweets of conventionality — forbidden sweets to them. That would explain her clinging to Menken's name. But she did not cling to Menken.
At this period we have an authoritative glimpse of her, supplied by Celia Logan:
"Our family was intimate with theirs (the Men- kens), and one evening Olive and I were at a little child's party — at which, of course, there were many elderly people — and on this occasion I first saw Isaac Menken and his wife. There had been trouble about his marrying Adah, the reason of which I was too young to understand; but the old folks had con- cluded to make the best of it, and this was the proud young husband's presentation of his bride to his family. Never shall I forget the hush which fell even upon the children as the pair paused a moment at the door, as if to ask permission to enter. Adah Menken must at that time have been one of the most peerless beauties that ever dazzled human eyes, while Isaac himself was a remarkably hand- some man, with a countenance as intelligent as the expression was noble."
Adah Isaacs Menken 327
"There had been trouble about his marrying Adah
the old folks had concluded to make the best
of it." In later years Adah was the theme of many a ribald quip in San Francisco, London and Paris. Did the gossips already bandy her name and fame in New Orleans? It seems likely.
The bride of Menken must have been very at- tractive in face and form. Her undoubted beauty of later years must have been loveliness at twenty-one. Shortly after her marriage she made her debut as an actress in Fazio at the Varieties in New Orleans. "Though not gifted with any great histrionic tal- ents," we read in the Infelicia memoir, "her mag- nificent presence carried her through the ordeal suc- cessfully." Indeed she never learned to act; if she had we might never have heard of her.
Husbands and others have a way of dropping out of the Menken's life. We hear no more of the hus- band with the intelligent countenance and the noble expression, except that "in after-years, whoever threw a stone at Adah, it was never Isaac Menken." She appeared in theatres at Cincinnati and Louis- ville, and is said to have supported Edwin Booth on tour of the Southern States. Then we hear of her studying sculpture at Columbus, Ohio, and writ- ing for the papers. When Baron Rothschild was admitted to the British Parliament the editorial champions of the Established Church saw fit to be- come very anti-Semitic. Some of their brethren in this country echoed the pother. Adah and her pen went to Rothschild's defense, and the baron wrote her a letter in which he called her "the inspired Deborah of her race." It was good publicity, and she was soon back on the stage. Dayton, Ohio, made her honorary captain of its Life Guards and ordered her portrait with sword and epaulets. She went to New York and appeared at the Old Bowery Theatre in The French Spy and The Soldier's Daughter. She was beginning to be a personage.
Just how much of a personage and in what milieu
328 The Lantern
may be judged from the next item " in her history. In April, 1859, she married John C. Heenan, our own "Benicia Boy." Had she divorced Menken? Perhaps not. She was never finicky about these things. It lacked a year of that memorable 17th of April, 1860, when the bruiser from California tried conclusions for thirty-seven rounds of two hours and six minutes with the champion Tom Sayers in the greatest battle of the British prize ring; but "The Benicia Boy" was already the John L. Sullivan of his day and his wife could not escape public notice. Of course Adah always sought it. From that time forward she lived in the eye of the crowd.
Even bad acting was not drawback enough to keep the wife of John C. Heenan from good the- atrical engagements. She became James E. Mur- doch's leading lady. He found her "a mere novice, and not at all qualified for the important position to which she had aspired. But she was anxious to improve and willing to be taught. A woman of personal attractions, she made herself a great fav- orite." But the mind which was supposed to have conquered the Iliad ait twelve could not or would not learn lines at twenty-four. It seems quite likely that that mind was not all the legend says it was. Her worst disaster befell when she attempted Lady Macbeth. She went on totally unprepared in lines or action and made a spectacle of herself. It is no wonder Murdoch said to her: "Adah, you have a pretty face and a good form. Why not adopt the sensational line?" It was wormwood to her conceit, that suggestion, but she was clever enough to follow it and it made her a greater celebrity even than 'The Benicia Boy."
The opportunity of her life came in Albany. An actor named R. E. J. Miles was starring at the Green Street Theatre in Mazeppa or The Wild Horse of Tartary. The play was based on Byron's poem ; its sensational climax showed the wild horse set free with the naked Mazeppa bound to its back. The
Adah Isaacs Menken 329
manager of the theatre proposed that Adah play the part of Mazeppa. Here was her chance to adopt the sensational line. She accepted. It has been stated many times that she was the first female Mazeppa. This is not correct. At least two ac- tresses played the part before her, Charlotte Cramp- ton and Helen Weston. And of the rest of the female Mazeppas, some played at the same time as the Menken, others later. The list is quite unim- portant, but why not give it? Addie Anderson, Kate Fisher, Lizzie Wood, Kate Raymond, Kate Warwick Vance, Leo Hudson (she died of a Mazep- pa accident), Oceana Italia Judah, Florence Temple, Maud Forrester, Fannie Louise Buckingham and Vernona Jarbeau. No, Adah was not the first or the only female Mazeppa, but opinion is unanimous that she was the shapeliest. That is distinction enough. At the first rehearsal the horse fell from the painted mountain and Adah was injured, the first of her not infrequent Mazeppa accidents. But she was not daunted. Mazeppa ran for six weeks to crowded houses. Her flesh-colored integument was considered daring nakedness in those days, and the notoriety of the performance spread beyond Albany. In Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis and New York throngs went to the theatre to be shocked by the Menken's nudity and to revel in her symmetry.
About this time Heenan disappeared from her life. He crossed the ocean to Farnborough to add a new chapter to Fistiana, and Adah added a fourth husband to her string. As usual, it was said that Heenan had been cruel to her. Friends of "The Benicia Boy" indignantly denied this. The chances are that he was as good a husband as any pugilist ever was. The chances are, too, that she was not a good wife. At any rate she married R. H. Newell, a humorist whom his contemporaries considered im- mortal. Today he is so dead that the pun in his pen-name "Orpheus C. Kerr" has to be explained. Adah married Newell in October, 1861. She was
330 The Lantern
divorced from Heenan by the Indiana courts a year later. Bigamy was a trifle to Adah.
With Newell she came to San Francisco. In the East she had been a notorious success. Her triumph in San Francisco lifted her from notoriety to celeb- rity. Why this should be so can be made clear only to those who understand how life was glam- ored in the San Francisco of the sixties. Many a reputation was fashioned of disrepute in that golden era of our city. The courtesan and the gambler were not tolerated but courted. The Vigilantes threw no stones at the glass houses of the beautiful frail. A fine figure was no reproach to a woman ; to display it was accounted no sin.
Adah opened at Maguire's Opera House in Wash- ington street on August 24, 1863. The crowd blocked the street, the theatre was jammed. The first night netted Maguire $1640. Next morning the dramatic critics were in ecstacies. A mob waited in front of Adah's hotel to catch a glimpse of her. She played Mazeppa in San Francisco until April, 1864. Joaquin Miller vouches for the Menken of that period:
"She took me with her out to Seal Rocks, to hold her horse, mind you — nothing more than that .... The road was all sand then — tossing, terrible, mov- ing mountains of sand. At one place a little moun- tain had thrown itself right on the road before us. Our horse plunged in and wallowed belly deep, and she shouted with delight. She seemed very happy, half wild, all the way till we got down to the great beach away beyond the Cliff House. But there, throwing herself from the saddle, she fell with her face almost in the ocean and sobbed and cried as if her heart was broken. Soon she got up, however, and turning to where I stood holding the horse, said, smiling through her tears : T had to do it. They are killing me at that old playhouse, and I had to come out here and cry or die.' When about to re- mount, she ran back as a wave came in, and, throw-
Adah Isaacs Menken 331
ing her tear-wet handkerchief out and cutting- the gray surf, she cried : 'Good-bye, gray old grandfather, good-bye/ "
Some of this probably happened at the Cliff House, the rest in the brain of the poet. Always rhapsodical over beautiful women, Joaquin was the very man to enrich the Menken legend. Did he not say, "Little is known of her except lies?"
San Francisco would have sated her appetite for applause were it not insatiable. She drove in the streets, clothed in a single garment of yellow silk. At her hotel she permitted herself to be seen in the same garment, lying full length on a yellow skin. It was a favorite pose, and photographs have pre- served it. There was another side to her life here. She wrote for The Golden Era, a periodical of re- markable literary merit. There is not a complete file of this paper in existence, so we cannot test the quality of her prose. But many of the poems after- wards published in Infelicia w^ere written in San Francisco.
She sailed out of our harbor for England in April, 1864, leaving we know not how many amorous regrets behind. At Astley's her Mazeppa gave London mid- Victorian shudders. There were edi- torials about "the naked drama" in w^hich her "shameless exhibition" became an affront to the womanhood of England. Rhymes like these were fired at her :
Lady Godiva's far outdone, And Peeping Tom's an arrant duffer; Menken outstrips them both in one At Astley's, now the Opera Buffer. The result may be imagined. In the parlance of the playhouse "she packed 'em in." John Brougham wrote her a play called The Child of the Sun. It ran for seven weeks. She went back to Mazeppa in which only her beauty acted.
The Indiana courts, refuge akin to the Dakota and Nevada tribunals of a later time, freed her now from Newell, and she ran over to New York to be
332 The Lantern
married to James Barclay, a Wall Street plunger. The last of her marriages did not last long. It seems that Barclay speedily abandoned her. May I call her the most abandoned woman of her epoch?
The rest of her life was divided between London and Paris, with a short season at Vienna. In Lon- don she held court in spacious and very expensive apartments in the Westminster Hotel. She drove every afternoon in Regent street. Great men waited upon her — Charles Dickens, Charles Reade, W^atts Phillips, John Oxenford and Swinburne. The callow Swinburne of twenty-seven years wrote French verses in her album and added her to his gallery of Paphian divinities. For it is the Menken he celebrated in Dolores. One may infer he enjoyed her favors, if one goes in for that sort of inference. If so, he was one of many.
At this time she was busy on her book of poems. She sent specimens to Dickens who acknowledged them prettily and suffered the dedication of the book wherein his letter may be read. All her manuscript poems, it seems, passed under Swinburne's eye. We know from Gosse's recently published biography that Algernon Charles not only read but tinkered them a little. He told a friend that he had considerably improved some lines. The book was not published in her lifetime ; when it appeared gossip insisted that Swinburne was the author, but gossip is al- ways uncritical.
The Menken legend has it that when Adah was a young girl she was powerfully affected by a passage in one of the Dumas romances (who knows? per- haps the death of Milady) and exclaimed: "When I go to Europe I shall fall in love with this ex- traordinary man." She was as good as her word, if this was her word. '67 was a great year in Paris, the year of Offenbach's Grande Duchesse. Beauti- ful frailty was enthroned at the Bouffes-Parisiens in Cora Pearl, and at the Varieties in Hortense Schneider. You cannot write the story of the
Adah Isaacs Menken 333
Second Empire and omit these names. Adah went to the Gaite and at once there were three boulevard toasts instead of two. She made her debut in a play- written for her, Lcs Pirates de la Savanne. Hailed by the press as 'Tactrice-ecuyere-Americaine/' of course she had to have an equestrian part. Figaro described her in the new play as "a very beautiful young woman, dressed as a young Mexican brigand, who is not acquainted with the language of Voltaire" — the legend says she had mastered it at twelve! — "and merely says *Hop! Hop!' which no doubt suf- fices to make horses of every country obey. In the seventh tableau Miss Menken, in a most primitive costume, is tied to a horse a la Mazeppa, who gallops up the rocks like lightning." Her face and figure conquered Paris. Her hundredth night was a triumph attended by Napoleon III, the Prince Imperial, the King of Greece and the Duke of Edinburgh. Her apartments at the Hotel de Suez, Boulevard de Strassbourg were haunted by dandies, voluptuaries, parasites and geniuses, including Theophile Gautier. Then came old Alexandre Dumas.
One night during an entr'acte Dumas pere went behind the scenes of the Gaite. He was pointed out to Adah. She ran to him, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. The old scapegrace im- mediately installed her in a charming apartment. Later he took her to a villa at Bougival, a summer resort on the Seine, and was pleased to tell his son in allusion to the latter's masterpiece, that "in his old age he had a Marguerite and was playing Armand Duval at Bougival." She was his dernier amour. He flaunted her. All Paris talked about them. And an incident came which made all Paris laugh at them. The photographer Liebert placed on sale a photograph of Adah sitting in Alexandre's lap with her arms about his neck. That picture went around the world. Schoolboys in San Francisco passed it furtively from hand to hand. It is still to be seen in collections here. In Paris it sold bv
334 The Lantern
thousands. Old Alexandre was furious and sued the photographer. A ribald song was written and sung amid laughter in the music halls. Every stanza ended, **Ah ! rien n'est sacre pour la photographic." When the case was tried Liebert proved that Alex- andre and Adah had visited his gallery together to pose for him, that proofs of five poses had been sent to Alexandre, and that he had not paid the bill. One pose was so risque that the censor had only authorized its sale sans etalage, that is to say, it could only be sold ''from under the counter." At the end of this ridiculous business Dumas pere had to pay the photographer a hundred francs, but the photographer was forbidden to sell any more of the pictures.
Dumas could not stand ridicule. I suppose the Bougival idyll ended about this time. The records are vague. The splendors of courtesans are chron- icled; their miseries can be inferred. The Menken had run her course, and Paris devoured her as it has devoured so many others. One day at the theatre she was taken violently ill. Consumption, we learn from one source; from another, peritonitis. Perhaps both. A friend was shocked by her appearance. *'Yes, I'm shot," she answered. This was in Jun, 1868. In August she died "in an attic on the fifth floor of a low lodging in the Rue de Bondy, op- posite the stage-door of the Porte St. Martin." It is said that Thomas Buchanan Read, the poet, was with her at the end. The legend adds that a rabbi was with her too. I hope it is true. Only a dozen persons attended the funeral, tradesmen, servants and actors. She was buried in the strangers' section at Per la Chaise. But her body was removed the follow- ing year to the Jewish cemetery at Mont-Parnasse where it lies under a slab of gray stone with an urn bearing the words Thou knozvest and the inscription "Adah Isaacs Menken, born in Louisiana, U. S. of A. Died in Paris, August 10, 1868."
{To be concluded.)
TIGER LAW
By Elizabeth Kirby
His name was Smith, but he hoped to outHve that initial handicap. He had dreams of a peerage in the future, backed by a mansion in Park Lane. All his dreams were of that solid, distinct kind . He meant to take all that he could get, so much at least as he could comfortably hold. His age was twenty- eight, and he called himself an "old-young man." He was a man of the world, so he said — a cynic, a roue, any word you like that denotes hardened profligacy. It was his boast that he was heartless. He often compared himself to the king in a game of chess, treading down pawns, taking knights, bishops, castles, even the queen, on his path to victory.
Now all philosophies are submitted to a test sooner or later. Certain circumstances may develop sud- denly, and the system is tried by fire or water or by some ordeal more complex than either. Such a trial was presented to Smith in the shape of a girl, and since we are taking him as an exercise in psychology we will look into the matter.
Now this was not the first girl to encounter Smithy but she was the first to genuinely love him. They met in a Bayswater boarding house of shabby medi- ocrity. She saw him first in the lounge one even- ing. She was alone in the room, reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason till the dinner gong should sound. In the daytime she was a shorthand typist, but at night she became a philosopher, an intellectual. She meant to write books — great books. At present she was preparing herself for the magnificent career. Her name was Priscilla.
She was in the midst of a tremendous yawn when Smith appeared. He caught her eye and laughed. *'Am I interrupting you?" he asked. She smiled, be- traying a dimple. "Not at all. Do I look absorbed?" "Well, not exactly. What's the book?" She handed
336 The Lantern
it to him, and he nodded approval. "Quite good stuff that. Are you making a definite study of the subject?" She said that she was, so far as time al- lowed. Then he rested his head against the chair- back, half closing his eyes and commenced a solilo- quy upon philosophy, his own and other people's. He quoted freely from various sources, repeating the author's sentiments as his own and vice versa, which was a favorite trick of his.
"You talk awfully well," she said. "You seem to simplify things so that one begins to see and under- stand."
"Well, a public school education is responsible for that," said Smith superbly. "I was at Eton, you know. And at Cambridge I went into those subjects very thoroughly. We had debates and all that sort of thing. But I'm glad I've been able to help you."
"I find that it's such a terribly big subject," she confessed. "One simply doesn't know where to be- gin."
"What fun it would be if we could combine," he said. "Would it help you if I were to read with you?"
She considered the matter, and decided that it would. With a large magnificence he promised his support, assuring her that it would refresh his mem- ory and even teach him something. Sublime humil- ity!
"And now I must trot off to a damnable dinner," he declared. "I tell you I get frightfully sick of the Savoy. But society has its claims even upon us philosophers." So saying, he rose and surveyed himself in the glass. He stroked his little mustache tenderly and adjusted his tie. Then he bowed to Priscilla. "More philosophy tomorrow," he said. "I'm looking forward to those readings."
The next day she looked out for him at dinner, but he was nowhere to be seen. Afterwards she sat in the lounge reading Kant and listening to the scandal mongers, but still he did not come. Oh,
Tiger Law 337
well, he had forgotten all about it, and that was an end of the matter. She had been a fool to look forward to his company. Yet it would have been jolly to have had an intellectual friendship. The people here were so vapid, you could not talk to them about the things that matter. She sighed and inwardly resolved to be more self-sufficing. She sighed again as she turned out the light and pre- pared for sleep. She believed that he slept next door. That was a coincidence. Queer that the two philosophers of the establishment should repose co- laterally with but a wall between. She wished he had not so blatantly hurled Eton and Cambridge at her head the previous night. She smiled, remember- ing how laboriously he had produced them. But he was a clever youth in spite of it. It was a pity they might not read together.
She had reached this point when there was a quick step in the passage, followed by a tentative knocking at her door. With a childish defiance of convention she called "Come in," and sat up with the bedclothes huddled round her neck.
''May I wake you up?" said the voice of Smith, and the light was imperiously switched on. He was in evening dress, immaculate and debonair.
"I thought you'd forgotten about philosophy," said Priscilla.
''Rather not, but I had another beastly engage- ment. Simply couldn't escape it. I say, what a charming room this is." She was gratified, for she had taken pains to make it pretty.
He stooped to smell a bunch of violets on the dress- ing table. "The woman's touch," he murmured;; "it's marvelous."
"I love flowers," she confessed. "They make beau- tiful companions."
He sat down on the arm of a chair and surveyed her pictures. "I hope you don't think me fearfully rude," he said. "Turn me out if you do, and I shall
338 The Lantern
quite understand. But I'm sure you're not in the least conventional, are you? You're too clever."
Priscilla liked that. She was a Bohemian child, hotly despising petty laws, and it was good to meet another such. What perception the man had to recognize her so instantly.
"I say, I suppose you wouldn't come and sit with me while I eat my supper?"
She consented, conscious that she was being riot- ously Bohemian. Yet what matter? It would be fun, and this was an entirely spiritual friendship after all.
"Oh, you are great!" he cried. "I'll go and make ready for the feast."
When he had gone she scrambled out of bed like an eager child and put on her dressing gown. The pink fleecy thing made her more than ever babyish.
They sat on cushions in front of a gas fire and partook of cocoa and sweet biscuits. Their conver- sation covered a multitude of subjects, philosophy, literature, human nature, the boarding house and its occupants, sex and free love.
"I don't think it's the highest way of loving," declared Priscilla. "It's too promiscuous."
"There you make the mistake of ignorance," said Smith. "Believe me, I'm a man of the world, and I know what I'm talking about when I say that it's the only means to development. I've experienced it dozens of times."
"Oh !" cried Priscilla a little doubtfully.
He half closed his eyes as one who sees visions. "God! the magnificence of passion," he said. "The pain and the joy of it, the delicious anxieties! You work up to a gorgeous climax of emotion and just leave it there. To go further would spoil the whole."
"But what about the woman?" said Priscilla. "Doesn't it break her heart to be left like that?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "How do I know?
Tiger Law 339
She reaches her highest development in love, and what more can she ask?"
"It seems rather a cruel theory," she protested.
"All power is cruel," he declared. "Besides the poor dears make us hurt them. They simply ask for it."
"I wonder if I would be more interesting if I had had experiences?" she said.
"Of course you would. Those things develop one enormously. It would make you more human ; at the moment you're all mind."
On the next evening Smith ref>eated the perform- ance, absenting himself from dinner and only ap- pearing when she had been in bed some time ; and indeed she had fallen asleep when his knock aroused her.
"Let me talk to you," he begged. "I'm so fright- fully lonely tonight."
She sat up, drowsy but sympathetic. "What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing in particular. This place depresses me, and then I have so much important work on hand. But you have an extraordinary effect on me. You make me forget my worries. You turn me into a boy again."
"Tell me the biggest adventure you've ever had," he commanded. "You won't be shocked ?" "I ? Good God!" His tone implied that it was blasphemy even to suggest it. She laughed. "Well, once upon a time I dressed up in my brother's clothes and went to call on all the dullest maiden ladies in the town. My sister came with me, and we had the loveliest time. It was a cathedral town, all prunes and prisms. Wasn't that an adventure?"
"Oh, I say, you're splendid," said Smith. "You're really frightfully sweet." She sighed contentedly like a little dog basking in firelight. "I have a thirst for being appreciated," she confessed. "So I'm glad you like me." "Like you! I love you," he de- clared. "You're inimitable." She chuckled, then
340 The Lantern
grew immensely solemn. "I'm afraid you're get- ting sentimental," she asserted.
"Of course I am. It's part of the childish mood. I feel like a baby now, with not a care left in my mind. I want nothing in this world but permis- sion to play with your hair. May I?" He put out a wistful hand towards her curly plait, and she let him have his way. After all, he was tired and in need of petting. Even philosophers, you know, have their moods. She kept quiet, her eyes full of thought, while he gently made havoc of the bunch of curls.
"You know, all those stupid people in the lounge would accuse us of flirting if they could see us now," she said. "But we're not."
"Which just shows that they have beastly minds. Flirting is a cheap word," he asserted. "Artists don't flirt." He looked into her eyes, and the soft- ness of his glance embarrassed her. "Of course they don't," she murmured. "It's unbeautiful." "Instead, they love each other," he insisted, "and so fulfil themselves. Don't you know that? Have you never been in love?" She shook her head, greatly ashamed. "Is it absolutely necessary?" she breathed.
He put his arm about her, as it were sub-con- sciously. "Absolutely necessary, you sweet thing," he whispered. "Let me teach you how."
"I'm sure it's wrong," she answered, yet she made no other protest.
"Darling, how sweet you are!" he cried. "Why should it be wrong?" Her head was on his shoulder now, all was intimate and cozy. Philosophy looked cold from such a vantage point.
"Isn't it rather promiscuous?" she ventured.
He pretended to take offense at that. "What a horrible word! Do you think I'm the sort of man who goes about kissing girls? Don't you see that this is a matter of affinity?"
"Well, anyhow, it's cheapening," she affirmed; "unmaidenly, you know, and fast, and quite unprin-
Tiger Law 341
cipled. The woman ought to set a good example, they say, and I'm not doing that."
"Oh, you're too perfectly sweet," said Smith. "You say the most delicious things."
"Perhaps I'm a little old-fashioned," she confessed. "Do you think that's it?"
"Of course it is, and I love it." With that he drew her close and kissed her lips. "Oh, darling, darling!" he whispered. "Let me wake the love and passion in you ! Darling, say that I may !" His voice was tremulous as a wind-swept stream, the passion in it moved her mightily.
"But what's the good?" she answered softly. "It would hurt me to no good purpose."
"It would make you grow," he said.
She stroked his head, tender, commiserating. "You see, we're not in love."
"I love every inch of you !" he interrupted.
"But I don't think we belong to each other," she persisted. "Some day my fairy prince will come, and you will meet your princess, and then we shall feel sorry that we've once played with love."
"What beautiful ideas you have," he cried. "And what a baby you are. Kiss me, darling, and don't make one more moral objection."
"But don't you believe in marriage?" She paused with her lips upon his cheek to ask the question.
"The only marriages are those of love," said Smith with glorious vagueness. "Beauty flies away while you sit down to make a contract. But we can't discuss the ethics of love, darling. Let's taste the finite instead. You haven't kissed me yet."
She laughed at his persistence and kissed him shyly. Her lips were soft and cool, like a snow- flake.
His breath came quick, as the footsteps of a runner. His passion was rising like a storm. Pris- cilla sighed. "Darling," she whispered, "are you quite sure that it isn't just .... well, just the out- side of me you like?"
342 The Lantern
"Dearest, of course not! I loved your mind first."
"Tm glad of that," she said. "It makes it more romantic." With that she snuggled down in the shelter of his arms and gave herself up to the joy of being cherished. She was very much a child de- spite her philosophy and her twenty-two years. Yet soon Smith became violently demonstrative, so that she had to send him away reluctant, protesting. She felt afraid of this fire she had lighted.
He turned about unwillingly; his hair had lost its sleek propriety, it looked thick and rough. At the door he hesitated, then came back. "Just oiie kiss, darling." She surrendered her lips once more, and finally got rid of him. But she did not go to sleep. For many hours she lay motionless, think- ing upon this wonderful thing that had so miracu- lously come to pass. Often there had been days when she had prayed God to send her a lover. Now with what beautiful suddenness had the answer appeared. When at last she fell asleep a happy smile trembled about her lips and her curtained eyes held fast a dozen precious memories. As for Smith, he read a scrofulous novel in a lurid cover — to increase his appetite for these afifairs. And so the trial of a philosophy began.
That was only the first of many such scenes, but the others were less romantic. Once having opened a way for himself, Smith went ahead with char- acteristic vehemence. He was even irritable when she produced her little problems for his wiser head to solve. He often was rude to her, exhibiting a grand impatience with her childish morality.
"My dear, sweet fool," he would exclaim when she produced principles. "That sort of thing isn't done nowadays. Only one's tradespeople hold to these cheap conventions. The Smart Set is glor- iously immoral. I'm in it, so I know. You talk about sin and virtue as though you came from Brix- ton."
Sometimes he would come in from a dinner party
Tiger Law 343
crying ''Cock-a-doodle-doo !" into Priscilla's ear. "Do you know where I've been?" he would say. Invari- ably she gave the requisite meed of interest, secretly smiling at his dear foolishness. Once he was im- mensely excited, so that Priscilla almost had to stop her ears to shut out his high-pitched crowing.
"What happened?" she asked, exhibiting a splen- did patience.
"Oh, nothing much," said Smith. "Only dined with a Knight of the Garter and sat next to the Lord Chancellor of England."
She sighed. He jarred one's nerves at times like an importunately banging door. "Was he inter- esting?" Smith yawned. "Oh, yes. And a man like that is worth cultivating. To a good chess- man all pieces are of use."
She smiled at his immense vanity. Another night found him straddling a new hobby horse. This time he had dined with a city magnate of much wealth resident in Berkeley Square.
"You ought to see their mansion," said Smith to Priscilla. "Everything of the best, you know — frightfully massive and expensive. While we were at dinner he got news of a big fire in one of his warehouses which meant the loss of thousands of pounds. But a trifle like that doesn't bother him. He's simply full of money."
"He sounds gross," said Priscilla.
"I wish I were more like him," Smith declared. "Oh, it makes me sick to come back to a hole like this after being with decent people in a perfectly furnished house. I think I shall have to leave this damned spot in a week or two and go back to my flat in Piccadilly. I ought never to have left it. I can't get on without a valet."
She was hurt that he should so lightly contem- plate leaving her. "I think you're frightfully cal- lous," she said.
He paused, surveying the ceiling with half-closed eyes. "I'm a man of iron," he said. "T don't care
344 The Lantern
that'' — he snapped his fingers — "for sentimental feel- ings. If a woman were to fall down at my feet and sob and moan and try to hold me, I would trample her down for getting in my way. I am quite heartless. You have to be if you want to succeed."
"You only love yourself, then?"
"Only myself. I am never lonely, never depend- ent on any single person; in fact, I'm self-sufficient, a ruthless egoist, as all great men have been."
She laughed very softly and gently pulled his hair. "Dear old thing, I know you better than to believe those dreadful things. I think you're just wonderfully young." He was not ill-pleased at the remark.
As time went on she could not but acknowledge that this romance was disappointing. There was no strength in Smith that one could lean on and re- spect. Yet she continued to love him for his very littleness. His follies were infinite as his conceit. He borrowed her toilet powder for his own use, he sprayed himself liberally with her scent, and washed with a Parisian soap. Of course, the philosophy readings never took place. He lost his temper or yawned abysmally, enraged if she so much as men- tioned Kant. And that again disappointed her. Yet because she loved him she would not face it square-
"It's more thoughtlessness than anything, she said. "And then he's so young."
There is no knowing how far she would have gone in her desire to please him. Most likely she would have given all she had. But Smith was cautious, and he asked for nothing for which he ultimately might have to pay. His prudence was re- markable ; it formed the criterion of all his actions by simply asking, "Will it pay?" And in the throes of a strong passion, panting and desirous, Smith always listened to that question and obeyed the decree.
Tiger Law 345
It would not have paid him in this instance to ruin Priscilla. There would have been disastrous con- sequences detrimental to his career. And he had no intention of marrying till he found a mate possessed of social status and solid fortune. His union would be, first and foremost, a commercial enterprise. In view of these facts he decided that this affair had lasted long enough.
*T'm leaving on Monday," he declared one day.
She seemed to brace herself like one fighting against a wind. Then she asked why he was go- ing. The pain in her eyes annoyed him.
"My dear child, don't be idiotic. Is this the sort of place for a society man? Do you think I'm used to discomfort, my boots badly cleaned, and my bell never answered? I rang six times yesterday, and no one came. Oh, it's simply hell for a man of my position."
"Don't you think that I might miss you?" she asked, holding fast to the mantelpiece.
"God!" he cried, "how selfish you are! Can't you be glad for my sake that I'm going to be more comfortable?"
"I think it's you who are selfish," she said. "You think of no one but yourself."
"Certainly. Sentimentalists go to the wall in this world. It's the pushing egoist who prospers."
"Is prosperity everything?" She eyed him wist- fully as she put the question, believing in face of evidence that he was only playing a part.
"Yes, it's everything," he said. "Nothing else matters."
"Not even love?"
"Love, my dear child, is an episode. If you're anything of an artist you must know that."
"I suppose this has been — just an episode?" she said.
"Oh, damn it!" cried Smith. "Can't you argue impersonally ?"
That night she slept on a wet pillow, and during
346 The Lantern
the three days that preceded his going she went about full of a dull pain like one condemned to death. How she dreaded Monday, yet looked forward to it as the definite limit of her acutest misery.
He, for his part, was out of sorts, having ac- quired a cold in the head from too violent dancing at a night club. So he was unusually short- tempered towards the end of this romance.
"Say good-bye to me before you go," she pleaded, meeting him in the passage on Sunday night. He was in evening dress, bound for a bridge party.
"li I feel well enough," he promised. "But I daresay this beastly show will tire me out. Good night, little girl."
She stood looking after him, and shivered as the front door banged behind him with vicious finality. The world looked tragically desolate as she ate her chilly supper of cold ham. Despite his littleness she loved him. Yet he was going, inevitably going, without a thought for her. She prayed to God be- fore she fell asleep for strength to overcome this most unreasonable love. Clearly Smith was not worth a strong affection. Yet as she thought of him she had to clench her hands till the nails bit into the skin, so imperative was her desire to take his young head on her breast. The peculiar sweet odor of his hair still hung about her pillow where he had laid his head when last he visited her. It made her memories more vivid. Remembering some of his speeches she hid her head, writhing to and fro. She loved him, and he was going away. She never would see him again. Yet even now she could not believe that his philosphy would indeed hold good. As she lay there weeping she kept a little dim hope at the back of her mind that he was but pretending after all.
Towards midnight his step sounded at the door, l)ut he went into his own room, and soon she heard the click of the electric light as he turned it out. Then he was not coming after all! She sat up-
Tiger Law 347
right, vastly forlorn. Her eyes had the strained dullness of despair, her lips drooped childishly. So he would not even say good-bye.
"Oh, God, help me!" she muttered. "Don't let me do it."
With that she laid her cheek against the wall and shut her eyes, murmuring inconsequent endearments. Then suddenly, almost violently, she rose and put on the fleecy dressing gown.
"Oh, God, I must!" she said as though He had objected. Then she walked to Smith's door and laid tremulous fingers on the handle. Ever so softly she entered the room. By the light of the gas fire she saw he was asleep, and for a moment she stood looking down at him. His hair was rough as she liked it best, his thin lips a little parted. He was like some cold young Greek in repose, she thought. Certainly he had a cruel face, but he was beautiful. And young — so fragrantly, divinely young.
"Darling," she said, "wake up !" He made no movement, so she spoke again, touching him on the cheek. At that he opened his eyes and saw her standing there. "Good God!" he groaned. "What an unearthly time for visiting a man !" That hurt her pride. "I can't go to sleep," she said. "I wondered if you could give me a cigarette." "Im- possible, haven't got one. Really, it's fearfully selfish of you to wake me up like this when you know I'm not well." She stood still shivering. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I suppose you'll be going away tomorrow?" "Of course I am, and jolly glad of it. This is no place for me, as I've said before. And now do go to bed like a good girl." She turned about unsteadily, and then hesitated. "Say good- bye," she said, and her voice was husky with tears. "Oh, look here, this is no time for sentiment," said Smith. "We're sure to meet again. For Heaven's sake, let me get some sleep." She came towards him, defying shame ; her hands groped out uncer- tainly. "Won't you kiss me, just once?" she whis-
348 The Lantern
pered. "No, Fm not in the mood for demonstra- tions. I'm very ill and tired."
He turned his face to the wall like a sulky child, muttering imprecations. She walked to the door, one small hand tightly clenched, a fierce desola- tion tearing her heart. Then she paused and looked back. His eyes were resolutely shut. Quietly, care- fully, she closed the door and went back to bed. She did not cry at all or make any sign of grief. All night she lay quite still with open eyes.
INVOCATION
By Siegfried Sassoon
Come down from Heaven to meet me when my
breath Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling
death I stumble toward escape, to find the door Opening on morn where I may breathe once more Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim Of night's horizon flows in lakes of fire. Come down from Heaven's bright hill, my song's
desire !
Beloved and faithful, teach my soul to wake
In glades deep-ranked with flowers that gleam and
shake And flock your paths with wonder. In your gaze Show me the vanquished vigil of my days. Mute in that golden silence hung with green, Come down from Heaven and bring me in your
eyes Remembrance of all beauty that has been, And stillness from the pools of Paradise.
CONCERNING ISLANDS
By H. M. T.
Somewhere Emerson advises us that if we really feel impelled to be assertive about something, but fear and a native modesty try to keep us furtive and shy, then to speak up, for we should find the hidden convictions of our neighbors trooping out gladly to greet the unfurling of our brave banner. That exactly was the call for which they had been waiting.
No. This is not an artful preface to any truth about the war. It was only provoked through read- ing some romantic nonsense about Islands — rare and captivating nonsense it is, too. The writer be- trays a secret and lawless passion for islands — tiny ones, of course, far and lonely; for quite properly he shows that places like the British Isles are not islands in any just and poetic sense. They are earth, and old worm-eaten earth, with all their aboriginal shine trampled out. By islands he means such spots on the seas as Kerguelen, the Antarctic Shetlands, Timor, Amboyna, the Carolines, the Marquesas and Juan Fernandez. An island with a splendid name, which I am sure he would have mentioned had he thought of it, is Fernando de Noronha. A man the writer knew was ruined for life, but lived in glory as compensation, through getting Robinson Crusoe as a birthday present instead of Isaac Todhunter's works.
I have long felt impelled to speak extravagantly of islands, for often when it has been supposed that I was examining the atlas for exactitude as to the Russian front, the truth is I was merely wasting time in Polynesia. I have wanted to brazen this out, but felt as embarrassed before adult males concerning this inner glory occasioned by the thought of islands as did R. L. Stevenson's boy for the dark lantern he delighted to wear under his coat, smell of stale colza and burnt tin and all, knowing he had no pos- sible use for a lantern.
350 The Lantern
There must be a large number of people who cherish that ridiculous dream of an oceanic solitude ■ — the more sundered the better. For we remember that whenever a story-teller wishes to make enchant- ment seem thoroughly genuine, he takes us to an island. One would remark in a hurry that Defoe began it, but then we remember the fearful spell of islands in the Greek legends. It is easily under- stood. If you have watched at sea an island shape, and pass, forlorn in the waste, apparently lifeless with no movement there but the silent fountains of the combers, then you know where the Sirens were born, and why awful shapes grew in the minds of the simple Greeks out of the wonders in Crete de- vised by the wise and mysterious Minoans, who took yearly the tribute of Greek youth, youth which never returned to tell.
How easily the picture of one's first island in foreign seas comes back! I had not expected mine, and was much surprised one morning, when east- ward-bound in the Mediterranean, to see a low mass of rock two miles to port, when I imagined I knew the charts of that sea well enough. It was curiously pallid on that dark blue plain, it was even lustrous, but it looked arid and forbidding, a place of sea- men's bones. Turning quickly to the mate I asked for its name. "Alboran," he said, very quietly, with- out looking at it, as though keeping something back. He said no more. But while that strange glimmer was on the sea I watched it; and have learned nothing since of Alboran ; and so the mem- ory of that brief sight of a strange rock is as though once I had blundered on a dreadful secret which the men who knew preferred to keep.
"Penguin Island," to which we are taken in a stone boat, and where is witnessed the origin and development of the causes that have made Europe what it is, is not a pleasure resort in the literal sense of Coney Island, nor has it the fascination of the nightmares of the "Island of Dr. Moreau ;" and
Concerning Islands 351
it is in another sea altogether from that golden group not frequently reached, their bearings being variable, the Fortunate Islands. The island of those pitiable birds is not an illusion at all. It is solid, when touched. It is veritable earth. It merely seems an illusion.
The attractive feature of Crusoe's island is that those birds had nothing to do v^ith it. That makes it a good place for a voyage, if one is any sort of a navigator in midnight slippers, and desires no bright companion but the right sort of fire. Some of us would still *'sign-on" for the voyage to 'Treasure Island" with alacrity, though all the inducements of the modern charmers were as frequent about us as crimps in the neighborhood of a shipping office. Stevenson, like Carlyle, has been regarded with re- fined superciliousness by the craftsmen of a new age, most of whom would not find it easy to outshine the shoes of the less of those two men, to say noth- ing of discovering such a place as the one in which Flint had his secret.
But of the islands which we have not seen I like best "The Blue Lagoon." I am not grading books. This is merely geography. That lagoon, it seems to me, is one of the luckiest additions to the British dominions. It is more important than the African conquests. It gives something more spacious than all the realized dreams of empire builders. It does not add to any empire ; but it heightens the sky, lightens the day and widens the horizon. The man who discovered it should be prouder than the man who discovered the South Pole or the sources of the Congo.
Its true bearings virere established at once when its discoverer told us of the flock of tropic birds which rose from the roof of the jungle and burst on the sea wind like a rocket of colored stars. There is the ring of insoluble justice in that description conceding the island to us, never found in a secret treaty granting us the superficies of any territory.
352 The Lantern
There is little in our geography books of empire to compare with the declarations of the discoverer of the Blue Lagoon as to the richness of that atoll under the vertical sun. His sentences run with the same natural flash, color and lucidity of those seas which shallow on coral foundations and break under the palms in showers of sapphires, rubies, emeralds and amethysts.
It is the best of the islands, I think. Perhaps it is the more delectable to me because it is the bright reflection of one I remember, my last memory of the seas of the tropics. That landfall in the Spanish Main was as boundless as a dream. It was but an apparition of land. It might have been no more than an unusually vivid recollection of a thought which once stirred the imagination of a boy. Look- ing at it, I felt sceptical, quite unprepared to believe that what was once a far dream could be coming true by any chance of my drift through the years, ^'et there it seemed to lie, right in our course, on a floor of malachite which had stains of orange drift weed. It could have been a mirage, for it appeared diaphanous, something frail which a wind could have stirred. Did it belong to this earth? It grew higher, and the waves could be seen ex- ploding against its lower walls. It zvas a dream come true. Yet even now, as I shall not have that landfall again, I have a doubt that waters could be of the colors which were radiant about that island, that rocks could be so rosy and white, that trees could be so green and aromatic, that air — except of the Hesperides, which are lost — so like the exhilarating life and breath of the first morning.
VALUES
By T. P. C. Wilson
What if death were the goal, after all, and the grave
a throne? What if Hell were the prize? If fear and filth endured for a cause that is not your
own, And pain and hate — if these were God in disguise?
Here there are pigeons, drowned in the green all day, And crooning drowsily, half-asleep in the heat . . . And the woods are blue with Summer, a mile away; And the flames of butterflies go dancing over the wheat.
There are books on the table, blessed under the blue; And the bees go by with peace in their singing
wings. The grasshoppers fiddle a secret tune or two, And are still, in the hush that a sunlit noonday
brings.
And there, over the earth's edge, are flies, and the
smell of the dead, Where you, who love the colors of life, are walled
with the clay you hate, Where the whine of death goes wearily overhead, And God asks nothing of man but to stiffen his heart
and wait.
The great men went before us with laughter on
their lips. They loved earth's careless loveliness — swift shadows
on a hill. And rain, and birds, and apples, and dogs and great
white ships .... But they taught themselves to kill.
The waves of dreadful sound crashed on their heads
unbowed ; Like gods, the dusty shambles saw them bright.
354 The Lantern
Through blood and guts and Hce they kept them proud, Staring across the dark with eyes that saw the light.
They laughed . . . Oh ! suddenly the mask here falls, And idiot pigeons croon in the warm trees. There is empty madness in every bird that calls, And a song of slow decay in the wings of the bees.
The books are suddenly mad and white, and scrabbled
with frantic print. And a female fool stares out from the magazine cover — All teeth and imbecile smile, and sexual hint — Most damnably sure that the whole world is her lover.
There are dreadful signs in the woods and the
Summer haze Of a God who is vast and vegetable and still, Whose law is, "Sleep for the greater part of thy
days," And "Thou shalt not clean the rust from thy scab-
barded will."
We have known a joy that the heart could scarce
endure, So drenched with beauty was the earth we trod. But there are hours when War stands up secure. Naked and bloody, as the only God.
They meet in the troubled heart. Beauty and anger
meet. And the filth of war is food for many a flower. Up through the beaten earth — stamped hard to an
army's feet — The green swords of Springtime shall strike with
their ancient power.
But what, meanwhile, if pain is the only end?
What if Hell is the prize?
If alone the lover of peace who fights, shall find as
a friend God, in a foul disguise?
•=•••••••••••'••••••••••=•=■
// is better to search for the truth of what concerns us than to hunt for an honest man
Contents
THE MOLE (a Play)
By THEODORE F. BONNET
AUCE CLEAVER (a Poem)
By HORACE B. SAMUEL
ADAH ISAACS MENKEN (Concluded)
By EDWARD F. O'DAY
CATHEDRAL SPIRES (a Sonnet)
By ANDREW DEWING
THE LANTERN GOES OUT
By THEODORE F. BONNET NEARER (A Poem)
AU REVOIR
By ROBERT NICHOLS By EDWARD F. O'DAY
Single Copies, IS Cents
$1.50 a Year
i}^ii':"
':^^.
The GR ANEY
WHEN REOPENED WILL BE THE
Most Elaborate and Perfectly
Appointed Billiard Room
in the World
''In a Class by Itself 3 Floors — Billiards — Bowling and Pool
TWO ENTRANCES 65 EDDY ST. 924 MARKET ST.
The Lantern
A Periodical if Lucid Intervals
Edited by Theodore Bonnet and Edward F. O'Day
Single Copies at All Newsstands
15 Cents; $1.50 for Tvjelve
Numbers
Published Monthly at
88 FIRST STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CAL
THE LANTERN
Vol. 3 March, 191S No. 12
The Mole
Revised and Rewritten By Theodore F. Bonnet
(Copyright)
Scene: The Ralstons' living room in their lodge in the Sierra. It gives an impression of homelikeness and comfort, hut it has few feminine touches. It has an atmosphere congenial^ to lovers of fishing and hunting, having many ornaments that bespeak success in those pastimes. There is a door and a window in the hack wall, a door in the right wall and a window in the left; a table in the foreground zvith a lighted lamp on it and some hooks. Near the door in the right zvall is a biasing fireplace; in front of the fire- place, a sofa.
The curtain rises on a vacant room. Presently Jack Ralston enters at hack as though swept in by a violent storm and brushes snow off his coat.
Ralston. Phew ! Glorious ! (He is a man of big frame in the middle thirties, handsome, of athletic build and he speaks in a deep, resonant tone. As the thunder is heard.) That's the stuff! Blow winds and crack your cheeks. I think those are the words. (He laughs. Between thunder claps he speaks in high spirits.) Rage! Blow! Fine!
Mrs. Betty Ralston is heard at right, cls she enters like a frightened fawn — a petite woman, frail as a transparent vase. Her voice is trembling.
Betty. Jack! (She shivers zvith fright and reaches for a chair.) Is that you, Jack? (in a feeble voice.)
Ralston. Yes, my dear. (In a rollicking tone.)
356 The Lantern
Did you think I was some wanderer from the wrath- ful skies?
Betty (going to him as if for protection). Oh, Jack! Isn't this dreadful? (The winds whistle.)
Ralston. Dreadful? Why it's delightful! Where have you been? I thought you'd be outside listening to the thrilling trumpets of this glorious tempest.
Betty (clinging to him, her voice trembling). Outside? Oh, Jack, I wouldn't dare to venture out in this terrible storm.
Ralston (laughing). Wouldn't dare? Why, Betty (folding her in his arms), here's where the great gods are making merry. (Jokingly, aside.) I heard that somewhere. Listen to them celebrating the great winter festival with cataracts and oak-cleaving thunderbolts. There's nothing to fear. This is what I call peace on earth.
Betty (as she hears the thunder). Oh, Jack. (Querulously.) Don't go on with your old amateur theatricals.
Ralston (clasping her again in his arms). Peace on earth, my dear. The gods are up above making their pother over our heads just for our entertain- ment. But, Betty, where have you been?
Betty. Hugging the fire in the kitchen, with the maid. I was so frightened! (She shivers.)
Ralston. Frightened? (He laughs, takes her in his arms, lifts her off her feet and kisses her.) Frightened ?
Betty. Oh, Jack! I've heard that these storms in the mountains are terrible. I'm awfully nervous.
Ralston (laughing). Nonsense, dear, why —
Betty. Suppose the lightning —
Ralston. The lightning? (He roars with laugh- ter just as the thunder rolls followed by lightning.) There, my dear, how is that for music? Hear the deep organ-pipes among the rattling crags! (He points to the window.) See! There it is. Lightning is a thing that vanishes. The jaws of darkness devour it. It's glorious. Hear the winds sing. Every mountain
The Mole 357
has a tongue. (She snuggles up to him and he clasps her tighter.) And hear how it rains! That's the stuff to make you sleep Hke a top.
(The wind szveeps across the mountain. Betty is startled.)
Betty (in alarm). Jack! (A pause.) Listen!
Ralston (going to her side). What's up now?
Betty. The house! (She looks terror-stricken.)
Ralston. The house? It's soaked — Hke a New Year's eve party.
Betty. Don't joke, Jack. This is an awful storm. The house is shaking. It's like an earth- quake.
Ralston (stroking her soothingly). Ah, don't be fidgety, Betty. Calm yourself, like a good girl.
Betty (in anger). How can I help it when the house is tottering? (She leaves him, pouting.)
Ralston. Of course it is. The storm-king is wooing the winds. What a furious old lover he is ! (He hugs her passionately. She disengages herself.)
Betty. Suppose we were blown over the cliff?
Ralston. Nonsense.
Betty. Suppose we were snowbound here for the winter.
Ralston. Fine !
Betty (shuddering). Oh, what a fool I was to come up here this time of year! This is what I get the first day!
Ralston (frowning). What? Do you wish you were back in the city?
Betty (emphatically). Yes, I do. You are al- ways talking about ''Back to nature!" Back to the city for me. At least I don't get scared to death there. (She goes to the fireplace.) It's all right enough for you. You were born in the mountains.
Ralston. My dear Betty, one doesn't have to be born in the mountains to enjoy the sublimity of the elements. I can't understand why a person who loves poetry as much as you do, and who writes
35^ The Lantern
it, doesn't love nature. " Why, these mountain storms are inspiring.
Betty. Yes, they inspire me with fear and horror. • (Again the wind rages and a crash is heard.)
Betty (in alarm). What's that? Ralston. Music, my dear. The symphony of the winds. You Hke the symphony orchestra of artificial winds and brasses. Why not the real music that moves one's soul?
Betty (another crash is heard). But that crash —
Ralston (soothing her jestingly). That's where the fellow with the big drum comes in, making a noise like the fall of a giant of the forest. Some music that!
Betty (firmly). I'm not going to stay here an- other night.
Ralston. Oh, don't say that.
Betty (firmly). I'm going back to the city.
Ralston. You are?
Betty. Yes, I am; tomorrow; if I'm not snowed in.
Ralston. We just came from the city.
Betty (emphatically). I want to go back. I want to go back.
Ralston. Oh, I see. (He flushes.) My pleasure doesn't count at all, does it?
Betty. Oh, yes, it does, but you know how nervous I am and how these terrible storms frighten me. You told me last year that you'd never ask me to come up again, and all of a sudden you changed your mind.
Ralston (reflectively and sadly). Yes, (A pause.) all of a sudden.
Betty. You made me rush and pack a grip.
Ralston (reflectively). Yes, I know I did. (Smil- ing bitterly.) But you like to write poetry so much, I thought you'd find inspiration up here in the moun- tains, being a poet.
Betty (poiitingly). I don't see anything to joke about.
The Mole 359
Ralston. Fm not joking. (Smiling shrewdly to himself.) I thought poets Hked to write about storms. Don't they?
Betty (she has not the faintest idea what he is leading to). I suppose some do. (A pause.) But true poets have imagination. (She is instructing him now that there is a lull in the storm.) They don't have to experience a storm to write about one. They can imagine anything in nature.
Ralston (with great sarcasm). Oh, is that so?
Betty. Yes, it is.
Ralston. Well, what's all this I hear about local color? (She sits by the fireplace and he joins her.) Don't poets use local color instead of their imagina- tion some time?
Betty. Oh, pshaw! (Again she is instructing, believing herself to be quite a literary woman. She belongs to a highbrow club.) You're thinking of novelists of the realistic school. They don't amount to anything. Poets get along with their imagina- tion.
Ralston. Oh, is that so?
Betty (jestingly, becoming almost epigrammatic). Novelists are not artists. They're carpenters. Poets are real artists.
Ralston (slowly). Oh, I see. What about your old sweetheart? He was the real thing, I suppose.
.Betty (startled). My old sweetheart?
Ralston. Fred — Fred Morley. He was a real poets, wasn't he? (Ralston is smiling sardonically.)
Betty (querulously). I don't know what he was.
Ralston. Well, he was rather sentimental, wasn't he?
Betty (pouting). Now you want to tease me. (She leaves him in a pout.)
Ralston. No, I don't. I want to talk — about him.
Betty. Jack, are you serious ?
Ralston (approaching Betty and looking her solemnly in the eyes). Yes, I'm serious. I'd like
360 The Lantern
to know, Betty, how long you were in love with Fred Morley when he wrote those verses.
(Every littk while during the foregoing conversa- tion the storm is heard and Betty makes good use of it in trying to hide her emotions.)
Betty. Oh, Jack! This storm has me completely unnerved.
Ralston. Now listen, Betty. This thing is on my mind. Why shouldn't I know all about it? You're my wife. He was your lover, wasn't he? Never mind the storm.
Betty. Oh, Jack! Don't be rude. My lover! I've told you he was only a beau, only a boy too.
Ralston. A boy write those verses — that sonnet to that — that mole that you let him kiss. He kissed it, didn't he?
Betty (smiling and going to him to caress him). Oh, Jack—
Ralston (avoiding her). Don't you wish to tell me? (She again approaches him, and he seizes her by the wrist.) Why don't you answer? (She cries,) Tell me. How long ago was it that — that he wrote the sonnet — to the mole?
Betty. Don't, Jack, you hurt. (She withdraws her hand and goes to the fireplace.)
Ralston (following her slowly). Why don't you answer me?
Betty. Because you hurt me.
Ralston. Come, Betty, sit down. (She goes to a chair and sits and weeps.)
Ralston. I didn't mean to hurt you. Honestly, Betty.
Betty. Oh, Jack, you're so rough.
Ralston. Yes, I know.
Betty. Sometimes you're just like a bear.
Ralston. I know, Betty. I never was very gentle — never gentle enough for you.
Betty. You're so strong, Jack. Look how red my wrist is.
Ralston. Let me kiss it.
The Mole 361
Betty (withdrawing it). I will not. You were brutal to me.
Ralston. Yes, I was brutal. (He sits down.) And you've reminded me so often of my primitive ways. (Smiling grimly.) Nothing of the poet in me, is there?
Betty (amiably going behind his chair and caress- ing him). You're awfully cross to me. (Pouting.) You've been acting strangely the last day or two.
Ralston. I'm sorry, Betty. I've been out of sorts. Forgive me for my roughness.
(She smiles and kisses him by reaching up and pulling down his face.)
Betty. Oh, Jack, I didn't mean to be so cross.
Ralston. You weren't cross, sweetheart.
Betty. Yes, I was. I said you were rough as though I didn't like it. I wouldn't like you if you were not rough — ^just like a bear.
Ralston (smiling). Now, Betty, you're trying to square yourself. I know women. They like men to be gentle.
Betty. Oh no, Jack. They like big men, manly man. H'm (Spanning his shoulders.) What broad shoulders you have. That's what I like.
Ralston (lugubriously). Morley was a big man, wasn't he? I remember you told me so, that he was proud of his height.
Betty (pouting). Oh, Jack, let's not talk about him. (She sits on his knee and caresses him.) You know I don't love anybody but you. There never was a man so big and strong as you.
Ralston. There you go. Just like a woman; appealing to my conceit. That's where even old Adam fell.
Betty. Oh, don't say that.
Ralston (musing and pretending to be instinc- tively philosophical). Funny! women are such frail little things, but it's so hard to see through them!
Betty (jestingly). Not when their candor is transparent like mine.
362 The Lantern
Ralston (playfully). Here now, quit that. (Iron- ically.) Candor? Candor isn't a womanly quality.
Betty (seriously). Well, it's a woman's misfor- tune that she is never so far from convincing- as when she is telling how much she loves a man who hasn't faith in her. (Toying with him.) You seem to have lost faith in me. (But she knew there was no danger of such a calamity.)
Ralston (quickly). You talk as though you've had a lot of experience in love. Did you ever tell Morley that you — ?
Betty (rising). Jack! You talk as though you were jealous of a dead man.
Ralston (seising her by the shoulders). Of a dead man? (A pause.) Are you sure he's dead?
Betty. Oh, you're hurting me again.
Ralston. I ask you, are you sure he's dead?
Betty (as Ralston releases her). Do you want me to swear I saw him in his coffin?
Ralston (hesitating). No, I don't want you to perjure yourself. (A pause.) He's not dead.
Betty (taken by surprise). Not dead? How do you know?
Ralston (solemnly). He returned from Alaska the day we started up here.
Betty (startled). He did?
Ralston. I saw a notice of his arrival in the paper. Now you know why I brought you to the mountains.
Betty (amazed.) Are you really telling the truth?
Ralston. I'd not live in the same town with him. If I ever meet him, I'll— I'll—
Betty. Surely you wouldn't harm him, would you? (She affects a hearty laugh.)
Ralston (peeved). What are you laughing at?
Betty (still laughing). And so you took me off to the mountains on account of Fred Morley. (She giggles and Ralston grows indignant.)
Ralston (angrily). Well, what about it?
The Mole 363
Betty (calmly). I remember he used to live up here somewhere. (With a serio-comic air.) Jack, you wouldn't hurt him, would you?
Ralston. If ever we meet —
Betty. Don't you know I belong to no man but you. (Again a crash of thunder and she units in his arms.)
Ralston (embracing her). Yes, you belong to me, all — all — (He hesitates.) But, Betty. (He pauses.) But, Betty, that sonnet, I know what that implies, and I can never forget. You didn't answer my question a little while ago. You said poets didn't need local color; they only required imagination, but that sonnet was about a real mole. It wasn't an imaginary one. (He zvalks up and dozmi impatiently.) I wish you had never shown me that sonnet.
Betty (tcasingly). Or the mole?
(Just as the wind subsides, a knock is heard at the door in the back ivall.)
Betty (startled). Who's that? (Frightened, she goes toward the door in right wall and stands in the shadow of the doorway.)
Ralston. Don't be frightened, dear. (He goes toward door in left wall.) Somebody looking for shelter perhaps.
Betty (very much frightened. She seizes Ralston by the arm). Don't open the door, dear. Ask who's there.
Ralston (laughing). Nothing to be afraid of, dear.
(He opens the door and as Betty hurriedly recedes in opposite direction a stranger enters as though szvept in by the storm. He is a frail individual of short stature in a big overcoat covered ivith snozu. He stands just inside the doorzvay zvith his back to- zvard Mrs. Ralston, as though he intended to go right out again. He is apparently zvinded.)
Ralston. Good evening, sir.
Stranger (hesitating and looking up at Ralston
364 The Lantern
who towers over him). Beg pardon, sir; if it wouldn't abuse your hospitality I should like to have just a breath.
Ralston (holding the door against the storm which is raging again.) Come in, sir, come in. (He starts to close the door, hut the stranger is in the way.)
Stranger (timidly) . Just a minute, sir. I was — I was — afraid the storm might blow me down the grade — and just wanted to catch a breath. I'll — I'll be off in a moment.
Ralston (gently drawing him into the room with one hand white he closes the door with the other.) Not at all. Sit down a little while.
Stranger (feebly and apologetically). I think I've lost my way. But I used to know these parts well. I was on the road to the Summit House. Ralston. Ah, indeed? the Summit House? Stranger. Yes, that's a good neighborhood for sketching.
Ralston. Sketching?
Stranger (apologetically as though sketching might be a crime). That is, you see I'm an artist, sir.
Ralston. An artist? Stranger (timidly). Yes, sir, a painter. Ralston (smiling inwardly). Not a poet, eh? Looking for local color then, I suppose. (A pause.) Well, it's pretty well washed off, I fancy. But this is a funny time to go a-sketching, isn't it? Anyway for the present I'd stick to the fire if I were you. It's pretty wet outside.
Stranger. It was not even raining when I started up from the station. These storms are so sudden, but I know the country round here pretty well.
Ralston (helping to remove the stranger's over- coat). Well, it's a mile cHmb to the Summit House. You better stay right here tonight. (The wind is heard.)
The Mole 365
(The stranger rubs his hands as though cold. He is shivering.)
Ralston. You need something to warm you. Sit down by the fire there, and I'll make you a hot punch. Just a minute. (He looks for Betty. She has slipped out in the shadow of the door in the right wall.) Let me see. (He pauses.) Seems to me I left my wine cellar out in the garage. (He laughs.) A good fat bottle.
Stranger (going timidly to fire). Oh, please don't trouble yourself. This fire will warm me up.
Ralston (bustling towards door). Not a bit of trouble. (Speaking through door in right wall in a loud tone.) Oh, Betty, please tell the maid to boil some water. (Ralston puts on a rain coat and lights a lantern.) It's just a step over to the garage. (He turns on a pocket flashlight.) I'll be right back.
Stranger. But you'll get all wet. You mustn't get wet on my account.
Ralston. Never mind mc, young fellow. I can stand a little soaking. (He opens the door and the rain appears to be over.)
(Ralston goes out at back. Betty reappears and when the stranger sees her he stands transfixed.)
Stranger. Betty !
Betty. Fred !
Stranger (spellbound). Where did you come from?
Betty (hurriedly). You must leave here at once. (She looks around at door in alarm.)
Stranger (looking around too). Who is he? (She is too agitated to speak.) How beautiful you have grown! (He goes toward her.)
Betty (retreating). Psh!
Stranger. What are you doing up here? And with that man? Oh, Betty, what — (He goes toward her.)
Betty (retreating). Psh! I must leave you. (She moves tozvard the door in right apparently greatly agitated.)
Stranger. All these years, Betty, I have —
366 The Lantern
Betty (looking fearfully at door in back). Fred — my husband — he must not see you. (She speaks like a heroine in a melodrama.)
Stranger (stopping in amazement). Your husr band? (He is frightened.) Your husband? (Dole- fully.) Your husband, did you say?
Betty. Yes, I'm married, Fred.
Stranger (after a long pause). But you said you'd wait till I came back!
Betty. I did wait, Fred.
Stranger (smiling). Oh, I'm not sore, Betty. I was a little romantic in those days.
Betty (apologetically). I thought you were dead.
Stranger (reflecting sadly). Found a gold mine up there and lost it. Came home, got caught in a snow storm, almost frozen to death and find my old sweetheart — married. Just a run of hard luck. Well, I'm glad to see you. But, on the level, I thought you'd wait. Conceited chaps, eh, little fellows? You always said you liked 'em big. Did you forget all about me ?
Betty. I heard you were dead.
Stranger. So I was — broke. But did you think of me, of little Fred? By the way, how long did you wait?
Betty. Yes, I thought of you growing into a big, strong man. (Frightened.) But you must leave here, he's coming back.
Stranger (now perfectly calm). Well, then, any- way you'd have been disappointed. I'm still little Freddy.
Betty. You didn't grow very big, did you?
(Ralston returns.)
Ralston (entering suddenly and finding Betty and the stranger standing close together as though ex- changing confidences.) Well, you folks seem to be getting pretty well acquainted.
Betty (in confusion). We — we — are well ac- quainted.
Ralston (amazed). Oh!
The Mole 367
Stranger (embarrassed). Oh yes, I knew Mrs. — Mrs. —
Betty (to Stranger). This is my husband, Mr. Ralston.
Stranger (very affably). Glad to meet you, sir. Mrs. Ralston and I are old friends.
Ralston (to Betty). I'm afraid I didn't quite get the gentleman's name. You said —
(Betty is swallowing hard.)
Stranger. Morley, sir. I'm afraid Mrs. Ralston didn't—
Ralston (in a brusque tone). Oh — Mr. Morley.
Morley (smiling as though delighted to learn that his name was not unknown in the Ralston household). Yes, that's it, Fred — Fred Morley.
(Ralston puts the bottle he had been holding nervously on the table with a bang, and starts to- ward Morley but suddenly pauses and looks at Mor- ley in astonishment, finding him such a little man.)
Morley (moving backward and speaking in a soothing tone). That is to say we knew each other when we were mere children.
Ralston (roaring). Well, you're not very big, but you're the poet, eh? (Morley is visibly dum- founded.)
Betty (hastening to her husband's side and in a tone of warning). Jack!
Ralston (to Morley sarcastically). I thought you said you were a painter.
Morley (stammering). A — a — painter. Yes, sir.
Ralston (to his zuife). An artist, then. Ah, I see imagination does it all — poet, painter, all the same, h'h?
Betty (soothingly and at the same time reprov- ingly.) Oh, my dear —
Ralston (pushing his wife aside). So that's your poet. (He glares at Morley.)
Morley (shrinking visibly). Poet? (He looks inquiringly at Betty.) I never said poet.
Ralston (still thundering). All imagination, eh?
368 The Lantern
(Again he makes a threatening move and Betty inter- poses and caresses her husband soothingly.)
MoRLEY (to Betty in bewilderment). Did he say poet?
Ralston (towering above Morley in a rage and looking down on the man who had shrunk below Ral- ston* s waistline). You said you were an artist when you blew in here.
Morley. Yes, sir.
(Morley is almost speechless.)
Ralston (sneering). An artist, eh? and you have imagination like all artists and therefore you can be a poet one minute and a painter the next. So you're up here sketching poetry, I suppose.
Betty. Oh, Jack!
Morley. Well, I — I didn't say I was a first class artist.
Ralston. I say what did you lie for?
Morley (timidly). Lie?
Ralston (thundering). That's what I said.
Morley (shocked). I — I beg your pardon, sir.
Ralston. I said what did you lie for?
Morley. But I didn't lie, sir.
Ralston. You said you came up to sketch. Did you expect to find moles up here?
Betty (very nervous when moles are mentioned). Now, Jack, I must insist.
Ralston. Oh, you must insist!
Betty (to Morley). This is all a mistake and it's all my fault. (She sobs.)
Ralston (tenderly). Now, Betty, calm yourself.
Betty. Oh, dear, it's you that should calm your- self. When you know all, you'll be ashamed of yourself. (Sobbing.) And it's all my fault.
Ralston (in a kindly tone). Explain yourself, Betty. How is it your fault? (To Morley.) But, by the way, how did you happen to come up here?
oETTY. Oh, Jack, you're all wrong. Listen to me.
R.vlstox (caressing his wife and leading her to
The Mole 369
the sofa zvhere she sits doivn and sobs. He ad- dresses Morley.) Now let me ask you —
MoRLEY (still mystified, but eager to have the mystery cleared up). Ask me anything, sir.
Ralston. You knew Mrs. Ralston before she was married, didn't you?
Morley. Oh yes, sir.
Ralston. How well did you know her?
Morley (hesitating). Well, pretty well, sir.
Ralston. I believe you were my wife's beau when she was a girl. (Morley nods.) You kissed her? (Morley hesitates.) I say, you kissed her.
Morley (glancing at Betty). Well, perhaps. We were both very young. (Timidly.) I was only a boy.
Ralston. What was your art then? a poet's or a painter's?
Morley. I was a student, sir, at the art school.
Ralston. You wrote verses, didn't you?
Morley (raising his right hand). Never in my life, sir.
Ralston. Wha — at?
Morley. It's all I can do to write a plain letter in prose.
Ralston. You never wrote a sonnet on my wife's —
Betty (in confusion). Oh, Jack!
Ralston. On a — a mole? \
Morley. A mole?
Ralston. Yes, a mole?
Morley (in confusion). What kind of a mole?
Ralston. Well, I'll be damned.
Morley (reassured). I don't see why I should lie about a — a — do you mean one of those little things that —
Ralston. Yes, (sarcastically) it isn't very big.
Morley. — that burrow in the ground?
Ralston. Wha — at?
Morley. Those little black things?
(Betty giggles.)
370 The Lantern
Ralston. Betty, doesn't he —
Betty (shaking her head.) I say you're all wrong.
Ralston (to Morley). Wait a minute. Did you ever see a mole on a — a mole — (becoming very ex- plicit.) that is to say, a perfectly personal mole?
Betty. Now don't be foolish. It's all my fault, I told you. You're wrong. (She goes to Ralston and whispers in his ear. He opens his eyes in aston- ishment.)
Ralston (cooling down). Well, it certainly calls for an explanation, but perhaps I am making a damn fool of myself.
Morley (suddenly plucking up courage he ad- dresses Ralston). Well now, sir, I'd like to ask you a question. What is all this about the mole?
Ralston (laughing). That mole is a secret. (Soberly.) A secret between — between my wife and myself. Now, sir, you're fagged. Forgive me for keeping you up. You'll stop here tonight. Come, I'll show you your room.
Morley (hesitating, he pauses, a light shines on his intelligence). Well, perhaps, I'm too inquisitive. However — (He bids Mrs. Ralston good night and then Ralston escorts him to door on right and the tzvo men shake hands. Morley goes in, thanking his host.)
Ralston (to Betty). Now, Bet, I'd like to know who wrote that poem.
Betty (smiling). I did.
Ralston. You ?
Betty. Just to tease you.
Ralston. Then all I've got to say is "You're a pretty good poet ! But you certainly used local color." (Curtain.)
ALICE CLEAVER
By Horace B. Samuel
Alice Cleaver was a laundress, aged 20, convicted at the Old Bailey of the murder of her infant son whom she had thrown through a railway carriage window. She disputed the identity of the body found on the line with her own child, which she said she had given to a woman to take care of though it could not of course be produced. The dead child was clothed in a petticoat which was identified as that of her own baby. One of the features of the trial was the coolness and self-possession of the prisoner, even when cross-examined by the judge. Though such cases are automatically reprieved the existing state of the law gave the judge no option but to sentence her to death with all due solemnity.
Murder! yet neither ghoul nor gorgon dyed In all the richness of her victim's blood ;
But just indicted for infanticide
With smile serene a youthful mother stood.
With face austere, the huge and scarlet mass Of Justice, with its bland and shaven chin,
Looms on the dais, wary lest should pass From out its clutch the crimson shape of sin.
Into the cushioned box the jurors troop,
Each visage blank yet pregnant with its doom
Momentous of sweet freedom or the loop, Inscrutable with life or with the tomb.
Implacable and cold the hunters dart
Barbed facts of poison at the victim's frame,
While others help the quarry to a start. Playing with hireling zest the human game.
With nostrils wide for news the Fleet Street pack Hang avidly on each successive mood.
And as they hollow hot upon the track
They write and smear their yellow lines with blood.
And now the damsel who the cynics say Has killed the offspring of a vetoed troth,
Down to the box slow swings her slouching way And gently stakes her life upon her oath,
372 The Lantern
Her life upon the long and thin spun lie,
She weaves with that most meek and stolid purr;-
Watch the fine sangfroid of each neat reply, Her calm "my lord" and her respectful "sir."
And now the poignant drama that they played. The rabid Furies that her footsteps dog.
Has dwindled to the chatter of a maid And gentleman in placid dialogue;
Yet not to weather nor domestic hearth,
Is turned their speeches' murmured interchange,
But to the sudden passing from this earth
Of that poor mangled infant swift and strange;
No master scolds a young and careless drudge, For objects lost or for her work undone,
But clothing death in tones of silk — a judge Questions a girl who has destroyed — a son.
Be silent, feed the dying flame of hope.
For now her champion frames his final case.
Strives to unwind the evertightening rope, That closer draws its unreturned embrace.
Hear him with what pathetic words import
What true conviction ; hear him whisper, shout,
And strive to find amid that damning court Salvation in a little cloud of doubt,
A little cloud no bigger than the hand Of the dead baby, yet with fevered breath
Larger and larger is the cloudlet fanned To whelm that ruthless clarity of death;
To whelm the overwhelming, what avails
The counsel's passion or the woman's youth?
When Justice poises the insidious scales And deftly loads the golden dice with truth:
Alice Cleaver 373
Oh, will the truth outweigh the tiny speck Of doubt? or will they in that secret room,
With eyes half-fixed upon a writhing neck
With all their travail hatch that monstrous doom?
Will they? What boots it? let the woman parch Her soul with agony, in the selfsame place
Justice in its inexorable march
With tireless gait pursues another case.
Ah! watch those grave and solemn faces, learn The adamantine tomb that they have built,
As the twelve arbiters of fate return
Pronouncing slow the leaden word of guilt,
Of molten searing guilt, but yet the truth Silver with mercy! If they cannot bend,
With platitudes anent her helpless youth
The twelve good men and true can "recommend."
And now that saddest tragedy is o'er,
But see that drollest comedy begin, As th' usher calls for silence, oh encore!
Oh set your mouth into a broader grin !
The looming Virtue o'er the quivering Vice Its sadd'ning visage to a heartfelt prayer
Religiously composes ; in a trice
The usher swift adjusts the fatal square.
And now the Law's red majesty you scan Whose ethics unimpeachable are bent
To urge the maiden in Life's short'ning span, By mercy of her Maker "to repent."
"Repent although you live, and pious pray.
For though in fact you scape the gallow's goal.
You shall be hanged by your young neck, and may That other Lord have mercy on your soul !"
374 The Lantern
Oh, is it not to gain by gloze and cheat The busy ear of Providence, to — well,
God's blessing for a parting soul entreat That shortly parts for neither Heaven nor Hell.
But just for Aylesbury, chained in the dead years, To toil in solitude half slave, half nun,
A deadened thing with neither hopes nor fears, As the vast years slide slowly one by one!
Remorse? why yes, reproachful still may ring, Through that poor soul dulled under crawling Time,
The petticoat she left on the dead thing,
The tiny flaw that marred the perfect crime.
ADAH ISAACS MENKEN
(Concluded) By Edward F. O'Day
What was her mystery of fascination? How ex- plain her success? For she was fascinating, she did make a success. Men of mind praised her intellect. Connoisseurs of the flesh confessed her physical al- lure. She was a personage of the green room, a princess of the half-world. Beauty and unconvention- ality made her notorious ; notoriety brought her money; by spending extravagantly she increased her dubious renown — in that sphere this spells success. It matters nothing that the end of such a career is misery. For a Menken the career is all ; the end is not reckoned till too late.
In the rhapsodies her mentality is always cele- brated. Contemporary witnesses seemed bent on giving her to posterity as another Aspasia, a cour- tesan of superb intellect, of ravishing beauty, of consuming passion. The world has had a few, a very few such women. We happen to know that
Adah Isaacs Menken 3?5
Aspasia of Athens was not one of them. Neither was Adah. Like most women similarly exalted the Menken will not stand cold-blooded scrutiny. She fascinated famous writers, and she knew how to subdue their judgment. Ascertaining the ply of her vanity they clothed her beautiful nakedness with the mantle of Sappho, crowned her dark curls with the laurel wreath of Vittoria Colonna. They pretended that she doffed the maillot to put on blue stockings. This legend of her erudition and brilliance was ac- cepted even in Paris where she charmed Gautier, Hugo and Dumas. Larousse would impose this legend upon us, though he qualifies it a little. After warmly praising her learning, that respectable ency- clopedist goes on to say that "she had the vices which seem inherent in women who are declasse. One who knew her well recounts that after discoursing on the immortality of the soul and the divine essence of Jehovah, she would confess that she was mad about an Irish pugilist, and that she would interrupt the most abstract dissertations on Hebrew dogma or citations from the Greek rhetoricians to absorb large glasses of brandy with avidity." I think I can visualize those nodes ambrosianae. I suspect that she did not drink alone, that she dispensed more hospitality than hermeneutics, that there were more healths than Hebrew, more grog than Greek, and that "in the cold gray dawn of the morning after" her admirer's head was more cognizant of cognac than of culture.
Why was the Menken tricked out with these imaginary gifts of intellect? To flatter her, and to excuse the subjugation of her victims. Let our hedonists rave as they will, mere physical passion has never been respectable. It was not so in Athens five centuries before Christ; it was not so under the third Napoleon. Had Pericles been the husband of Aspasia instead of her "white-haired boy" he would never have been at pains to make her appear learned. Had the Menken been a respectable woman,
376 The Lantern
the great men of Paris would not have had to plead an intellectual impulse when they went to visit her. Now the great men of Paris were either journalists or the pets of journalism. So they propagated the legend of Adah's brilliant mind, much as frisky commuters allege a meeting of the lodge or attend- ance on a sick friend. It is very true that men of mind admire women of intellect; but it is not intel- lect which draws either men of mind or sapheads to a woman like Adah Menken. Lais of Corinth ex- posed that hypocrisy, as you may read in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, if you know where to find the passage.
One is not permitted to be quite frank about the physical charm of a Menken, for the puritan is abroad as well as the schoolmaster. What the Seigneur de Brantome emphasized when he made analysis of Cleopatra's charm was her lubricity. In the case of Adah shall we call it a palestric lascivious- ness ? Let it got at that. Casanova would have been more explicit had the Menken lived a century earlier. Singularly enough, the elder Dumas to whom Adah was the last of a succession of fair tyrants, has given us a terribly true account of the class of un- fortunates to which she may have belonged. He is writing of Alphonsine Plessis, the original of his son's Lady of the Camelias, but who knows? he may be describing the Menken as well:
The frequent recurrence of these love episodes, but always with a different partner, constitutes a disease which is as well known to specialists as the disease of drunkenness, and for which it is impos- sible to find a cure. Messalina, Catherine II, and thousands of women have suffered from it. When they happen to be born in such exalted stations as these two, they buy men; when they happen to be born in lowly station and are attractive, they sell themselves; when they are ugly and repulsive they sink to the lowest depths of degradation, or end in the padded cells of a madhouse, where no man dares come near them. Nine times out of ten the malady is hereditary.
Adah Isaacs Menken 377
There can be no doubt that Adah was very beau- tiful. She was "dark, moderately tall, graceful, and exquisitely fashioned, with great melancholy eyes." The fineness of her physique as revealed in Mazcppa brought praise which need not be discounted like the praise of her mental gifts, for men are com- petent to describe what they see. Her Mazeppa, says Joseph Knight, was "a stately physique rather than a performance." A writer in the Golden Era testifies that she was "as plump as a partridge." We have photographs of her. They reveal a daughter of Eve to whom our Mother Nature was extremely kind. They show a handsome head well poised on a beautiful body supported by limbs of symmetrical suavity. Here was a form in which a good woman might take an honest private pride, for which a vain woman would demand admiration by all the arts of coquettishness, on which a woman of un- disciplined passions would construct an irregular career. That a certain talent is indispensable in the shaping of such a career need not be proved; the half-world is full of Fanny Hills, Imperias are rare. Adah Menken had talent, but it was straitly cir- cumscribed. If I read her aright. Death was tender to her vanity. Her life ended when her beauty was devastated — with that devastation her career would have closed anyway, and existence would have been an insupportable burden. At least she was saved from suicide, frailty's favorite release. Death was more than tender, Death was kind.
Am J harsh? I hope not. It is only that I would not sentimentalize the Menken's career, as so many others have done. Says Pauline Jacobsen, a psychol- ogist with a profound knowledge of her sex: "She had not the knowledge how to insulate herself against the constant cross-current of men seeking to devour her mere physical loveliness." Certainly she had not the knowledge. Perhaps not even the in- clination We must remember that there
were five marriages. This steady succession of hus-
378 The Lantern
bands — all five came and went within thirteen years — ^might have insulated her against the cross-current had she desired insulation. But the desires of this ''live wire" were lawless. "As you make your bed, you must lie in it." Adah was not content with the connubial couch. We may be sure there was no rebuke for Swinburne when he wrote in her album :
DOLORIDA
Combien de temps, dis, la belle, Dis, veux-tu m'etre fidele? — Pour une nuit, pour un jour, Mon amour.
L'amour nous flatte et nous louche, Du doigt, de I'oeil, de la bouche, Pour un jour, pour une nuit, Et s'enfuit.
These equivocal lines were carefully preserved. Even had they been indignantly destroyed, there remains the testimony of Dolores. Messalina was not more infamously immortalized by Juvenal than the Men- ken by Swinburne in this oestrual rhapsody. It is a poem cruel as lust, and there are only two lines of pity in it:
Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores, When desire took thee first by the throat?
She is dust a long time, but readers of Dolores still conjure her body from the tomb and, vampire-like, devour her loveliness anew.
It has been conjectured, rather ingeniously, that Swinburne had Adah in mind when he wrote cer- tain lines of Ilicet. It is quite likely indeed that he had her in mind a great deal. Was he not photographed with her, like the doddering Dumas? However, there are these lines in Ilicet:
No soul shall tell nor lip shall number The names and tribes of you that slumber,
No memory, no memorial. 'Thou knowest' — who shall say thou knowest? There is none highest and none lowest,
An end, an end, an end of all.
Adah Isaacs Menken 379
That phrase Thou knozvest seems to have had a strong appeal for Adah Menken. She had it from the Old Testament, of course; it is found there many times. It is on her tombstone, carved, we are told, at her own request. I fancy it was of Ezekiel, xxxvii 3 that she thought when the words came to her mind. For the context of the words in Ezekiel would be apt to haunt a woman like the Menken.
As a girl she may have read the Old Testament a good deal. Her poems are Biblically allusive, they have a faint echo of the Psalms of David. What is to be said of these poems of hers? Their phraseology is reminiscent of Ossian (or Macpher- son rather) who was still read when she was a girl; it is stilted, high-falutin'. The form of most of them was derived from Ossian and from Walt Whit- man whom — to her credit be it said — Adah Menken recognized as a genius while most people still turned from Leaves of Grass in derision or disgust. It may be said, indeed, that Adah was a forerunner of the faddists who write vers libre: rhyme like all other restraints of conventionality, irked her restive disposition. Some of her more appealing poems show the influence of that school of pity founded by Tom Hood when he wrote The Song of the Shirt. Too many of them are of a Della-Cruscan sentimentality. Her poetry is rarely amorous. Nev- ertheless there is in her Judith a strange sadic rap- ture entirely foreign to her Biblical heroine, foreign to good poetry too. Once in a while she utters herself thus:
Oh, unspeakable, passionate fire of love! I feel thy lava tide dashing recklessly through every blue course!
This seems genuine enough, but it is an unusual outburst. Unlike Swinburne she lived, she did not dream the experiences of sexuality. Her poetry is mostly vague, impersonal ; there seems to be little of her life in it. She leaves us cold, she scarcely
380 The Lantern
stirs emotion, even pity moves lang-uidly toward her. At times in these poems she would have us believe that she struggled to break the grip of sin. Per- haps she did, but her powers of resistance must have been small. What is my heritage? she asks. "It is to live within the marts of pleasure and of gain, yet be no willing worshiper at either shrine." This seems to me a confession of her pitiable weak- ness, for she was the slave, not of her career which might have been honorable enough had she so elected, but of her passions. Her gifts, I think, have been overrated, yet they were sufficient to assure her a success of conventionality. She pre- ferred a success of scandal.
Certainly there are in her poems some good things — an occasional line, a chance image, a casual insight. Now and then a flash came, and she knew herself and was bitter. "O crownless soul of Ishmael," she cries. She was an Ishmaelite, an out- cast on the desert of the night life. "Go back to thy night of loving in vain," she says, scorning her- self. Loving-in-vain — that was her slavery. Ever and anon she speaks of her child. Was there a child, or is this, like much else, sentimental make- believe? "Decked in jewels and lace, I laugh be- neath the gas-light's glare, and quaflf the purple wine," she writes, asking our pity. This is her public gesture, her pose; for she cannot refrain from adding, "The poorest worm would be a jewel- headed snake if she could." She feared death — naturally, since her childhood's Jewish training had been orthodox. "Why can I not move my lips to pray?" she cries, and answers "Too late, too late!" And the poem in which she writes, "I try to bloom up into the light" has the title "In Vain." There is something terrible about these cries, if one can take them quite seriously. One could take them so had they been uttered at the close of her career. But they were scattered through many years, in- cluding the thirteen years of five conjugal episodes.
Cathedral Spires 381
When a woman has wived with a Heenan and four more, one need not be profoundly moved by her sorrows.
The fact is, her poetry is wild stuff, like herself. Thrown upon life too early Adah Menken was too soon initiated into the mysteries of passion. She did not merely lose her innocence — she was cor- rupted, a different thing. Her notorious life lent significance to her poetry. Now it has lost its borrowed importance. All the world loves a lover — and pities a poet. But this does not avail Adah Isaacs Menken, for her love was lust and her poetry is piffle.
CATHEDRAL SPIRES
(Yosemite Valley) By Andrew Dewing
Beyond the darkness of an elder Night, They rose in dream, and yearn immutably To vaster solitudes, august and free,
And portend visions of a cosmic Might;
The morning star from this inviolate height Chants o'er the dust of kings a litany — A song of suns memorial of the sea,
And spectral altars crowned by endless Light.
O strange, ascendant altars of the soul! O mighty epic of the mind of God!
Truth that endures when sacred silence runs Thru fabrics of vain Hope and priestly stole. And dreams immingled with Oblivion's clod,
Where sundered cauldrons drop the dust of suns.
THE LANTERN GOES OUT
By Theodore F. Bonnet
It is bad manners, I believe, to blame anything that goes wrong in one's own case on the public. But this is not the reason for which I refrain from accounting for the closing of the brief career of The Lantern. The indifference of the public .is always more or less excusable. It was so even in the case of certain great poets over whose fate we have been often asked to weep — usually by half-starved poets struggling bravely on. It is especially so in the case of this little paper whose editors never having aimed so high as the public interest must pay the penalty of their unpardonable sin. In the pub- lication business it is fatal to give the public chiefly what the public does not want. Why should it be otherwise? Fancy an editor, or what is worse, a team of editors, trying to make it go by not be- coming publicists! Necessarily the public responds with its indifference.
Now the purpose of the editors of The Lantern was to interest the few and please themselves. Noth- ing in the nature of cynicism inspired them. As journalists they sought periodical relaxation from the drudgery of journalism. And what is more in- vigorating for a man tied to the heavy wheels of journalism than to lounge in his study and divert himself with the delightful things of life. He may there cultivate at his ease the temperament of a Saint-Beuve while indulging the tonic thought that he has thrown off the harness and become independ- ent of public opinion.
Started by myself as a propagandist tract, I joined with Mr. O'Day in writing a series of trifling essays of no importance. We simply picked at our pleasure from the basket of the world's topics, whether in history or literature, avoiding only current events and discussions of vital matters.
Personally, to me it was a great joy to fill space
The Lantern Goes Out 283
without interpreting oracles or trying- to make the public more deeply concern itself with the things that preoccupy the tired business man. My views were always my own, and they didn't matter. I never had to express an, opinion to reach the man in the street. It was enough merely to glance backward over the centuries, easy enough to define individual forces and their general tendencies as they have been re- vealed in the light of later days, and a pleasure the while to strike out an occasional phrase in the midst of a contemplative calm.
Oh, this was a bracing exercise devoting oneself to a search for Good, looking at things in them- selves as successively they strike the mind with no thought of the interested partisanship of the present. It is a fine relaxation when one feels under no neces- sity of keeping his self-criticism indefatigably awake or concerning himself with the power of argumenta- tive prose. This is really the way of sympathy. Think of it in the three years of The Lantern's career the editors never once fell into a discussion of the war. We never became ill-tempered by dwell- ing on what is wholly ugly.
It was a fine, refreshing adventure. And now it is at an end for the present! We have not lived on bread alone, but in war that raises prices it is things of the mind that suflFer far from the field of strife, and this is not to be lamented.
NEARER
By Robert Nichols
Nearer and ever nearer . . . My body ever tense Hovers 'twixt vague pleasure And tremulous confidence.
Arms to have and to use them, And a soul to be made Worthy if not worthy; If afraid, unafraid!
To endure for a little, To endure and have done: Men I love about me, Over me the sun!
And should at last suddenly Fly the speeding death: The four great quarters of heaven Receive this little breath.
AU REVOIR
By Edward F. O'Day
Au revoir, but not Goodbye. At least, the editors hope so. Mr. Bonnet and I are not quite prepared to admit that The Lantern will not be revived. After this war is over — God grant it may be over soon! — and the world has been made safe for democracy and civilization — the only terms on which this war ever can end — then we hope that The Lantern will be lit again. We flatter ourselves that the people who subscribe for The Lantern have, in the course of three years, come to regard it as a welcome monthly visitor. We like to tell ourselves that a little later, when publishing conditions have improved, all or
Au Revoir 385
most of these subscribers will receive The Lantern with a renewal of the old cordiality.
It may sound strange, yet it is true that Mr. Mc- Adoo had a hand in dimming- The Lantern's flame. Let me explain. The Lantern cannot depend on subscribers alone. The receipts from its four hundred regular subscribers and its news stand clientele are not sufficient to pay the cost of publication. Some advertising is necessary. And advertising is so hard to get! Before all of us began to feel the pinch of war, The Lantern had enough advertising to keep it going. But conditions have changed. And that is where the Secretary of the Treasury comes in. When the Government took over the railroads, the railroads ceased to advertise. Great papers, prosperous maga- zines are not much hurt by the loss of this advertis- ing contract or that one. When Mr. McAdoo became Director-General of our entire railroad system, the advertising managers of big publications probably made a wry face at the loss of the railroads' adver- tisements, and turned to other "prospects." But the loss of the advertisement which Mr. E. O. McCor- mick ordered inserted in The Lantern on behalf of the Southern Pacific — he did this unsolicited because he liked our little paper — was a small tragedy. And so with other advertisements. Retrenchment is the order of the day. One by one the advertisers can- celled their advertisements in The Lantern. We found it impossible to replace them. We are not complaining. We realize that many other papers have had the same experience. But The Lantern is not strong enough to survive it. To all our adver- tisers— to those that have seen their way clear to remain with us, and just as cheerfully to those that did not — we extend our hearty thanks. They helped us to keep The Lantern going for three years, and they have been three happy years for the editors.
Have they been happy years for our subscribers? We venture to think so. We have received so many compliments that we have every reason to think so.
386 The Lantern
We have made no money out of The Lantern, we retire from the field with a deficit — but we have been enriched by the appreciation of our readers. To all of them we give our sincere thanks. It goes without saying that those who have paid in advance will have their money refunded.
If one had the pen of Thackeray, if one had even a worn-out nib from that glorious pen, one might at this time attempt an essay "De Finibus." In the circumstances it must suffice to say that the editors will miss The Lantern. In three years it has be- come very dear to them. The experience of carry- ing it on has been a fruitful one. The ordeal of suspending publication is part of that experience, a very sad part. Happily, there is no bitterness mixed with it. We have done our part as best we could; our subscribers and advertisers have done their part. We leave our little public on cheerful terms. It would be difiFerent if we thought that the last word was Goodbye, instead of
AU REVOIR
I
0
OREGON
RULE
CO.
1
U.S.A.
2
3
5
OREGON RULE CO.
1 U.S.
7
8
9
10
11
8
10